NCAA Rules Committee recommends a charge circle

College basketball is on the verge of seeing a major change in how the charge-block rule is enforced.

On Wednesday, the NCAA Men’s Basketball Rules Committee recommended that a charge circle be painted on the court three feet away from the center of the basket. The NCAA experimented with this rule during the preseason tournaments this season, but during the regular season, the NCAA went by the rule that referee's a had to determine whether or not the help defender was two feet in front of the rim.

This rule will take effect next season if the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel approves it. They have a conference call on June 9th to discuss it.

The Rules Committee also approved a couple of other changes:

The committee changed the nomenclature on fouls that are deemed more severe than a “common” foul. The terms “Flagrant 1” and “Flagrant 2” will now be used in these situations. A Flagrant 1 foul takes the place of an intentional foul and the Flagrant 2 foul replaces the previous flagrant foul.

The committee is recommending that coaches can request a monitor review by officials at any time during a game. An example would be a team being credited for a two-point field goal, when the coach believes the shot was a three-point basket. If the replay shows that the coach was wrong, that team is charged a timeout. If the team has no more timeouts, the team is assessed a technical foul for taking too many timeouts.

The committee also talked about the rare “double foul” and agreed that in such cases, the more egregious foul will be enforced. For example, Player A reaches in and commits a common foul against Player B. Player B responds with an elbow that is considered a Flagrant 1 or Flagrant 2 foul. If in the in bonus, both players will shoot free throws with the lane cleared, with Team A shooting last and receiving the ball. Previously, this scenario was considered as offsetting fouls.