Sometimes one feels randomly inspired to blog even when one has not done so in quite a while and one has a conference paper to finish writing by Wednesday. C'est la vie.
But I was a little bit surprised to come across this article "Officials set to reduce women's hoops physicality" which said that "Physical play in the post, on shooters and on ball handlers will no longer be tolerated."
The goal, they say, is to increase scoring by creating greater freedom of movement.
There is talk, from time to time, of changing the rules in the women's game for this purpose. But the way in which this rule change and the intense focus on enforcement is being presented seems a little odd. For example, an additional rule change is the ten-second back court rule requiring the offense to bring the ball past midcourt in ten seconds. Makes sense.
But why make the game less physical? And why do coaches think it is getting too physical? Auriemma called it a necessary step back.
While I know that no one believes the men's game lacks scoring, I cannot imagine a scenario in which coaches would get together and say "hey, let's decrease the physicality of the game." Every other possibility would be raised to somehow improve the game rather than "taking a step back" on physicality.
