The LSU women’s basketball team is still playing 40-minute games, but something feels different this season.
This summer, the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel approved of playing four 10-minute quarters instead of two 20-minute halves. The rule change was originally proposed by the NCAA Women’s Basketball Rules Committee to “increase the flow of the game.”
A four-quarter game means a few more minor tweaks to how the game is played and coached. Teams can now reach the bonus and shoot free throws after the fifth team foul in each quarter instead of being awarded a one-and-one bonus after the seventh team foul. The panel also voted to allow teams to advance the ball upcourt with a timeout in the last minute of the fourth quarter.
LSU (5-4, 0-0 Southeastern Conference) coach Nikki Fargas already saw the change’s effect on her injury-struck roster. The Tigers dressed eight players when they took on Texas Southern University in the PMAC but still managed to cruise to a 86-36 victory. It wasn’t smooth sailing across the four-quarter waters for the Tigers, who’ve had trouble putting together full games with a limited roster.
Junior guard Rina Hill said the four-quarter format has forced her to adjust her mentality on the defensive end.
“[The four-quarter system] is a little different,” Hill said. “Especially for me — I’ve been getting in foul trouble these past games. I have to learn how to stay in the game without fouling. It’s a different in a sense, if you pick up two fouls in the first quarter versus picking up the first foul in a 20 minute half.”
Hill isn’t the only player who’s found herself in foul trouble while adjusting to the rule change. Foul trouble paired with a depleted roster aren’t a good combination for a team with a tough nonconference schedule ahead of SEC play.
Fargas said she wants her team to focus on adjusting to the referee’s officiating style rather than the four-quarter format when it comes to playing defense.
“We tell our team to adjust to the officiating,” Fargas said. “When our team picks up their first foul, it’s not always the best thing to just pull them out because we only have seven or eight bodies so we only have two or three subs.”
“They have to learn how to play with that foul in that first quarter if they pick it up early. With a limited roster, it doesn’t lend for you to be able to pull a kid who gets her first foul.”
Adding to a change in defense, the four quarter game also calls for a more conditioned team because of the restructuring of media timeouts. Media timeouts will now be called at the first dead-ball after the five-minute mark of each period, but teams aren’t guaranteed four media timeouts if a team timeout is used before the media-timeout mark.
Senior forward Akilah Bethel said amidst the rule changes and the lack of depth, LSU’s success is dependent on its ability to maintain intensity for a full 40 minutes.
“We have to be able to put a 40-minute game together,” Bethel said. “Coach talks about how we can’t play 20 minutes, we can’t play 10 minutes. We have to play the full 40 in order to win.”