KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The NCAA is tweaking how block/charge calls are made in men’s basketball.
The NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel approved rule changes this past summer that require a defender to be in position to draw a charge at the time the offensive player plants a foot to go airborne for a shot. If the defender arrives after the player has planted a foot, officials have been instructed to call a block when there’s contact.
Defenders had to be in position to draw a charge before the offensive player went airborne under previous rules.
NCAA Men’s Basketball Rules Committee members made the proposal after NCAA members complained that too many charges were being called on those types of plays.
Big 12 coordinator of officials Curtis Shaw met with the media to discuss the new block/charge rule that will be implemented during the 2023-24 season. Shaw went into detail about how the rule will change the game of basketball.
“It’s going to be drastically different. What I’ve told our coaches is, and what I want the media to understand, we watched 100 plays from last year that were called charges. 96 are now blocks under the new rule,” Shaw said. “It’s almost impossible to take a legal charge anymore. Not impossible but almost.”
Shaw went on to show the media examples of what would be called blocks this upcoming season.
In May, the NCAA released a modification of the rule:
“Under the recommendation, a defender would have to be in position to draw a charge at the time an offensive player plants his 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 would be instructed to call a block when contact occurs between the two players.
A secondary defender still would have to be outside the restricted-area arc to legally draw a charge.
Currently, defenders must be in position to draw a charge before the offensive player goes airborne.”
"It is almost impossible to take a legal charge anymore," Big 12 coordinator of officials Curtis Shaw said Wednesday in the T-Mobile Center. "Not impossible, but almost."
For as long as anyone can remember, block-charge calls have been the most heated arguments over officiating. Turns out, fans were right in thinking referees were calling too many. In fact, there probably shouldn't have been any called at all.
"The rules committee basically said, 'We don't like the rule,'" Shaw said in his presentation during Big 12 basketball media days. "'We don't believe the charge on the secondary defender should be allowed. We think that's bad defense.'"
Shaw called this change the most significant of his 30-plus years working as a basketball official. In essence, Shaw said, the rules committee decided the call has been wrong for a long time and now was the time to change it.
A smattering of videos were played for the assembled media to show how different the rule will be this year.
Officials are now geared toward allowing physical play as long as it is within reason. Exaggerated reactions — or flops — will not be rewarded.
"I will tell you in the Big 12," Shaw said, "the only flop calls you're gonna see is when a jump-shooter shoots and clearly nobody around him and he goes flying to the floor. That's a flop. That's a technical foul. But when you have contact in the post, contact on these drives, it's contact. It's not a flop. It's not faking anything. Rule it a block or a charge."
Shaw, who is the coordinator of officials for the Big 12, Conference USA, Ohio Valley and Southland conferences, has officiated in seven Final Fours and 19 seasons.