With the goal of improving game flow and reducing injuries, the National Federation of State High School Associations – NFHS – adopted new rules in the off-season that will dramatically alter how boys’ and girls’ basketball will play out this season across the country, including right here in New Jersey.

Exactly how is yet to be determined. Check back in March, when the season’s over.

The main gist is this: The days of the one-and-one are gone. Seven fouls in a half for the bonus, ten for the double-bonus? All kaput.

Beginning this season, there will be no more one-and-one foul shots on non-shooting fouls. Foul totals will reset each quarter, and teams will shoot two shots starting with the fifth foul by their opponent in each quarter.

The changes were adopted in May by the NFHS, which sets nationwide standards for rules, and which the NJSIAA follows. You can read or original story on the changes by clicking here. Changes were also made to the location of throw-ins, and some tweaks were made to permitted undershirt colors and uniform rules as well.

The NFHS believes not only will it improve game flow, but cut down on injuries, noting studies showed higher rates of injuries on rebounding situation.

Not everyone is sold. St. Thomas Aquinas boys’ basketball coach Bob Turco says he thinks teams trailing late in a game will be more likely to foul, and start fouling earlier.

“It changes your philosophy of when to foul,” says Turco. “It’s going to be a big adjustment in your philosophy both offensively and defensively. It’ll be a big adjustment and I believe can, and will, change how most of us coach down the stretch.”

But Rutgers Prep veteran girls’ coach Mary Klinger says, “I love it.”

“In prior years, you could get in early foul trouble in the first quarter. Here they wipe it clean and you start fresh,” she says. “I like that.”

Klinger also things it’ll take away some of the frustration fouls late in a game, since it’s automatically two shots from the fifth foul on in the fourth quarter.

Couldn’t it make it harder for teams to come back? “You’re assuming they make the foul shots,” Klinger adds.

“The statistics show the game is shorter with the two fouls,” says Klinger.

“I think it’ll be a good thing overall,” says Aquinas girls’ coach Tim Corrigan, who played scholastically at St. Joseph-Metuchen, and spent last year as an assistant after a couple of seasons heading up Watchung Hills.

“I think coaches will probably just have to make a little bit of adjustment at the end of a game,” Corrigan says.

“(Strategy) might vary game to game,” he adds, depending on how good an opponent shoots from the foul line. He also believes it’ll cut down on teams having to foul on end to get to the bonus to begin with.

Corrigan ultimately thinks it’ll improve the flow of the game. And when a game is called tightly, the fouls resetting at the end of each quarter will limit that. Essentially, a team could commit eight fouls in a half without the other team going into the bonus, assuming there are no more than four per quarter.

Spotswood boys’ coach Steve Mate – the longest tenured coach in the GMC, now in his 29th season – says it will definitely change things.

“It is going to be a little more difficult down the stretch when you might have to foul, Mate says. Instead of it being a one-and-one, you know they’re getting two shots. They’re more relaxed on the line. I’m just not sure if that’s the thing that should be happening.

“I don’t see it as a positive,” Mate says. “I just think it’s something that was done. I’m not sure why.”

And he says it’s hard to judge based on scrimmages, when you’re not so much worried about winning, but developing your team.