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By CUYLER MEADE
Cronkite News
TEMPE – The 2014-15 season of NCAA men’s basketball was slow.
Teams held the ball longer than almost ever before, and scored at a pace that nearly reached historic lows.
Perhaps in response to this, the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel approved a shorter shot clock earlier this month – down to 30 seconds from 35 – alongside a number of other rules changes.
Slow seemed to equal success, as highly ranked squads like Kentucky, Virginia, Gonzaga and Wisconsin could all be found below the mean in 2014-15. The 351 Division I teams averaged 66.2 possessions per 40 minutes, second fewest of any season since 2001-02, the earliest that data is available.
Scoring dropped to 67.6 points per game, the second lowest of any season since 1952. In the case of both possessions per game and points per game, the only season that beat 2014-2015 was 2012-2013, and it wasn’t by much. All this is despite field goal percentages mostly holding between 43 and 45 percent for 25 years.
The trend is clear. College basketball has gotten slower than ever.
However, new Arizona State coach Bobby Hurley’s team at Buffalo last season bucked that trend en route to the school’s first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance. Hurley’s Bulls were among the 25 fastest teams in the NCAA, averaging 70.7 possessions per 40 minutes, according to website Basketball State, and 74.6 points per game.
Hurley plans to carry his up-tempo strategy on to Arizona State.
“It’s right up my ally with the shot clock,” Hurley said. “It’s not something that should impact how we play moving forward. I think it’s a good change for the game.”
Hurley has said previously that he didn’t believe his team last season incurred a single shot clock violation.
“The shot clock had very little effect on us last year, and I wouldn’t assume it’d be much different this year,” Hurley said.
Arizona State was much closer to average last year in terms of pace of play. Averaging 67.6 possessions per game under previous coach Herb Sendek, the Sun Devils ranked 111th overall. However, despite inheriting a roster mostly made up of returning players, Hurley is confident he can get the Devils running.
“We’ll strike a balance with our guys,” Hurley said. “Who’s in the game and how we play could vary depending on the lineup we have in, but there are certainly guys like Savon Goodman and Obinna Oleka, who we’re bringing in, that are front-court guys who can certainly run and are athletic. Then Eric (Jacobsen) is a guy who can anchor the front line for us and get us some baskets down the stretch.
“I think our guards will play the way we did in Buffalo with attacking the paint and creating offense,” Hurley said.
The decrease from 35 seconds to 30 on the shot clock was the first since the season after Hurley’s last as a college basketball player, when the NCAA dropped from 45 seconds to 35 for the 1993-1994 season.
Some observers have questioned why the NCAA didn’t decrease the shot clock all the way down to the NBA standard of 24 seconds.
“I think we’re right where we need to be right now,” Hurley said. “I like the idea of transitioning down, and maybe down the line revisit that. For this level of player, there are very few teams that would operate well under those conditions with that clock. There’s a reason why the pros are who they are. Who knows, down the line it could evolve to it, but right now I think it’s a good first step.”
Beyond shortening the shot clock, the Playing Rules Oversight Panel’s other major gameplay change was to expand the restricted-area arc under the basket from 3 feet to 4 feet. The official release on NCAA.org said, “moving the arc a foot farther from the basket is part of a continued focus on reducing the number of collisions at the basket.”
“It’s just further de-emphasizing the charge,” Hurley said, “which I’m not always in favor of.”
Hurley, who won two national championships while playing point guard for Mike Krzyzewski’s Duke Blue Devils from 1989-93, has reason for his distaste for any rule that makes it harder to take a charge. Krzyzewski’s Blue Devils have been known for years for their efforts to draw charges, slowing down many an opponent in the process.
“When I played it was something that we stressed as a program, and I think it has a real place in the game,” Hurley said. “I think it’s just a hard call for officials to make, so they’re always finding a way to make it easier on those guys. I think potentially it could open up the lane more and make you think twice about giving your body up in that way.”
