Are games tooooo long?

[AUFC]

Media timeouts are fixed at 60 seconds. In the men's game each team gets three 30 second timeouts and one 60 second timeout. It's the same for women.

Edit: on mobile, this was already addressed, sorry

 

[78pike]

KenPom's newsletter brings up an interesting topic for discussion.

He says games are getting longer and has some data to back up the point:

2020 1:59:38
2021 1:58:49
2022 2:00:33
2023 2:01:03
2024 2:02:21
2025 2:04:35

Games on ESPN are 2:08.

My thoughts are that it takes longer for players to get to the FT line in the last minutes of tight games. KenPom says replays are not the issue. One change I think would speed up games is to let offended teams decline FTs in the final 2 minutes of games on non-shooting fouls.

Our most five recent men's games:

Clem 2:06
FSU 2:12
VT 1:58
ND 2:05
UL 2:02

For the women:

ND 1:40
Clem 1:45
UVA 1:45
Duke 1:52
Miami 1:48

Something is clearly different and it is not the amount of clock time.

It's all the referee reviews looking at tape and then conferencing among each other. Some games it feels like it happens 4 or 5 times a game.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

Double overtime games seem really long.

 

[cpf2001]

Double overtime games seem really long.

If only there was a way to make it even longer than 2OT...

 

[cpf2001]

Maybe 3OT is long enough, though!