College basketball will look different in the upcoming season following some significant rule changes which were enacted earlier this month.
Following a meeting of the NCAA rules panel the game will have new component for coaches and players to navigate beginning in November when the 2025-26 season tips off.
Most notable among the changes is that coaches will now be afforded the ability to challenge some calls during the game. While not all official decisions will be subject to review, contested out-of-bounds calls, basket interference and goaltending, and whether a defender was in the restricted arc are all considered fair game for challenges. In order to challenge an initial call, teams will be forced to use a timeout, and if the review goes in the team’s favor, the coach will be allowed one additional review for the rest of the game, including overtime.
The aim of this change, according to the NCAA panel, is to “enhance the flow of the game” which likely translates as reducing the amount of time officials were forced to stop the game and head to the monitor in seasons past. Such stoppages began a point of annoyance for coaches, players, commentators, and fans in recent years and the NCAA says it wants to “limit time spent at the monitor, improve game administration and reduce physicality.”
Another point of emphasis this season will be a crack down on what the panel called “delay of game tactics”.
A third notable change will be that officials now have discretion when issuing flagrant fouls. In the past any contact to the groin area of an opponent not considered incidental resulted in an automatic Flagrant 2 foul. This season such fouls will be up to the discretion of the official when it comes to whistling a Flagrant 1 or Flagrant 2, the latter of which results in an ejection.
One area that has not changed for the upcoming year, but which seems to be on the table down the road, is a switch from two 20 minute halves to four 10 minute quarters. Despite college basketball being the only level which elects to play a pair of halves instead of quarters, breaking with high school, international FIBA competitions, and the NBA, the NCAA cited “hurdles” in a release while noting there was “positive momentum for moving to quarters” in the future.
Those hurdles are believed to center around media timeouts which allow for sufficient commercial time. Currently college basketball games are stopped four times per half, at the 16, 12, 8, and 4 minute marks to allow for commercial breaks. Former head coach Mike Krzyzewski has long been an advocate for college basketball to come into compliance with the other leagues in the world beginning with the shift to quarters.
“I think we should play the game like the NBA,” Krzyzewski said in November of 2024. “A 24-second (shot clock), most of the same rules and officiating, probably not defensive three seconds, but four quarters, advance the ball, because these kids want to play in the NBA, I don’t understand why we’re not playing it.”
Duke Basketball will tip off the 2025-26 season in November with the Blue Devils looking to build upon last season’s 35 win performance that resulted in an ACC regular season and tournament championship as well as a spot in the Final Four. Head coach Jon Scheyer’s fourth team in Durham must replace all five starters from that team.
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