College basketball needs improvement.

Now I know what you’re thinking. March Madness is the greatest month in sports. Awesome with a capital A.

But never be satisfied. I have six changes that will enhance the game for your viewing pleasure. Some may one day be common sights, while others have about as good a chance of happening as Michael Moore becoming conservative.

No fouls with a three-point lead in last 10 seconds

Coaches have been trying to sneak this new theory (which works a million times better) into common basketball strategy. Up by three, foul and send the other team to the line. What are the chances the player a) makes the free throw, b) misses the second and c) someone on the offensive team gets a rebound and scores?

I’ll tell you one thing: It sure as hell is a lot more difficult than making a 3-pointer. But that’s the point.

Nobody wants to see the most boring part of basketball decide a game: fouls and free throws.

We want to see plays like Ohio State’s Ron Lewis’ 3-pointer to tie the game against Xavier in the second round of the tourney.

One timeout per team in the last minute

Maybe TV stations signal down to the coaches in the last minute: “”Hey, we need to run 10 minutes of commercials or our advertisers are going to be pissed.””

Maybe it’s that important to take up a minute of everyone’s time and call a timeout to draw up an isolation play for your best player.

Let the players make the decisions. Teams are more effective against a scrambling defense anyway, so why call a timeout to let the defense set up?

Plus, we’d have more Chris Webber situations, and that’d be more fun for everybody.

The semicircle

No one is worse at charge/block calls than college referees. Most of the time they call charging on guys who flop and blocking on guys who deserved to draw the charge but weren’t thespian-like.

There’s an acting epidemic in this country, and it’s on the basketball court.

NBA referees do a good job at seeing the difference. College referees … not so much.

Make it easier on officials. The semicircle is already in the NBA game and it works. If a guy lines up under the basket and gets dunked on but falls down, that should not be a charging call.

Jumpball

The possession arrow is archaic. Why even call it a jumpball if the players aren’t going to jump for it?

Call it a held-ball or a scrum or a possession-arrow ball but don’t demean the term if some stupid arrow could determine the end of a ball game. The argument against says the advantage goes to the tall player.

a) Greg Oden is tall. He has an advantage in a lot of aspects, not just tipping the ball.

b) You can lose the tip and still get the ball with a little strategy and some hustle.

Let the players decide who gets it or you might as well just use the old lunch-time basketball strategy: Call first.

Stop calling meaningless time-outs

No timeouts in the last two minutes of a game where the margin of deficit is over 10.

Seriously, what can you possibly say to your team when you’re down by 30 with a minute left – “”OK, let’s go for the 30-point play””?

Maybe they’ll bring out the 50-foot basket from MTV’s “”Rock ‘N’ Jock”” games.

Erin Andrews at every game

How fast is stem cell research developing?

Can’t we get a clone for this former Florida Gator cheerleader turned college basketball sideline reporting goddess? Can’t CBS do something about this?

Why do we have to look at Billy Packer?

Roman Veytsman is a journalism senior.
He can be reached at sports@wildcat.arizona.edu.