With college basketball players getting just five fouls before being disqualified from action, the argument has been made over the years that something needs to be done in order to ensure that the best players on the court are able to finish the game. Does that mean increasing the number of personal fouls a player is allowed to commit? Or is there another possible solution to be explored?
According to Parrish Alford of Inside Ole Miss Sports, Ole Miss head coach Andy Kennedy has an idea as to what should be done in college basketball.Kennedy says a fifth foul should not result in a player’s ejection. Instead, let the player stay in the game and foul as much as he wants. But every foul after five would give two free throws – and the ball – to the other team.
“We’re the only sport where the best players can be eliminated from the game,” Kennedy said. “Let’s just make it where it really has some teeth. If you foul, the other team’s going to get two shots and the ball. You talk about really having to think now as a coach! It still allows the best players to be in the game so that the fans can see what they came to see.”
This is an interesting approach, and while a team can keep its player on the court under Kennedy’s rule there would clearly be a risk. Leave the player, quite possibly a star, on the floor in those late-game situations? Feel free to do so, but committing a foul would not only result in giving up free throws but it would also mean there’s no change in possession.
But what are the chances of something like this taking effect in college basketball? There’s probably a better chances of the number of fouls allowed being increased to six, although that didn’t go too smoothly when the Big East tried the six-foul rule in the early 1990s.
