Syracuse Basketball: Block/charge among many rule changes in 2023-24

The NCAA has approved a variety of rule changes for the upcoming 2023-24 season, and these new rules will affect Syracuse basketball and its peers around the country in one way or another.

According to a recent press release on the NCAA’s Web site, one change pertains to the legal guarding position on block/charge calls where defenders are near the basket.

"Under the new rule approved by the NCAA’s Playing Rules Oversight Panel, “a defender will have to be in position to draw a charge at the time an offensive player plants a foot to go airborne to attempt a field goal. If the defender arrives after the offensive player plants a foot to launch toward the basket, officials will be instructed to call a block when contact occurs between the two players,” according to the media statement on ncaa.org."

In the past, defenders had to be in a position to draw a charge before the offensive player went airborne. I love this rule change, by the way. I readily acknowledge that the block/charge call is among the most challenging for officials to make.

Candidly, though, I feel like too many charges are called during situations where defenders get into legal guarding positions right as an offensive player goes airborne, or even slightly thereafter, and it would irritate me.

Hopefully, this rule change will result in less “controversy” over some block-charge calls by officials – for us Syracuse basketball fanatics, that leads me to think of C.J. Fair versus Duke in 2014 and Brandon Triche against Michigan in the 2013 Final Four.

Syracuse basketball players and coaches will have some new rules to contend with this coming season.

In the recent press statement, the NCAA’s Men’s Basketball Rules Committee also approved other rule changes for the upcoming 2023-24 campaign. Some of them include:

•College basketball players can wear a jersey number from 0 to 99. Yay!

•Preloaded/live video may be transmitted to the bench areas.

•When the ball hits the rim and the team on offense maintains possession in the front court, the shot clock will reset to 20 seconds. Love it.

•Non-student personnel who are on a team’s bench can “serve as peacekeepers when an altercation occurs.”

•Officials can review goal-tending and basketball-interference calls during the next media timeout to make sure those calls were accurate, but only if the official calls it on the floor.

•Under two minutes, when a coach requests that officials review an out-of-bounds play, “that team will be charged a timeout if the original call is not overturned.” One-hundred percent agree with this.

•If a player has possession of the ball and is airborne, he is able to call a timeout and have that timeout be granted.

•”If a player is called for a foul and instant replay officials see that the foul is a direct result of a flagrant 1 or flagrant 2 foul against the player who was originally assessed a foul, officials will be allowed to remove the foul on the player who was flagrantly fouled.”

•If a player commits three flagrant 1 fouls in a game, that player will be disqualified. How is that not the case now?

•Teams won’t have to submit waivers for players to wear religious headwear any longer, assuming the headwear is safe for competition.

•Red and amber lights will be allowed on the backboard. Amber is sort of like Orange, right? 🙂