The NCAA Men's and Women's Basketball Rules committees have approved waiver requests from 10 conferences permitting the use of electronically transmitted data to the bench for coaching purposes during the 2019-20 season.
Teams have the option of using the experimental rule during conference regular season or tournament games only. Electronically transmitted data also will be allowed to be used in the National Association of Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame Classic that will be played today and Tuesday in Kansas City, Missouri.
The conferences that will have the option to use technology on the benches of their men's and women's basketball games are:
- Atlantic Coast Conference (men's and women's regular season and conference tournaments).
- American Athletic Conference (men's and women's conference tournaments).
- Atlantic 10 Conference (men's and women's regular season and conference tournaments).
- Big Ten Conference (men's and women's conference tournaments).
- Big 12 Conference (women's regular season and conference tournament).
- Conference USA (men's and women's regular season and conference tournament).
- Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (men's and women's regular season and conference tournament).
- Mountain West Tournament (men's and women's regular season and conference tournaments).
- Southeastern Conference (men's and women's conference tournaments).
- Sun Belt Conference (men's and women's regular season and conference tournaments).
The waivers were granted by both rules committees under the following conditions:
- All members of a conference must agree to participate in this rules experiment.
- To receive live data/statistics in the bench area, the use of handheld devices such as a laptop computer or tablet (but not cellphone) is permitted. For men's basketball, video is not permitted in the bench area. For women's basketball, the use of video transmission to the bench area is not permitted, but the use of preloaded video, per the present women's rules, will be allowed. Therefore, these devices must be clearly identified as receiving the permitted data.
- The conference's technology partner must ensure that all devices being used in the bench area remain in single app mode during competition. All other apps and communication must be deactivated during game competition.
- All conference teams must have the same hardware (type and number of devices).
- If one team's device fails to function, the opponent may not use the equipment during the outage.
Each of the conferences have agreed to share data collection with the NCAA Men's and Women's Basketball Rules committees so it can be analyzed to gauge the impact that the experimental rule has on the game.