NCAA Says a Long-Awaited Change Could Come to Men's College Basketball

The women's game made this change in 2015.

The NCAA has progressed in discussing a change from halves to quarters for men's college basketball. / Mitchell Leff-Imagn Images

Change has been the theme of the spring in college athletics, but one potential adjustment for men's college basketball would bring Division I hoops in line with much of the rest of the sport.

Men's college basketball games have had two 20-minute halves, rather than four quarters, since 1954. While the women's game switched to quarters in 2015, men's hoops remains a holdout—one that could be coming to an end in the ensuing years.

The NCAA announced that its playing rules oversight panel has approved "changes to help enhance the flow of the game" for the upcoming 2025–26 season on Tuesday. Along with the addition of coach's challenges for a number of plays and specific areas of focus for officials intended to improve game flow, the committee has recommended the creation of a working group to further discuss a move to four quarters.

"The committee realizes there are hurdles to implementing the quarter format to the game, including the structuring of media timeouts to accommodate commercial inventory," the NCAA release reads, signaling that this specific change would likely come down the road. It aims for feedback from the conferences by next year.

Other rules changes include an expansion of use of replay, changes to the continuous motion rule and directives to officials to "address delay-of-game tactics, limit time spent at the monitor, improve game administration efficiency and reduce physicality."

---

More College Basketball on Sports Illustrated

feed