I am hoping the Ramblers win three in a row or receive an at large bid (unlikely). Statistically speaking they probably have around a 38% chance to win the tourney. If the Ramblers play in the NIT, they have some experimental rules this year.

https://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball-me ... e-used-nit

I like a lot of these. It makes no sense that NCAA men's basketball is the only league that pays halves instead of quarters. And I think it's time to move the three point line back again if it's possible with the smaller court.

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Boo.

What's the point of picking teams for this tournament based on how they've played all year with one set of rules, and then changing the rules on them in the NIT? I think I remember that for the CBI they changed the shot clock from :35 to :30, but if I recall correctly, that was already decided as one of the changes for next year, so it didn't bother me as much.

I think these rules would hurt us.

• The three-point line will be extended by approximately 1 foot 8 inches to the same distance used by FIBA for international competition (22 feet 1.75 inches).

The three point shot is one of our competitive advantages. We're 7th in the nation in 3ptFG%, and 80% of them would be twos with the line moved out nearly two feet.

​• The free throw lane will be widened from 12 feet to 16 feet, consistent with the width used by the NBA.

This might be a slight advantage for us against taller teams, but it would only matter on missed free throws...

​• The games will be divided into four 10-minute quarters as opposed to two 20-minute halves. Teams will shoot two free throws beginning with the fifth foul of each quarter.

Also bad for us, I think. We're one of the lowest fouling teams in college basketball, and if the fouls are reset every ten minutes, that hurts us.

• The shot clock will reset to 20 seconds after an offensive rebound instead of the full 30 seconds.

Seems to me this benefits taller teams, which also usually means larger conference teams.

I think it depends on perspective. We have some decent shooters so maybe the extra distance doesn't really matter, if you can can shoot, you can shoot. It might make other teams that are just fringe 3-point shooters worse, thus helping Loyola.

The women have been using quarters and it feels weird, but it makes sense to do and will speed up the game. Not fouling will still be of benefit to teams.

The 20 seconds I think is actually good, the less time a team has to play defense the better. It is already tough enough to score against Loyola, grab an offensive rebound and now you have 10 less seconds to try and figure it out.

The 20 second shot clock will be a financial cost to some schools. Some shot clocks have to be manually reset if you don't use the default (30 seconds). Newer equipment like Loyola has does allow for this but schools with older equipment will need to upgrade. One can not possibly manually reset during live action.