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MORGANTOWN-- The past couple of weeks of watching wall to wall basketball, men's and women's, reinforced what a truly great game the sport is at tournament time.
From buzzer beaters to Caitlin Clark's trans-Atlantic 3-pointers, from the smile on North Carolina's DJ Burns Jr.'s face to to the pain on Angel Reese's, the game is truly poetry in motion, with the emphasis on motion.
At least most of the time. While watching game after game and leaving with a smile on my face, I came to notice, too, that there was a ringing in my ears, a ringing put there by the loud shriek of officials' whistles.
It seems that in the final minutes of any close game come tournament time -- and most of the games are close -- the pace of the game would come to a screeching halt as foul after foul is committed by the losing team and by trip after trip to the replay videos from the officials.
Literally, the final three minutes of a game takes 15 minutes or more to play.
Now there's not much we can do by the endless replays that come down to a basketball brushing against a pinky finger as it goes out of bounds, an event completely invisible to the human eye as it occurs.
Technology in the form of slo-mo recreations and stop action videos give the officials superpower vision to get a play right and we aren't ever going to be able to go back from that, despite my nightly prayers that calls for the officials to be charged only with "calling 'em like they see 'em" and, if they are wrong, we can argue it over post-game beers.
But can't we do something about the fouls … and I'm not even complaining here about the absurdly obvious disparity in fouls between West Virginia's women's team and Iowa, so one-sided that it had the social media world buzzing that the Mountaineers were robbed and questioning if the NCAA wasn't behind to make sure they a rematch of last year's final game between Clark and her Iowa Team and Reese and her LSU team that would be a ratings bonanza.
I'm not one much for conspiracy theories, but watching WVU get the short end of every stick which the NCAA can hold of no matter the sport or the situation certainly lets me understand how conspiracy theories can get started.
Basketball is one of the most receptive sports to rules changes. There's a new emphasis every year on something. They widen the lane, put in a 3-point shot, put in the 24-second clock, outlaw dunks (they actually once did that in the early Lew Alcindor days), and turn charges into blocks.
So, why not take a look at a rule that might just make the game even more enjoyable.
Baseball has its designated hitter, why can't basketball have its designated free-throw shooter?
Think about it for a minute. No more 'Hack-A-Shaq'. No more Derek Culver struggles. No more fouling the worst free throw shooters over and over late in the game to engineer a comeback.
The rule could have a "sixth player" to shoot the free throws, if you wanted, but if he missed the free throw he would have to remain in the game until the next play stoppage.
Or, you could just name a player on the floor to shoot all the free throws.
Yes, it would mess with scoring averages and scoring records, but it also might cut down considerably on the number of fouls called during the games, keeping the action flowing. And, if it cuts down on the number of fouls called, it stands to reason that star players would be able to stay on the floor more, maybe even if they get a second foul early in the first half.
Could such a rule work? Why not ask Mike Gansey, the former WVU player who currently is general manager of the Cleveland Cavaliers?
"That's interesting," Gansey said. "You know, in the G-League now, you can get one shot for two points or one shot for three points unless it's in the last two minutes. "It would be interesting for the G-League to try. I'm not on the committee with the G-League any more, but it would be something to throw out to see what people say and see if it gets any conversation."