Title_BU

After Rotnei Clarke's injury, time to ban hard breakaway foul

ATPTourFan

So as a Butler fan, how do you weigh in on this?

I would tend to agree that if the kid who fouled Clarke knew he'd be ejected for that kind of excessive contact on a breakaway, he may have just swiped for the ball or not gone for a foul at all.

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AdamtheFlyer

Typical lazy media overreaction. Clarke's injury was one in a million. Far more kids have head and neck injuries from colliding while diving for a loose ball. Let's ban that.

Legislation already exists to curb the overzealous nature of the type of foul Derenbecker gave, and it's been working for years. Go back and watch 80s basketball, Derenbecker's foul would have been laughed at as a weak foul in the Knight/Thompson era. You can't legislate hard play out of the game. Every once in a while hard play will cross the split second line into something more. It happens. It's part of the game itself.

Stevens' idea is valid, the NCAA and the companies who make the baskets should be looking at ways to make safer designs. That's where it should end. DeCoursey just takes it to an absurd place.

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REF

The officials had the opportunity to issue an F2 and eject him and they didn't feel it was justified. That F1/F2 point can certainly be argued in this instance, but I don't want the officials required to eject on any foul during a breakaway unless there is only ball contact.

vcurams05

I agree with you here. If you put refs in a spot where they have to eject someone on breakaway fouls, its unfair to them and the players. I've seen some fouls on breakaways with two great athletes that come crashing to the floor just making basketball plays. You'd hate to see someones key player get ejected on a questionable call. The rule is fine how it is. The officials determine intent, and while not always right its pretty easy to see. Lets make the basket safer.

ace93

Anybody know of a source for the video of the play in question?

uz2b-len

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGTRSV1bTU8You can see in the replay that the Derenbacker had absolutely no chance at blocking the shot. It was a bad foul. But at first look it didn't look that bad. So it depends on the angle of view.

TheChoadenOne

A GIF and a video:

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebask...f-on-stretcher

ace93

Thanks for sharing that, both of you.

He swings for the ball, but the windup and swing are a bit excessive. That said, he does not miss the ball by that much, but there is a lot of contact during that.

Edit: now the angle in the gif does make it look *very* excessive, however.

rworkman09

I don't think the foul looks THAT bad. Looks like Derenbacker just f'd up and had poor positioning. It's unfortunate, but it happens.

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uz2b-len

The first view on youtube which was the game view, it looks innocent. On the reply, you can see he has no chance of getting to the ball without knocking Clarke down, and he even puts one hand on Clarke's shoulder. I can't read his mind but I would think any experienced player would know he couldn't block the shot without a hard foul and he didn't care.

LastMinuteman

That video wasn't what I was expecting. He had a chance at the block. I've seen teams make that play against us. But you have to go hard to make that play.

I think Stevens's comments about looking into the safety of the basket support are more on target. The way Chaz Williams throws his body around on some of his drives, it's only a matter of time until he crashes into something beyond the end line that isn't as soft as a cheerleader.

434

I was unable to watch this game and never went back to watch the highlights, so this is the first time I saw the play. I agree with AdamFlyer, the article is jumping the shark. While it was a hard foul, Derenbecker did seem to go after the ball, he just missed badly. It appears he didn't go after the body of Clarke. And right after Clarke goes down, the first person to check to see if he was okay is Derenbecker. Doesn't seem like he was being malicious. So I don't think a new rule would have changed
how Derenbecker would have played or the outcome of that play.

And if Derenbecker did block the ball, the chance is Clarke still goes tumbling into the support. A new rule isn't needed. The idea of redesigning basketball supports would be far more beneficial.

ace93

Funny, that phrase was used on the Fordham board recently and people called the person out b/c he did not use it correctly. It seems a bit off here too, though perhaps it has evolved to the point that that is how it is being used now. (pardon my off-topic commentary)

AdamtheFlyer

The physical nature of the foul is almost entirely due to Derenbecker being left handed. If he is right handed and instinctively goes for the block with that hand, he may block the shot (ball was just on a tee for a block), and at worst it's a good, hard foul (that may or may not have lead to the same kind of fall). Using the left hand is what led to it being a flagrant 1. He had to go through the head to get the ball. By rule, and I like the rule, that's a flagrant 1.

But what DeCourcy is suggesting is essentially a ban on defending the breakaway layup. Unless it's Chaz Williams a half step ahead of Nerlens Noel, a player would be stupid to attempt to defend it, because any hard foul could get you ejected on the referee's discretion.

Derenbecker committed a textbook flagrant 1. Clarke's injury was an unforeseen and unfortunate outcome. That's it. There's nothing more to legislate from that perspective.

I do think looking for safer basket designs is something that should come out of this. That impact looked nasty. It's padded, but it didn't look to absorb much of the impact.

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Sure, I've been called a xenophobe, but the truth is, I'm not. I honestly just feel that America is the best country and the other countries aren't as good. That used to be called patriotism.