Because the NCAA is an oversized, red taped, bogged down in it's own asinine processes monstrosity. But I digress.
Remember the proposed rule change in basketball that would create a restricted area under the basket but did not include the arch?
Hack said that because of NCAA rules, it would have taken four years for the arc to go through all the proper channels and committees, before it could be permanently painted on all the floors.
"We were thinking, 'How can we add something that will be beneficial right away?'" Hack said.
The NBA solved this problem a few years back, adding a four-foot "no-charge" arc to its courts. If a player attempts to force an offensive foul in the restricted area, it's a defensive foul.
Simple, right?
Not so much for the NCAA's officials.
The new rule is meant to "prohibit a secondary defender from establishing a guarding position in that area," according to the news release. Hack said that if a help defender has any part of a foot in the roughly-24-inch area and draws contact, officials automatically are supposed to call a defensive foul.
Without a designated semicircle, however, officials will not only have to make the quick call as to whether a collision is a block or a charge, but also whether the block/charge occurred in the restricted -- and unmarked -- zone.
Never mind the officials wanted it. Never mind it makes too much freaking sense. Also never mind the NCAA makes money hand over fist. Yet it cannot get a small arch painted on the courts of its signatory schools in a timely manner. If painting such an arch on the court would stop coaches from text messaging recruits I am fairly certain it would be on there by next month. I do understand you would need some prep time, probably another year, for all of the schools to make it happen because such a move obviously would need to be part of any athletic department's budget. But four years? And that is to go through the "proper channels and committees." How many committees would such a rule have to go through?
The NCAA is worse than the United States Congress in getting things down in a timely, common sense manner and that is setting the bar so low, ants trip over it.