One of the biggest rule changes to hit college basketball happened last June. And it might change the way you watch this year’s March Madness.
This season is on pace to be the most efficient offensive season in men’s Division I history, mostly because of how the block/charge foul is being officiated. Last summer, the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Committee altered the interpretation of what a charge is. A help-side defender used to be required to be set before an offensive player went airborne; now, he must be set by the time the offensive player’s plant foot hits the floor.
That’s the technical definition. In practical terms? “Kids aren’t just jumping in front of each other,” Auburn coach Bruce Pearl says. “It has increased the offenses.”
This was the plan. In October, Big 12 director of officials Curtis Shaw said that he’d reviewed 100 called charges from the previous season — and that 96 of those would now be called blocks. “It’s almost impossible to take a legal charge anymore,” Shaw said then.
That prediction has held. Charges are not a statistic that is tracked in college basketball, but the analytics website KenPom.com tracks non-steal turnovers. This includes stepping or throwing the ball out of bounds, traveling, illegal screens or a charge. Last season the average percentage of possessions that ended in a non-steal turnover was 8.9 percent. This season, that’s down to 7.8 percent, the lowest rate it has been in the 25 years that the website has tracked play-by-play data. Turnovers are also at a record low.
That has led to scoring going up. College basketball teams are scoring 106.4 points per 100 possessions, compared to 104.8 last season.
“This year will be the highest (scoring) since I’ve been tracking and really the highest ever, because we know that shooting was pretty terrible back in the ’70s and ’80s and before that,” says Ken Pomeroy, the creator of KenPom.com. “And I think there’s a direct line from the charge rule to that.”
And that means when the men’s NCAA Tournament tips off this week, the game will be as entertaining and watchable as ever.
“Most coaches are really thrilled with the rule from the standpoint of the game is a lot freer, a lot more open,” Baylor coach Scott Drew says. “Fewer collisions, less risk of guys getting injured when when you used to have games where there were five-to-10 charges being attempted; that’s a lot of collisions. It’s a lot more like the NBA game, which I know people enjoy.”
There was a #bancharges movement on social media in recent years, with fans tired of seeing highlight dunks waived off because a defender ran in at the last second, took a knee to the chest and fell down.
Under the old rule, a defender could arrive when the offensive player’s final toe was still on the floor and get the call. The new rule has eliminated kamikaze defenders running in at the last second before an offensive player takes off, which led to dangerous collisions and made it difficult to complete a drive to the basket. “I used to call them non-basketball plays,” Shaw says. “You just got somebody jumping in front of you, because your primary defender got beat. So we were rewarding bad defense by allowing some secondary guy just to jump in front of somebody.”
The NCAA’s initial attempt to curb these types of charge attempts was introducing a semicircle, placed 3 feet from the center of the basket. A secondary defender’s feet had to be outside of that arc to get called for a charge; on the line or inside of it was an automatic block. The charge arc went on the floor during the 2012-13 season, and it decreased the non-steal turnovers from 10.5 percent the previous season to 10 percent. But scoring efficiency went down three points per 100 possessions before trending back up the next season, when the rules committee emphasized calling hand-checking fouls.
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The semicircle inadvertently made it more difficult for officials to judge the play. Before, they were focused on whether the defender was set when the offensive player took off. With the arc on the floor, they had to see where that defender’s feet were as well. The purpose was to decrease the number of charge attempts and discourage running under a player as he took off in the air, but …
“The reality is it’s really hard for any human to get them right in real time,” Florida coach Todd Golden says.
Shaw believes the issue was that the charge arc was not far out enough. The NBA’s semicircle is 4 feet from the center of the basket. The new rule, however, has served its purpose, because the game is being played and taught differently.
Every college coach interviewed for this story said that he no longer has his team even practice help-side charges anymore. Coaches are teaching verticality, telling their players when an offensive player is driving toward the rim to jump and try to contest the shot with hands straight up to the ceiling.
Not everyone is thrilled about it. The new charge interpretation has neutralized a defense that had taken great advantage of the rule — and that led to great success for some teams.
An official signals for a charge in a 2023 game between Indiana and Michigan. (Scott W. Grau / AP)
In 2019, Texas Tech made it to the national championship game playing the no-middle defense. The purpose of the defense is to keep the ball on the sides of the floor and try to force the ballhandler into help toward the baseline. The traditional way to teach man-to-man defense was to square up and keep your chest in front of the ball, but defenders playing the no-middle scheme were opening their hips and almost inviting the ballhandler to drive past them.
That next offseason Baylor’s coaches studied the defense, learning from former Baylor assistant Grant McCasland, who had adopted the the no-middle (also called the side defense) at North Texas. Two years later, Baylor won the national championship and ranked higher in non-steals turnover percentage than any high-major team in the country.
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The no-middle became one of the most copied defenses in the country, particularly in the Big 12.
“It got to the point where every time we did our scouting report, we talked about drive downhill to pass and beware of a strong-side defender jumping underneath you,” Kansas coach Bill Self says. “I actually felt like that so many players were taught to just run in front of the ball carrier and take a fall, and rightfully so, because that was the rule.”
Iowa State coach T.J. Otzelberger was one of its most successful adopters, and last season his team ranked highest among high-majors in non-steals turnover percentage. The Cyclones, who track their charge numbers, took 75 charges. Going into Saturday, they had taken 29 this season.
“A big part of no-middle was five-on-three and two guys waiting to take a charge,” Drew says.
The no-middle is not entirely dead, but it can’t be played the same way. Drew and McCasland have abandoned most of its tactics, especially in the inner third of the floor. “You don’t want the ball there if they don’t let you punish people for leaving their feet and passing the ball or shooting longer layups,” McCasland says.
Otzelberger still has his defenders push the offense baseline toward help when the ball is below the foul line, but his teaching points above the foul line have changed.
“In the past, we really tried to open our stance on the ball to have teams drive it down the slot,” Otzelberger says. “And now we don’t want that play as much because that secondary defender’s going to get called for a block.”
Shooting percentages have barely ticked up — teams are making 50.3 percent of their 2s, compared to 50.1 percent last season — but more drives to the basket are definitely occurring. According to Synergy’s logging, the percentage of finishing opportunities at the rim in the halfcourt (excluding post-ups) has risen from 33.7 percent last season to 34.8 percent this year, mostly at the expense of floaters.
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“You can play off one foot,” South Carolina coach Lamont Paris says. “I talk a little bit less about playing off two feet; you had to play off two feet so you didn’t charge, right? You can’t charge over the guy that comes to help (now). He’s almost never going to be there in time to actually take a charge if you’re going off one foot.”
“We’ve talked about just running a guy over if he’s trying to take a charge and put it in the officials’ hands,” Nebraska coach Fred Hoiberg says.
This is the one possible negative impact of the rule, but Hoiberg’s tactic doesn’t work if a defender jumps in the air and contests. And the numbers indicate this is happening. Block rate, which is the percentage of 2-point attempts that result in a block, is up from 8.8 to 9.3 percent.
New charge rule's effect on CBB
“If every 50/50 call is 100 percent a block, it’s just become the NBA,” Williams says. “Let’s score a bunch of points. Let’s make it pretty, et cetera. But I think we have to figure out, are we going to keep playing defensively the same way because so much of what we’re doing … I don’t know if you can keep playing that way.”
Shaw laughed when he heard Williams’ critique.
“Buzz is old-school,” he says. “That’s what he taught. He taught, ‘Primary defender, get as close and get in the way and do everything you can to the guy, and if he beats you, somebody else just jumps in front of him.’ Well, that’s rewarding bad defense because the primary guy got beat. So why should the secondary guy be able to just jump in front him at the last second? Again, when you’ve already committed your move, you can’t change what you’re doing.”
Another reason to dissuade officials from calling charges is that it can be an emotional call. Fans have always argued that officials have liked the motion of it, almost giving a little half-skip and a jump before pointing the other direction.
“I think the charge is one of the most deflating plays, emotionally impactful plays defensively, because not only is it a change of possession, it puts a foul on somebody,” Illinois coach Brad Underwood says. “It usually stirs emotion in not only coaches, but players when you take it. I think that is gone.”
Tactically, coaches have had to adapt. And players have to adapt too, unlearning what they’ve been taught for years.
“It will take us a minute to get guys to vertically go up and jump and not stay planted,” Underwood says. “We’ve got a generation of kids that what they know is to take a charge and don’t leave the ground.”
The game is always evolving, and you’ll always have people on both sides of the argument. But this change has been almost universally applauded.
“It’s been a great rule,” Shaw says. “We almost have none of those plays anymore. We started out calling all blocks in November, and it really eliminated (them). It was a hard play to referee under the old rules. It’s easy now.”
This season is on pace to be the most efficient offensive season in men’s Division I history, mostly because of how the block/charge foul is being officiated. Last summer, the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Committee altered the interpretation of what a charge is. A help-side defender used to be required to be set before an offensive player went airborne; now, he must be set by the time the offensive player’s plant foot hits the floor.
That’s the technical definition. In practical terms? “Kids aren’t just jumping in front of each other,” Auburn coach Bruce Pearl says. “It has increased the offenses.”
This was the plan. In October, Big 12 director of officials Curtis Shaw said that he’d reviewed 100 called charges from the previous season — and that 96 of those would now be called blocks. “It’s almost impossible to take a legal charge anymore,” Shaw said then.
That prediction has held. Charges are not a statistic that is tracked in college basketball, but the analytics website KenPom.com tracks non-steal turnovers. This includes stepping or throwing the ball out of bounds, traveling, illegal screens or a charge. Last season the average percentage of possessions that ended in a non-steal turnover was 8.9 percent. This season, that’s down to 7.8 percent, the lowest rate it has been in the 25 years that the website has tracked play-by-play data. Turnovers are also at a record low.
That has led to scoring going up. College basketball teams are scoring 106.4 points per 100 possessions, compared to 104.8 last season.
“This year will be the highest (scoring) since I’ve been tracking and really the highest ever, because we know that shooting was pretty terrible back in the ’70s and ’80s and before that,” says Ken Pomeroy, the creator of KenPom.com. “And I think there’s a direct line from the charge rule to that.”
And that means when the men’s NCAA Tournament tips off this week, the game will be as entertaining and watchable as ever.
“Most coaches are really thrilled with the rule from the standpoint of the game is a lot freer, a lot more open,” Baylor coach Scott Drew says. “Fewer collisions, less risk of guys getting injured when when you used to have games where there were five-to-10 charges being attempted; that’s a lot of collisions. It’s a lot more like the NBA game, which I know people enjoy.”
There was a #bancharges movement on social media in recent years, with fans tired of seeing highlight dunks waived off because a defender ran in at the last second, took a knee to the chest and fell down.
Under the old rule, a defender could arrive when the offensive player’s final toe was still on the floor and get the call. The new rule has eliminated kamikaze defenders running in at the last second before an offensive player takes off, which led to dangerous collisions and made it difficult to complete a drive to the basket. “I used to call them non-basketball plays,” Shaw says. “You just got somebody jumping in front of you, because your primary defender got beat. So we were rewarding bad defense by allowing some secondary guy just to jump in front of somebody.”
The NCAA’s initial attempt to curb these types of charge attempts was introducing a semicircle, placed 3 feet from the center of the basket. A secondary defender’s feet had to be outside of that arc to get called for a charge; on the line or inside of it was an automatic block. The charge arc went on the floor during the 2012-13 season, and it decreased the non-steal turnovers from 10.5 percent the previous season to 10 percent. But scoring efficiency went down three points per 100 possessions before trending back up the next season, when the rules committee emphasized calling hand-checking fouls.
ADVERTISEMENT
The semicircle inadvertently made it more difficult for officials to judge the play. Before, they were focused on whether the defender was set when the offensive player took off. With the arc on the floor, they had to see where that defender’s feet were as well. The purpose was to decrease the number of charge attempts and discourage running under a player as he took off in the air, but …
“The reality is it’s really hard for any human to get them right in real time,” Florida coach Todd Golden says.
Shaw believes the issue was that the charge arc was not far out enough. The NBA’s semicircle is 4 feet from the center of the basket. The new rule, however, has served its purpose, because the game is being played and taught differently.
Every college coach interviewed for this story said that he no longer has his team even practice help-side charges anymore. Coaches are teaching verticality, telling their players when an offensive player is driving toward the rim to jump and try to contest the shot with hands straight up to the ceiling.
Not everyone is thrilled about it. The new charge interpretation has neutralized a defense that had taken great advantage of the rule — and that led to great success for some teams.
An official signals for a charge in a 2023 game between Indiana and Michigan. (Scott W. Grau / AP)
In 2019, Texas Tech made it to the national championship game playing the no-middle defense. The purpose of the defense is to keep the ball on the sides of the floor and try to force the ballhandler into help toward the baseline. The traditional way to teach man-to-man defense was to square up and keep your chest in front of the ball, but defenders playing the no-middle scheme were opening their hips and almost inviting the ballhandler to drive past them.
That next offseason Baylor’s coaches studied the defense, learning from former Baylor assistant Grant McCasland, who had adopted the the no-middle (also called the side defense) at North Texas. Two years later, Baylor won the national championship and ranked higher in non-steals turnover percentage than any high-major team in the country.
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The no-middle became one of the most copied defenses in the country, particularly in the Big 12.
“It got to the point where every time we did our scouting report, we talked about drive downhill to pass and beware of a strong-side defender jumping underneath you,” Kansas coach Bill Self says. “I actually felt like that so many players were taught to just run in front of the ball carrier and take a fall, and rightfully so, because that was the rule.”
Iowa State coach T.J. Otzelberger was one of its most successful adopters, and last season his team ranked highest among high-majors in non-steals turnover percentage. The Cyclones, who track their charge numbers, took 75 charges. Going into Saturday, they had taken 29 this season.
“A big part of no-middle was five-on-three and two guys waiting to take a charge,” Drew says.
The no-middle is not entirely dead, but it can’t be played the same way. Drew and McCasland have abandoned most of its tactics, especially in the inner third of the floor. “You don’t want the ball there if they don’t let you punish people for leaving their feet and passing the ball or shooting longer layups,” McCasland says.
Otzelberger still has his defenders push the offense baseline toward help when the ball is below the foul line, but his teaching points above the foul line have changed.
“In the past, we really tried to open our stance on the ball to have teams drive it down the slot,” Otzelberger says. “And now we don’t want that play as much because that secondary defender’s going to get called for a block.”
Shooting percentages have barely ticked up — teams are making 50.3 percent of their 2s, compared to 50.1 percent last season — but more drives to the basket are definitely occurring. According to Synergy’s logging, the percentage of finishing opportunities at the rim in the halfcourt (excluding post-ups) has risen from 33.7 percent last season to 34.8 percent this year, mostly at the expense of floaters.
ADVERTISEMENT
“You can play off one foot,” South Carolina coach Lamont Paris says. “I talk a little bit less about playing off two feet; you had to play off two feet so you didn’t charge, right? You can’t charge over the guy that comes to help (now). He’s almost never going to be there in time to actually take a charge if you’re going off one foot.”
“We’ve talked about just running a guy over if he’s trying to take a charge and put it in the officials’ hands,” Nebraska coach Fred Hoiberg says.
This is the one possible negative impact of the rule, but Hoiberg’s tactic doesn’t work if a defender jumps in the air and contests. And the numbers indicate this is happening. Block rate, which is the percentage of 2-point attempts that result in a block, is up from 8.8 to 9.3 percent.
New charge rule's effect on CBB
| 2010 | 102.5 | 20.4 | 37.7 | 10.6 | 47.7 | 34.2 | 32.6 | 9.2 |
| 2011 | 103.2 | 20.1 | 37.7 | 10.7 | 47.8 | 34.4 | 32.9 | 9.2 |
| 2012 | 102.8 | 20.1 | 36.4 | 10.5 | 47.8 | 34.3 | 32.9 | 9.2 |
| 2013* | 102.5 | 20 | 35.9 | 10 | 47.5 | 33.9 | 33 | 9.3 |
| 2014** | 105.1 | 18.3 | 40.5 | 9.3 | 48.5 | 34.4 | 32.9 | 9.7 |
| 2015 | 104.2 | 19.1 | 37 | 9.7 | 47.8 | 34.3 | 34.2 | 9.6 |
| 2016 | 104.8 | 18.1 | 36.6 | 9.5 | 48.7 | 34.7 | 35.4 | 9.2 |
| 2017 | 104.7 | 18.5 | 35.3 | 9.8 | 49.3 | 35 | 36.4 | 9.2 |
| 2018 | 105 | 18.4 | 33.5 | 9.7 | 50 | 35.1 | 37.5 | 9.3 |
| 2019 | 104.3 | 18.5 | 33 | 9.7 | 50.1 | 34.4 | 38.7 | 9.3 |
| 2020 | 102.4 | 18.9 | 32.6 | 9.9 | 49.4 | 33.3 | 37.5 | 8.9 |
| 2021 | 102.2 | 18.9 | 31.4 | 9.8 | 49.8 | 33.8 | 37.4 | 8.8 |
| 2022 | 102.9 | 18.4 | 30.3 | 9 | 49.7 | 33.6 | 37.7 | 9 |
| 2023 | 104.8 | 18.2 | 31.5 | 8.9 | 50.1 | 34 | 37.3 | 8.8 |
| 2024*** | 106.4 | 17.1 | 32.9 | 7.8 | 50.3 | 33.9 | 37.3 | 9.3 |
* charge semi-circle introduced
** hand-check rule introduced
*** new charge rule introduced
The one contrarian interviewed for this story: Texas A&M coach Buzz Williams, who has been caught off guard by the leap in efficiency numbers and doesn’t like that charges have dropped so drastically — his team took 53 last season and had just 16 this season going into Saturday’s action.“If every 50/50 call is 100 percent a block, it’s just become the NBA,” Williams says. “Let’s score a bunch of points. Let’s make it pretty, et cetera. But I think we have to figure out, are we going to keep playing defensively the same way because so much of what we’re doing … I don’t know if you can keep playing that way.”
Shaw laughed when he heard Williams’ critique.
“Buzz is old-school,” he says. “That’s what he taught. He taught, ‘Primary defender, get as close and get in the way and do everything you can to the guy, and if he beats you, somebody else just jumps in front of him.’ Well, that’s rewarding bad defense because the primary guy got beat. So why should the secondary guy be able to just jump in front him at the last second? Again, when you’ve already committed your move, you can’t change what you’re doing.”
Another reason to dissuade officials from calling charges is that it can be an emotional call. Fans have always argued that officials have liked the motion of it, almost giving a little half-skip and a jump before pointing the other direction.
“I think the charge is one of the most deflating plays, emotionally impactful plays defensively, because not only is it a change of possession, it puts a foul on somebody,” Illinois coach Brad Underwood says. “It usually stirs emotion in not only coaches, but players when you take it. I think that is gone.”
Tactically, coaches have had to adapt. And players have to adapt too, unlearning what they’ve been taught for years.
“It will take us a minute to get guys to vertically go up and jump and not stay planted,” Underwood says. “We’ve got a generation of kids that what they know is to take a charge and don’t leave the ground.”
The game is always evolving, and you’ll always have people on both sides of the argument. But this change has been almost universally applauded.
“It’s been a great rule,” Shaw says. “We almost have none of those plays anymore. We started out calling all blocks in November, and it really eliminated (them). It was a hard play to referee under the old rules. It’s easy now.”
