SYRACUSE, NY -- Syracuse men's basketball coach Jim Boeheim, the current president of the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC), has come out in favor of the NCAA making bench decorum a point of emphasis in 2007-08.
The NCAA, with the support of the Collegiate Commissioners Association, the NABC and the Women's Basektball Coaches Association (WBCA), distributed a memo to coaches and officials on October 11 describing the point of emphasis.
"The bench decorum rules, which include staying in the prescribed coaching box, have been interpreted in various ways for some time," said Boeheim in an ncaa.org story. "This initiative for strengthened, consistent enforcement has significant ramifications. Coaches and game officials who do not strictly adhere to the rules will be penalized."
Included in the memo was:
"Head coaches and other bench personnel who engage in unsportsmanlike actions, in or out of the coaching box, will be in violation of bench decorum rules and will be assessed a direct technical foul without being issued a warning. Unsportsmanlike actions include, but are not limited to: disrespectfully addressing an official; attempting to influence an officials decision; using profanity or language that is abusive, vulgar or obscene; taunting or baiting an opponent; objecting to an official's decision by rising from the bench or excessively using gestures that either demonstrate officiating signals or displeasure with officiating; inciting undesirable crowd reactions; and entering the plyaing court unless done with permission of an official to attend to an injured player."
The rules have plainly stated the coaching box rule in the past -- coaches can step outside the designated area only to deal with injured players, to keep potential fights from excalating or to deal with specific scoring and timing issues -- and the new directive will require enforcement of the rule.