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Unless you have been living under a rock or do not like sports, you are probably aware the NCAA Tournament is taking place at this very moment. There is a lot of hype that surrounds the NCAA Tournament; people around the country watch their favorite college team play their hearts out to make it to the next round. For a team to even make the tournament, they have to demonstrate great play all year or win their conference tournament.

When a team loses during March Madness it is understandably heartbreaking to the players, coaches and fans. A total of 68 teams make the tournament, and 67 teams will lose to determine a champion. A team will play their hearts out all year just to lose one game and have their season end, but what if the team lost because of a bad call? What if a player had clearly broken a rule that could have allowed the losing team to win? If this sounds familiar you may be a Northwestern University fan.

If you are unaware about the controversial no-call, Northwestern was once down by 22 points to Gonzaga in the second round of this year NCAA Tournament. With about five minutes left in the game the Wildcats had fought back to cut the lead down to five points. Northwestern’s center, Dererk Pardon, put up a shot when Gonzaga’s center, Zach Collins, stuck his hand through the basket to block the shot — a clear goaltend.

However, the call was never made, and Northwestern’s coach was assessed a technical for running on the court to yell at the refs. This allowed for Gonzaga to basically make a five-point swing and effectively ruined the Wildcats’ chances of winning.

After the game, the NCAA even apologized for the no-call stating, “With 4:57 remaining in this evening’s second-round game between Gonzaga and Northwestern, the officials missed a rules violation when a Gonzaga defender put his arm through the rim to block a shot.” Great! Right? No. Obviously the call was missed and it is nice that the NCAA took the time to apologize and admit fault, but that is not enough. Had the referees made this call, arguably Northwestern would have won the game. It is time to allow coaches to challenge a call or ask for another look at a missed call in NCAA basketball.

I am not saying the coach should get unlimited challenges, or that it even should be allowed in regular season play. However, the NCAA should allow for a coach to ask the refs to take a second look at something he thought was missed once or twice a game during tournament play. The refs already review flagrant-fouls in the NCAA, so the technology is there. Why can’t a coach challenge a call? Almost every other sport allows a coach to challenge a play or ask the officials to take a second look. In NCAA football, every touchdown is automatically reviewed; a coach does not even need to ask. An official watches the replay from the press box the entire game. Why has the NCAA decided that football needs this much attention but basketball does not?

It is time for the NCAA to allow basketball to make a full transition into the 21^st century. NFL officials have used instant replay since 1986 to challenge plays. Basketball officials in the NBA and college level use instant replay for flagrant fouls, clock management, and out of bounds plays. This leads me to believe that adding a rule that allows coaches to ask officials to review a play would be a major challenge.

I get that review slows the game down. When the MLB decided to add replay to the game some people felt that it would completely ruin baseball effectively making the game slower than it already was. However, the MLB made different rules to speed up play of the game and now replay is just a normal occurrence in baseball. Basketball is already a fast-paced game, and typically they only take about two hours to complete. Arguably adding review to a basketball game would only extend the game 20 minutes at most. If a possible 20-minute delay is actually pushing viewers away from the sport the NCAA could change rules to speed up the game. They could also add an extra referee to watch replay similar to what they did in football. Review has been added to almost every sport except basketball and rules have been changed to allow for review. All basketball needs to do is look at what rules worked or did not work and implement them into the game. Also there is still the possibility that no challenge calls would be made during a game meaning no delays at all.

If the NCAA was to add challenges to basketball here are my proposed rules.

1. A coach must call time-out to challenge a call; the time-out will not be given back even if the coach is right.
2. A coach may only challenge two calls a game.
3. There is no penalty for the coach being wrong as he is already losing a time out.
4. Challenges can only be made on a no-call foul
5. Challenges are only utilized during tournament play including: Conference, NCAA, and NIT.

If NCAA officials were to allow coaches to challenge plays in basketball it would make the game better for players, coaches, and fans. I feel that next year during the NIT the NCAA should run a trial on challenging plays. It would limit apologies the NCAA has to make, as well as limit situations such as the one Northwestern suffered through in their second-round game in the NCAA Tournament.