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New Rules Should Be Great For Kansas

the NCAA is putting more of an emphasis on offense this year, allowing less handchecking, bumping cutters, and making it tougher for defenses to draw charges. This should be great for Kansas.

By fetch13
Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

College basketball will have some new rules this year, designed to improve scoring in college basketball. You can read this ESPN link for the full rundown, but in easy bulletpoint form, the new rules are:

  • no keeping a hand or forearm on an opponent
  • no putting two hands on an opponent
  • no continuously jabbing an opponent by placing a hand or forearm on the opponent
  • no armbar to impede progress of a dribbler
  • it is now a block unless the defender is in a set position when the offensive player begins to lift off the floor.
  • This isn't specifically addressed in the article, but there will be less bumping of cutters allowed as well
Ironically, the coach most in support of these changes is one of the coaches it will hurt the most, Rick Pitino. And one of the coaches it will help the most doesn't seem to be in favor of it. Fortunately for us though, that coach is Bill Self.

For college basketball as a whole, there probably will be an adjustment period where games feature both teams in the bonus about 6 minutes into each half, and multiple guys are going to foul out. It's going to be pretty boring right away, but I think most teams will be able to adjust by February/March and as a result we could have a pretty open NCAA tournament. But the teams it will most hamper are the teams, like Louisville, who put on a lot of pressure and do a lot of grabbing and hand checking and bumping. Every team hand checks obviously, but some make it their whole defensive philosophy. The grade schooler in me also wonders if this will impact Duke or if refs will still let them get away with flopping around like dying fish.

Anyways, this is about Kansas, so here is why these rules will be great for the 2013-14 Jayhawks:

Depth

As outlined in our ranking of all of the Jayhawks, there are 10 guys on the team who could comfortably play and not look out of place in a major division 1 college basketball game. There are three guys who could back up Naadir Tharpe if he gets in foul trouble, the big man rotation could get to six deep, and they can do any number of things with the wings (i.e. playing Wiggins at the two and going with a really big lineup, or playing him at the four and going really small). Sure this means Andrew Wiggins is pretty indispensable but that's not really breaking any news.

Kansas should be free to play tough defense and not worry about committing a few fouls. They can play up on guys and not let them get free looks but, as we'll discuss later, their defense isn't really about bumping guys up top (except for big man hedging, which they can do a lot of considering their depth). Kansas should (should) have quite a few guys who can defend well without fouling this year, but in case they need to bring guys off the bench, the drop off should be minimal.

Wing penetration

Kansas obviously is going to have some great outside shooters. Conner Frankamp and Brannen Greene each have great reputations in that respect, and Andrew White III, while he struggled from deep last year, has really sound mechanics and also came into Lawrence as a guy who people thought would be able to fill it up from beyond the arc. In addition, Wayne Selden can shoot it and Andrew Wiggins has reportedly been working very hard on his shot.

But the real strength of this offense should be in penetration. Andrew Wiggins is one of the more explosive athletes we will ever see as Kansas fans, and he can get into the lane seemingly at will. Wayne Selden likewise can get to the rim, and Naadir Tharpe did a really good job at times last year of penetrating. Perry Ellis was very good at drawing fouls as well, and now that he is an established player with some more bulk on him he should draw even more in 2013-14. Kansas led the Big 12 in going to the line last year and that was with a group that didn't really feature much penetration. This year they should not only lead the Big 12 but be up there nationally as well.

No drawing charges on defense

Kansas had the best shot block percentage at the rim last year and was 4th in opponent field goal percentage at the rim,  both according to Hoop Math. Granted that is with Jeff Withey, but Kansas has always relied on shot blocking and challenging shots at the rim rather than drawing charges. This one is less important, but if referees are that serious about giving the offense the benefit of the doubt on those block/charge calls, that's a few fewer fouls Kansas will commit and on the flipside it's a few more calls they should draw on the offensive end.

These rules changes, if stuck to, should give Kansas a leg up this year. While Bill Self generally likes to stick to an 8 man rotation, if guys are constantly in foul trouble over the first couple weeks of the season, it could see him expanding his bench a bit and giving guys who might have been redshirt candidates some extra playing time.

But while it should be good from a winning games standpoint, it should also be good from an aesthetics standpoint. I don't know about you, dear reader, but any rule change that allows us to witness something like this is a good one.

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