Jackson Free Press

The NCAA announced http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/18677489/nit-experiment-reset-fouls-mimic-4-quarter-game">two rule changes for the men’s 2017 Postseason National Invitation Tournament. Those rule changes will make the NIT different from the Division I Men’s NCAA Tournament.

Fouls will be reset after 10 minutes of play each half, and the league will eliminate the one-and-one bonus free-throw opportunity. After a team commits four fouls, every successive foul will allow the opposing team to shoot two free throws until fouls reset.

In overtime, teams that commit more than three fouls will award their opponents with two free throws for each foul.

Technical fouls won’t count toward those numbers. Resetting the fouls will mimic how the game would work with four 10-minute quarters instead of two 20-minute halves.

The women’s game switched from two 20-minute halves just before the start of the 2015-2016 season. Olympic basketball, high-school basketball and the NBA play four quarters, so moving the men’s game to four quarters puts it in line with the rest of basketball. Of course, the length of the quarters is different for each level of play.

The other rule change is that the shot clock will stay the same or reset to 20 seconds, whichever is greater, after the defense commits a foul and a team inbounds the ball to the frontcourt. This rule change is to give each team more possessions. The shot clock used to reset to 30 seconds after defensive fouls.

The idea is that with more possessions, teams should score more points. As teams shoot more three-point shots, changing the shot clock might not actually increase scoring that much, though.

Personally, I like the idea of the men’s game playing four quarters. Each season, I watch more and more women’s basketball because it seems like the flow of the game is faster and smoother than it is for the men.

The NCAA should just go all in and make the NIT four quarters and see how the games play out. Between that and the foul changes, coaches will have to alter their decisions and late-game strategy.

If they’re discussing rule changes, can the NCAA Tournament exclude teams that don’t finish .500 or better in conference play? In the http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/bubblewatch">ESPN and http://www.si.com/college-basketball/2017/02/14/ncaa-tournament-bubble-watch-big-ten-sec-acc-big-east">Sports Illustrated bubble watch, there are several teams from major basketball conferences that could make the tournament with losing conference records.

Teams shouldn’t be rewarded for being worse than mediocre in their own conference. Playing in a tough basketball conference shouldn’t mean you get in the tournament if you can’t finish .500 in the league.

There are plenty of mid-major conferences with teams that finish above .500 in conference play, but the major conferences including the ACC, Big East and Big 12, that are getting shorted because of that rule.

Instead, reward those mid-major conferences with more bids. The field is 68 teams, but the major conferences get over-rewarded with bids and take up half the field. Those major conferences get bids that they don’t deserve.

Everyone roots for Cinderella come March, so why not let more potential Cinderellas go to the ball?