MANY of us have happy -- though possibly blurry -- memories of quarters and college basketball. Quarters was the game some of us undergrads played at watering holes after watching our tall classmates do battle with other tall fellas from other schools. Quarters aren’t good
change for college hoopsSimple game. First, you give all car and moped keys to the bartender. Then, you take turns bouncing quarters into glasses of beer. If you get your two bits in, you get to make somebody chug. After an hour or so, you find out who your real friends are.
Yes, very stupid. But no more inane than the newest version of quarters. And we were college kids. This numbskullery comes from the suits who run big-time college sports:
In its latest great move, the NCAA has decided to mess around with its best product, basketball, by changing games from two 20-minute halves to four 10-minute quarters. Thank God it's experimental, and we probably won't see it again after this weekend.
What's the big deal, you ask?
First of all, the rhythm of the game is disrupted. Take substitution patterns for instance: Most coaches like to have their best five players in at the beginning and end of a half -- obviously, you want to start well. Ten-minute quarters screws that up.
"I think it penalizes a better conditioned team," says Hawaii women's coach Vince Goo. "And it's confusing. My feeling toward it is negative."
Along with the change to quarters come asinine rules that tell the coaches almost exactly when they are allowed to use timeouts.
The NCAA says the new rules are to speed up games. That's B.S. The rules are designed for nervous advertisers -- they guarantee a certain number of stoppages of play (if no timeout is called by the team that has "control" of the timeout during a certain time period, one is automatically called on the next dead ball), meaning everybody's commercials get in.
Two stops in play are actually added -- at the end of the first and third quarters.
At last week's exhibition between Hawaii and the California All-Stars, the new rules were used.
"I don't like it. They say it's supposed to make the games faster, but it actually slows them up because there are more sections," Hawaii coach Riley Wallace says. "They tell you when to use your timeouts. I had to assign one of our coaches specifically to keep track of it during the game. We've got it down, but I don't like it."
A big part of college basketball is the strategic use of timeouts, especially at the end of a game. In the new set-up, each team gets only one timeout -- a 30-second one -- in the last three minutes of each period.
This stupid rule can take away the advantage of a great "adjustment" coach who knows how to save his timeouts.
Hey, since Indiana's Bobby Knight is known as an outstanding late-game tactician, maybe the experimental rule will help Hawaii in the stretch tonight.
Wallace doesn't care. He still hates it.
"It just doesn't make sense," he says. "It's just another example of what some guys sitting around a table with nothing to do will come up with."
Hmmm ... maybe the lame-brainstorm came after a session of the old version of quarters.
COULDA BEEN 'BOWS: Remember -- how could anyone forget -- Marty Booker, the Northeast Louisiana wide receiver who was the middle-man in the Indians' hook-and-ladder play that beat Hawaii in overtime last week?
In 1993, Booker, who was a high school quarterback, was very interested in coming to Hawaii to run the spread offense. But the Rainbows were after another quarterback, D'Wayne Bates. He had it narrowed down to Hawaii and Northwestern, but chose Evanston, where he became an All-Big Ten wide receiver before getting hurt this year. When the Rainbows went back to Booker, he had chosen Northeast Louisiana.
Nothing against Hawaii's wide receivers, who finally showed something last week. But Booker and Bates could have been the big-play receivers the Rainbows so sorely lacked this season.
Dave Reardon is a magazine editor and freelance
writer who has covered Hawaii sports since 1977.
He can be reached via the Star-Bulletin or
by email at dreardon@hmsa.com.
