The 2025-26 season is poised to introduce new rules for women’s college basketball, aimed at empowering coaches. Hopefully, this enhances the overall flow of the game.
This week, the NCAA Women’s Basketball Rules Committee is meeting in Indianapolis and announced on Friday that it will recommend a video review challenge for coaches starting next season. For this proposal to take effect, it must get the green light from the NCAA Play Rules Monitoring Panel, which will convene on June 10th.
Interestingly, the NCAA Men’s Basketball Rules Committee has also put forward similar Coach Challenge Rules.
If approved, coaches will be able to challenge decisions regarding backcourt violations and whether a change in team possession occurred before a foul related to free throws. They can also contest whether the correct player was assessed a foul.
However, referees can only begin reviewing these calls if the foul was assigned to the right player; it’s solely up to the coaches to initiate any challenges.
To challenge a call, coaches won’t need to call a timeout. But if they lose the challenge and have no timeouts left, their team will incur a “management technical foul for excessive timeouts.”
Nikki Collen, Baylor’s head coach and chair of the Rules Committee, expressed hope that these changes will advance the game’s rhythm. The challenge rules stemmed from trial runs during the WBIT.
“The committee was focused on the pace of play and the frequency of reviews in the final moments of games,” Collen mentioned in a statement. “By allowing coaches to challenge calls instead of reviewing what officials have already decided, we can correct calls while enhancing the flow, especially at the end of games.”
Additionally, the committee proposes other rule adjustments, such as resetting the shot clock to 20 seconds when a team is awarded possession after a dead ball, removing the requirement that jerseys must be tucked in, and clarifying how jump stops are completed when players land simultaneously.
Moreover, if a player participates in a game while another is under suspension, both the head coach and that player will face suspension in the following game.
