COMING CHANGE IN CIS BASKETBALL

Today's Kingston Whig-Standard picked up on a story that's been going around since last winter: Canada Basketball's push to get the CIS, along with college and high school associations, to adopt the quote-unquote FIBA rules.

The big change is a 24-second shot clock instead of the current 30. That's fine for the NBA, where everyone is highly skilled, relatively speaking, but Queen's men's coach Rob Smart says the NCAA is an example of why it's not good for collegiate players.

"In the States, on any given night between November and April, you can watch seven or eight college games," Smart added. "It's a proven product, and one reason why the U.S. college game is so popular is parity. On any given night, even Princeton can upset someone.

"Teams don't have to rush up and down the floor. They can make a play."

The Whig also notes that coaches took a straw poll at last year's national championship in Halifax and were almost unanimously against it, but it's gonna happen anyways. Or as Smart put it:

"It's very frustrating that it (the CIS) does not listen to the people who should be making such decisions, or at the very least consider what they have to say."

Hey, just like the Hec Crighton Trophy selection process!

In my newspaper "career," which has entailed covering the odd high school basketball game, I've worked in three provinces and no two's basketball rules were the same.

Going to a 24-second shot clock in high school would likely hurt participation and skill development, especially in rural areas where school teams are still a boy or girl's main exposure to the game.

There's already schools that are hard-pressed to get more than seven or eight players out for their senior teams, or just have a team. Last winter, when we were working for the Simcoe (Ont.) Reformer, one school of 500 students that finished second in Ontario just three years earlier was forced to cancel its senior boys basketball season due to a lack of players.

Now they might be asked to play a longer game (40 minutes instead of 32) that will not only require more fresh legs, but will also discourage team play. It's going to become more about getting the ball to your best one or two players as quickly as possible so they tear off down the court and put up a shot, maybe even before the rest of their team has crossed midcourt.

You know who will suffer, in this case? The guys. The girls' game will probably be all right -- females are better at working in groups and are typically less concerned with personal glory. Most of the time already, most high school girls teams have two or three superior athletes who score 75-80% of the points, while everyone else contents herself with passing, rebounding and defence.

Guys are more about the glory, and if the game is played under rules that encourage the one or two alpha males to run-'n'-gun like Kobe Bryant in his wildest dreams, I can see a lot of the "fringe players" getting discouraged from playing. That's not a concern for Canada Basketball and the CIS, though.

Back with more later. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.