Technical Foul For Dunking In Warmups Proves Costly

College Basketball‘s stupidest rule cost North Florida against Tennessee Tech after a player was penalized for dunking in warmups

Prior to the tip between the North Florida Ospreys and Tennessee Tech Titans, North Florida was assessed a technical foul because one of their players dunked in warmups while the refs were on the court.

Typically when that happens, it doesn’t make national news; however, Tennessee Tech made both technical free throws and then went on to win the game 82-80, by the winning margin of those two technical foul shots awarded to them by a player harmelessly dunking in warmups.

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I’m all for following rules and laws when they’re used and enforced correctly, but this rule in NCAA basketball feels a little dated.

What is everyone so worried about, breaking the basket or backboard? That rarely happens anymore with the standards and breakaway rims used in, basically, all levels of basketball today. If you break the backboard by dunking in warmups, your team should automatically forfeit the game anyway.

For those who don’t know, players can dunk more than 20 minutes away from the tip, but once that clock hits 20:00, all the dunking must end, as Kansas State found out in the NCAA tournament last season.

On top of that, this is college basketball. Are we still worried the other team will be intimidated by dunking? It’s 2014; everyone can dunk. It’s not the 1950s anymore.

Was Kentucky really going to be intimidated by walk-on freshman Brian Rohleder? Of course not. Those dudes throw it down as hard as anyone in the country.

I say, let them dunk. And, if for some stupid reason, a team is penalized for dunking in warmups, the opposing team should either refuse to shoot the free throws or just throw the ball off the backboard as hard as possible in protest of a stupid, dumb, useless rule.

(Bleacher Report)

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