UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON guard Koby Brea was wide open as he sprinted up the court during a game against Rhode Island earlier this season. As Brea caught a pass and took a quick dribble to set himself behind the 3-point line, Rhode Island coach Archie Miller ran on the court, almost bumping into him.
After the play, referees hit Miller with a warning for breaking one of college basketball's most frequently ignored rules, which requires coaches to stay off the court and in the coaching box behind their sideline. As it turned out, Miller's violation did not affect the outcome of the play, nor the Jan. 20 game: Brea hit a cutting teammate for an easy dunk, and Dayton went on to blow out Rhode Island, 96-62.
Miller's action was particularly egregious, but he's far from the only violator of the coaching box rule this season. Marquette's Shaka Smart executed some impeccable defensive slides as he cut off a Creighton ball handler during a heated Big East matchup in late December. And Auburn coach Bruce Pearl was on the weak side near the 3-point line when a Vanderbilt player bumped into him as he attempted to drift to an open spot in the corner during a January game.
Both Smart and Pearl escaped without so much as a warning.
Perhaps it's the pressure of the game or that the tunnel vision many coaches have renders them blind to the architecture of the court. Whatever the reason, there has been an apparent uptick in the flagrant disregard for the rule keeping coaches within the box during game play.
The transgressions committed by Miller, Smart and Pearl are just a sample. This year -- as in seasons past -- coaches regularly have ventured onto the court and into the action, defying a clear dictate in the NCAA rulebook: Coaches must remain in the coaching box, a 38-foot-long area behind the sideline on their end of the court. Breaking the rule can draw a warning from officials, and then on a second offense, a technical foul. Referees also can give technical fouls to coaches who complain to them while standing outside the box.
However, referees rarely make the call. The NCAA does not track the number of times referees issue technical fouls for coaching box violations, but former coaches and referees say they are seldom called -- something they say has been true since the rule was enacted before the 1984-85 season to rein in coaches who freely roamed the sideline.
Through the years, the NCAA has periodically made tougher enforcement of the rule a point of emphasis, but to little avail. Before the current season, the NCAA rulebook listed enforcement of bench decorum and the coaching box rule "a major officiating concern." And in 2017, the NCAA even expanded the box from 28 feet to 38 feet to make it easier for coaches to communicate with their players, particularly when the game action is on the far end of the court.
Yet, coaches continue to violate the rule with impunity. A slew of rule violators have been spotlighted on social media this season, prompting the NCAA to plead with officials for better enforcement of the rule once again as March Madness approaches.
The NCAA's national coordinator of men's basketball officials Chris Rastatter, sent a January memo to conference officiating coordinators, who oversee referees, strongly reminding them that coaches should not venture out of the coaching box or onto the court for any reason during live play, according to the NCAA's spokesperson Greg Johnson.
The NCAA Women's Basketball Rules Committee, concerned about what it called a rise in bench decorum issues, highlighted enforcement of the coaching box rule in the "NCAA Women's Rules Book" published before the current season.
"Coaches are expected to remain in the coaching box," the book says. "It's not like there's any gray or room for interpretation," said a former referee who asked to remain anonymous.
"What happens is officials, myself included, always applied grace in what would seem to be minor violations. If they're a step out but they're coaching their kids and they're not interfering with continuous play, why call it? You don't want to sentence somebody to life in prison for stealing a pencil, right?"
Tom O'Connor, who spent 35 years refereeing basketball games, including NCAA Division I contests in the New England area, agreed, saying he was reluctant to call coaching box violations unless they were so disruptive that they affected the game.
"When I officiated, I would lean more toward leniency," said O'Connor, who is now executive director of the Collegiate Basketball Officials Association. "The coaches work 24/7 with these players, and we're there for 40 minutes. I think there are other parts of the game that officials feel like they want to control. As long as we respect the game, I think everybody wants to coexist."
Often, coaching box violations are born of good intentions. Some coaches find themselves out of the box when they are trying to communicate with players over the roar of the crowd. They might want to call a certain play, or simply emphasize basics like the need to be active on defense. Other times a coach might want to get an official's attention to call a time out.
Nonetheless, breaking the rule could have legitimate consequences. What if a coach bumps into a player on the court, causing an injury? What if a coach drifts out of the box to relay a winning play to his team over the noise of the crowd? Would that create an unfair advantage? Conversely, would it be overly punitive to call a technical foul on a coach who ventures onto the court while a close game is coming down to the wire?
Dan Engelstad, head coach at Mount St. Mary's University, said he senses that referees are reluctant to call coaching box violations because they do not want to insert themselves into the game unnecessarily. "As much as possible the refs try to not have a big impact on the game for something like that," Engelstad said. "They just want to make sure we're being respectful."
Gary Williams, who was a head coach for 33 years, including stints at Boston College, Ohio State and the University of Maryland, said he could not remember being assessed a technical foul for a coaching box violation, even though he was an intense coach who worked up a lather of sweat during games and by his own admission, often stepped outside the box.
"As long as you're coaching your team, what's the difference whether you're inside where a line is on the court or not?" Williams told ESPN in an interview. "That really doesn't mean anything."
Williams explained that in the heat of competition the lines defining the coaching box were far from his mind.
"You are not going to coach a game worried about where you are on some line," Williams said. "If the crowd is really loud and you are trying to make a point to one of your players, you might be outside the box and not be aware of it. A good referee would say, 'What are you doing? Get behind the line.' And the game would go on."
Williams noted that many of his coaching rivals in the 1980s and 1990s would habitually step outside the coaching box, often with the only penalty being a referee admonishing them to get back in. But these days, with the ever-growing popularity of social media, coaching box violations are drawing much more scrutiny.
A short video clip of Texas A&M coach Buzz Williams hopping up and down onto the middle of the court with his hands above his head signaling for a timeout, as he nearly collided with a Tennessee player during a Feb. 10 game, drew more than 354,000 views on X.
Williams was issued a bench warning, but no technical foul, for that violation. "Coaches can't do that. We know it," Tennessee coach Rick Barnes told reporters later. He added: "I guess what I will start telling my players is if somebody's on the court just run over them so that way it's an obvious technical foul. But you don't want to do that. I don't want anybody to get hurt. But it just can't happen."
Barnes said SEC officials reached out to him after the game and told him the play was handled incorrectly by the game referees -- something he said was communicated to schools throughout the conference.
Coaches of the women's game also have been guilty of crossing the line. The most notorious violator may be LSU Coach Kim Mulkey, who is always a colorful presence on the sideline. During last year's women's national championship game, Mulkey ignited a social media bonfire after she repeatedly left the coaching box and stood on the court to yell instructions to her squad.
Even as referees are being called out for ignoring coaching box violations, they also are sometimes pilloried when they tightly enforce the rule.
Baylor coach Scott Drew was ejected for the first time in his 22-year head-coaching career during a Feb. 3 game against Iowa State after drawing two technical fouls while outside the box. On the first, he stepped on the court in front of his bench as he seemed to be yelling defensive instructions to his team. On the second foul, he appeared to be talking to a referee while kneeling just outside the coaching box.
The ejection prompted a postgame outburst from Baylor athletic director Mack Rhoades. "Tonight was an embarrassment for this league," Rhoades told reporters. "We have the best basketball league in the country, and the officiating tonight did not match it. Period. End of story."
Finding the balance between proper bench decorum and giving coaches enough leeway to be animated as they do their jobs, is something that basketball officials have struggled with for decades.
During the upcoming NCAA tournament, that tension will come under close inspection. Game officials, who are private contractors paid on a per-game basis, are graded on how well they call a game and uphold the rules. Evaluators watch each tournament game to assess whether referees make the right calls, communicate well with coaches, and adroitly handle any controversial situations that may arise. The ones with the best grades continue working as the tournament progresses.
"The rule is there," said the former referee who asked not to be identified. "But for whatever reason, some officials just prefer to ignore it. Those people you don't typically see deep into the tournament."
John Griffin III, head coach at Bucknell University, cut his teeth as an assistant coach at St. Joseph's University, which is part of Philadelphia's Big 5, a group of schools known for drawing lively crowds.
The schools also have had their share of fiery coaches who often treated the coaching box as a suggestion, not a rule. Griffin, who was an All-Patriot League guard at his alma mater in the early 2000s, knows firsthand that it can be hard for players to hear instructions from the bench, particularly when crowds are amped up.
In those moments, it is tempting for coaches to drift outside the box. But he has come to see the wisdom of obeying the rule.
"It is really about upholding the dignity and the public persona of the game," Griffin said. "I have personally learned to stay in the box. That is essentially part of the respect that has to be there between officials and coaches."