{"id":10928,"date":"2016-02-14T09:05:13","date_gmt":"2016-02-14T17:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/coaches-adapt-to-limits-on-their-ability-to-call-timeouts\/"},"modified":"2016-02-14T09:05:13","modified_gmt":"2016-02-14T17:05:13","slug":"coaches-adapt-to-limits-on-their-ability-to-call-timeouts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/sports\/coaches-adapt-to-limits-on-their-ability-to-call-timeouts\/","title":{"rendered":"Coaches adapt to limits on their ability to call timeouts"},"content":{"rendered":"

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. \u2014<\/strong> Coaches are still getting accustomed to a new NCAA rule that restricts them to calling timeouts only when the ball is dead. The new wrinkle has produced some interesting scenarios down the stretch of close games.<\/p>\n

Whenever a ball is given to a player, it becomes live and only players have the power to call timeouts. Coaches have to wait until a basket is made or play stops. Coaches can signal for timeouts while the ball is live, but under the rule that took effect this year, referees will only award the timeout if a player acts on that request.<\/p>\n

The rule change has led to criticism from some coaches who don\u2019t like having responsibilities taken away from them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just can\u2019t imagine anybody who\u2019s in the role of leadership would vote on something that would limit their ability to be that leader that they\u2019re being paid to be,\u201d Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy said. \u201cI never understood it. I still don\u2019t like it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Akron\u2019s Keith Dambrot, the chairman of the NCAA rules committee, said the rule was established in part to prevent the confusion that arose as coaches tried calling timeouts from the bench when teams were fighting for a loose ball.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really put (officials) in a bind as to who called the timeout, did the team have the ball when they called the timeout,\u201d Dambrot said. \u201cIt was difficult on them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tennessee coach Rick Barnes says he would have understood prohibiting coaches from calling timeouts under those circumstances. He just doesn\u2019t see why coaches can\u2019t call timeouts when their teams are simply bringing the ball up the floor to start a possession.<\/p>\n

Barnes cited a loss at Georgia Tech in which he shouted from the bench that he wanted a timeout, but none of his players could hear him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know early in the year, I thought the fact we couldn\u2019t call timeouts ourselves hurt us in a couple of games,\u201d Barnes said. \u201cEarly, I think players need all the help they can get from coaches. We maybe could have given ourselves a better chance to win a couple of those games early if we could have used our timeouts (as coaches) when we wanted to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barnes and Kennedy aren\u2019t the only coaches who disagree with the rule.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey said, \u2018Well, you know the officials had a tough time knowing if it was the coach calling (the timeout), or one of the players or a fan,\u2019\u201d North Carolina coach Roy Williams said earlier this season. \u201cWe\u2019re paying them enough money. They ought to be able to figure out things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dambrot and Fairfield\u2019s Sydney Johnson, another member of the rules committee, say they haven\u2019t heard much griping about the new rule from coaching colleagues now that teams have had time to adjust to it. Dambrot indicated many of the worries came beforehand.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoaches are smart,\u201d Dambrot said. \u201cWhat happens is they adapt and adjust to rules. You practice it. You have two or three guys you kind of give the authority to call the timeout. You train guys. From that perspective, I haven\u2019t heard too much complaining, and a lot of people really were against it when it came out.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new rule can have quite an impact when a game\u2019s on the line. Sure, a coach can still ask one of his players to call a timeout. That player still might not notice him or could ignore him.<\/p>\n

Xavier coach Chris Mack tried calling a timeout late in a tight game at Providence last month. Xavier\u2019s J.P. Macura instead kept playing and sank a critical 3-pointer that helped seal the victory. After the game, Mack quipped: \u201cThank heavens for the new rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mack says he has no complaints with coaches being prohibited from calling timeouts when the ball is live. And he believed that even before the Providence game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know people want to put the spotlight on J.P.\u2019s big shot, but it doesn\u2019t change my opinion of the rule at all,\u201d Mack said.<\/p>\n

Kennedy noted that his team also benefited from the new rule in a victory over Georgia earlier this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were down one with about 10 seconds to play,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cThere was an official in front of me. I said I wanted to get a timeout and try to set up a play. He looked at me \u2014 he was a veteran official \u2014 and he says: \u2018Coach, you can\u2019t call it. You have to get one of your players to call it,\u2019 which obviously I knew, but I\u2019m just reacting to the things we\u2019ve always done. By that time, (Ole Miss guard Stefan) Moody had thrown the ball, had gotten it back and was on his way to shooting a layup.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that hasn\u2019t changed the way he feels about the change.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt probably saved me on one occasion,\u201d Kennedy said, \u201cbut I still am not a fan of the rule.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 AP Sports Writers David Brandt, Joe Kay and Joedy McCreary and freelance writer Brendan McGair contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. \u2014 Coaches are still getting accustomed to a new NCAA rule that restricts them to calling timeouts only when the ball is dead. The new wrinkle has produced some interesting scenarios down the stretch of close games. Whenever a ball is given to a player, it becomes live and only players have the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-10928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10928\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10928"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=10928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}