Embracing the new rules: Wyoming’s Jeremy Shyatt

Credit: Wyoming Athletic Media Relations

Happy New Year to our College Chalktalk readers!  Excited to be back again sharing…what a great group that has been assembled!!  Currently, our Wyoming Cowboys sit 7-2 as we break for exams.  It has been an exciting year thus far, and our team has formed a very different identity compared to its predecessors the last couple of years in Laramie.

All over the nation, teams are trying to make adjustments to the new emphasis areas stressed by our sport’s top officials.  Specifically, there is a greater emphasis on eliminating hand-checking, both along the perimeter and in the post, and also a more strict set of parameters when taking a charge on defense.

It feels like every time you turn on the TV, go on the Internet, or scroll through Twitter, someone is complaining about the “new rules.”  We at Wyoming have had a much different philosopy…The rules aren’t changing, so instead of complaining or fighting, let’s EMBRACE these new rule changes.  Positive attitude aside, we really believe the rule changes have helped our basketball team.  Below are some things that we have stressed to our guys and results that have improved our play.

DEFENSIVELY

Our bread and butter has always been our defense here at Wyoming, and before the season, we were apprehensive that the new emphasis areas were going to compromise our effectiveness.  For the last two years, we have led the Mountain West Conference in charges taken.  “Stepping up” is a term we use at Wyoming for putting ourselves in position to take a charge.  We begin every practice with each player stepping up and taking a charge…literally takes two minutes for the entire team.  In order to comply with the new rules, instead of having our player step up outside the charge crease, we put a “scoring box” under the basket approximately 2.5 times the size of the charge crease.  This would ensure our players are trying to step up even higher and hopefully would get there an extra second early.

To try and eliminate the ticky-tack hand check fouls for our guys, we usually try and do some kind of shell defensive drill (currently we use this time as defending an opponent’s actions) in which we “show our hands” to the official and really work on moving our feet, and defending with our feet and chest.  Our guys seem to be doing better and better at this, and to date, we are only averaging 18 fouls per game, up from 15 from last season, but we are having far more possessions this year.  In addition, there may or may not be a correlation, but we are holding opponents to 37.6% shooting from the field, up from 42.9% defensively a year ago.

OFFENSIVELY

There is no doubt that the new rule changes have positively impacted our offense.  Not only is our scoring average up 10 points from last season (71 ppg vs 61 ppg), but we are getting to the FT Line 26 times per game (up from 19 per game).  A few reasons for this, and things we stress in practice:

• TRANSITION, TRANSITION, TRANSITION…Our personnel this year is built to run on opponent’s turnovers and missed shots.  This is the first year that our coaching staff has really put an emphasis on running with the basketball.  By attacking a defense that is not set up yet, there is a better chance for a scoring play, or getting to the foul line.
• ATTACK THE RACK…This has been our mantra on offense since August.  We have four players in our top eight that driving the basketball is the best thing they do.  Whether it’s penetrating the lane for kick outs, drop offs, drawing fouls, or turning down ball screens, we have really stressed attacking the rack.  By really committing to these two areas, we have “exploited” the new rules emphasis.  These attack plays put the burden on the official to call hand checks and blocking fouls.

By no means are these emphasis areas we commit to the end all be all.  But numbers don’t lie.  Aside from the statistics previously written, our team has improved in the following: