The NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel changed the flopping rule among a set of rule changes to women’s basketball for the 2023-2024 campaign. The change follows the NCAA Women’s Basketball Rules Committee receiving feedback from all three divisions concerned with flopping during the game.
Under the new rule, a warning will be issued on the first offense, with each subsequent offense resulting in a technical foul. All technical foul calls for flopping will add to the team count but will not count toward’s a player’s five fouls leading to disqualification.
The Panel also reduced the restricted-area arc from four feet in the lane to the area directly underneath the basket. Defenders cannot establish a legal guarding position directly underneath the basket. The lower defensive box rule was also eliminated with this change.
The Women’s Basketball Rules Committee also expressed concern about the uptick in bench decorum and misconduct incidents during the 2022-2023 season and will place a point of emphasis on this area for the 2023-2024 campaign.
Other rule changes include:
- Allowing players to wear numbers 0-99
- Schools no longer need to submit a waiver for players to wear religious headwear, provided it’s safe for competition.
- An amber light strip will be allowed on the backboard to signal the expiration of the shot clock.
- An optional rule allows live video to be transmitted to the bench area.
- Technical fouls for delay-of-game warnings will be assessed to the team and not an individual player.
- Game officials will use the game clock to determine a 10-second violation when the shot clock is off at the end of a quarter or overtime.
- Conferences are allowed to implement an off-site collaborative replay system to assist game officials during replay situations.
- The shot clock will reset to 20 seconds or time remaining, whichever is greater, when there is a foul against the nonshooting team that is not against a shooter.
- Officials can use replay throughout the entire game to determine off-ball foul scoring plays. The review will be conducted during the next media timeout or intermission.
