How Long Are College Basketball Games? A Complete Review about NCCA, WNBA & NBA
Amateur matches and professional basketball games alike last for a particular time-span, but multiple factors can increase their runtime. People want to learn how long basketball games last along with some factors which affect the game length. A basketball game can vary in length, however several governing bodies and the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) have authority to determine these lengths.
Basketball Games with Different Time-Duration
There are many basketball games along with different lengths, including:
1. NCCA Basketball
College basketball games, which the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCCA) and other governing bodies oversee, have 40 minutes length. However, that time contains four ten-minute quarters in women’s college games, while two twenty-minute halves in men’s college games. Moreover, the longest basketball game was held in 1981. The match, between Bradley University and University of Cincinnati, lasted 75-minute with seven overtimes.
2. High School Basketball
The length of high school basketball games and youth basketball games is 32-minute in accordance with National Federation of State High School Associations (NFSHSA). Most importantly, each splits into 4 eight-minute quarters. There is almost a 9-minute real-time length of a high school basketball game.
3. WNBA Basketball
The WNBA games contain two twenty-minute halves, for a whole game time of 40 minutes. Moreover, WNBA stands for Women’s National Basketball Association. The clock stoppages increase every game and regular-seasoned games may run from 2 to 2.5 hours. In WNBA history, the longest basketball game between the Cleveland Rockers and Orlando Miracle occurred on 8 June 2002. Consequently, the Orlando Miracle won a game by -103-99- which lasted 2 hours and 57-minute with 3 overtime periods.
4. NBA Basketball
The NBA stands for National Basketball Association. These games consist of four 12-minute quarters, for a complete length of 48-minute. Moreover, the game clock stops throughout that 48-minute period for multiple factors. These factors include time-outs, halftime and fouls. Consequently, an average NBA game may last for a total of 2 to 2.5 hours during a regular season. Similarly, the game length may reach 3 hours during the playoffs and finals. In NBA history, the longest game between the Indianapolis Olympians and Rochester Royals was 78-minute long. This basketball game was held in Rochester, New York on 6 January 1951. However, the Olympians won the match with a score of 75-73.
What Affects the Length of a Basketball Game?
Multiple clock stoppage problems are affecting the length of college basketball games.
Fouls & Injuries:
The game clock stops for free throws, out-of-bound balls and player’s injury. However, the game clock remains pending unless the ball returns to play with a jump ball or throw-in. You must learn about how fouling works in basketball games.
Time-outs:
If a WNBA or NBA team gets all its time-outs in one game, however they can easily increase the length of game by up to 9 minutes. Moreover, teams cannot use more than 3 timeouts in the 4th quarter and must take one full time-out per quarter. The rules will reduce the seventy-five-second time-out to 20 seconds, if two or more timeouts remain in the 4th quarter. Consequently, the timeouts extend high school and NCAA games by less than 2 minutes.
Shot Clock:
It is easy to determine how long a basketball team possesses a ball before the shot attempt, by using a shot clock timer. They will lose possession of the ball, if a shot clock reaches zero before the team attempts a field goal. The FIBA, the College and the WNBA basketball games all had 30-second clocks, while the NBA introduced a 24 second shot clock in 1954. Moreover, the WNBA and FIBA adopted the 24 second clock in 2000 and 2006, simultaneously.
Half-time:
The half-time period can extend college, WNBA and NBA basketball game time by 15 minutes. Moreover, the game does not extend halftime which seems lengthy to viewers while watching the games on TV. It becomes possible because of the commercial breaks that air during the halftime break.
Significance of Overtime
According to several basketball associations, the overtime works differently.
1) NCCA
There are only 5 minutes of college basketball’s overtime. Moreover, they take one timeout and have 75-second length at the beginning of every overtime period.
2) WNBA
There is only 5-minute overtime of WNBA games like the NBA. Moreover, the time between the overtime and regulation is only 120 seconds in WNBA. On the contrary, WNBA teams can substitute only one player and receive two 20-second timeouts during overtime.
3) NBA
The teams will enter a 5-minute overtime period along with 130-second between regulation and overtime play, if an NBA match has a tied score at the end of regulation. There is no limitation to the basketball players on the number of substitutions. Because every team will get two 20-second timeouts per overtime period.
How Many Timeouts Does a College Basketball Include?
Every team has 4 timeouts such as one sixty-second and three thirty-second timeouts for regulation. Moreover, each game has 8 Television timeouts, 4 in each half. Most important in all, it is possible only if a game is televised. Two of a team’s three thirty-second timeouts might take place over from the 1st to the 2nd half.
The 60-second timeout if not used in the 1st half, it may be automatically carried over to the 2nd half. Moreover, every team is receiving one 30-second timeout per overtime period. Consequently, they also have the potential to carry over any untouched timeouts from regulation into the overtime period.
Do College Basketball Games Include Four Periods?
The only NCAA Women’s basketball game contains 4 periods. On the contrary, all NCAA Men’s basketball games are split into 2 halves. During the 1951-52 and 1954-55 seasons, the NCCA Men’s basketball games are experimented with 4 periods. After each season, the rule was changed back to two 20-minute halves.
How Long Does it Take to Complete the Basketball Games?
It is important to note that an individual can watch a high school match in person faster than he can watch an NBA game on television. An NBA game can take up to 2.5 hours, while a high school game is usually over in just 1.5 hours. There are multiple reasons for that follow as:
a) Television Timeouts
Television timeouts have been a main reason due to which NBA games take much longer than high school basketball games. Many commercial breaks are needed to run television ads because all NBA games are televised. Consequently, a high school basketball game is never televised, but with the little exception of 2 powerhouse programs on ESPN every once in a great while.
b) Amount of Timeouts
Every basketball game is allotted 7 timeouts during an NBA game. In addition to this, every timeout can last up to seventy five seconds. During the high school basketball games, every team has been allotted 5 timeouts, while two of these are only thirty-second long. Due to the number of timeouts alone, that can equate to an NBA game having 4 more stoppages of play as compared to a high school game.
c) Amount of Minutes
The high school basketball games are only 30 minutes long, while NBA games are 48 minutes long. However, these sixty minutes do not sound like a huge difference. Consequently, that equates to the NBA games being 50% longer than high school games, when we break it down math-wise.
Conclusion
People want to learn about how long college basketball games last. There are different criteria for different categories of basketball games. A college basketball game consists of two halves and further split into 4 quarters. An NBA game takes a bit more time for each quarter as compared to college or high school basketball games. For more information go through https://thelifonews.com/.
FAQs
How Many Minutes does it take to Complete Each Half in College Basketball?
A college basketball game is run with 2 halves, but has 4 quarters. There are just two 20-minute halves which can be played.
How Many Minutes Does a Basketball Game Have in Each Quarter?
The duration of each quarter is usually 8-minute. However, the duration of quarters can also vary at high school level. Each quarter has a 12-minute duration in the NBA game. The length of quarters is 10-minutes in Women’s college and International basketball games.
How Many Quarters in a College Basketball Game?
A basketball game is made up of 4 quarters. In an NBA game, every quarter lasts around 12-minute, making for a conflict whose total duration is 48-minute.
