Rules have changed hoops since The Perfect Game

End of an era. It's a phrase tossed around in sports all the time, but how often can anyone pinpoint the end? In college basketball, it's obvious. Villanova beat Georgetown in The Perfect Game 25 years ago. That night in Rupp Arena wasn't just a monumental moment in the sport's history.

The next game - to open the NCAA season in 1985-86 - had a shot clock.

"So much has changed," said St. Joseph's coach Phil Martelli. "So much stems from the shot clock."

A season later, another tectonic plate shifted when college basketball added a three-point line.

Has any other sport made two fundamental changes in such a short time?

"Yeah, the baskets are 10 feet, and the ball is round, but it's not the same sport," said Jim Lynam, who coached St. Joseph's in the old era. "It's that dramatic - it looks like the same sport, but it's not."

Think of Saturday's NCAA upsets - the one of local importance, when St. Mary's knocked out Villanova - and, in a far bigger shocker, when Northern Iowa took out Kansas, the tournament's top seed. The lesser seeds didn't stand around shooting threes all game, but their knockout punches were delivered from long distance.

Or go back a day earlier, when Cornell took care of Temple. Where was the greatest pressure applied? All around the three-point line.

A game that began with peach baskets always has had Darwinian aspects. It wasn't just strategies that changed. The players themselves adapted and evolved.

"The game's faster - people play faster," Martelli said. "I think the kids have become more multitalented kids, as opposed to, this is a point guard, this is a shooting guard. . . . The bigger kids have gotten better with the ball, they want to play with the ball. Guards have become more score-oriented, and it appeals to kids. The appeal to play faster is part of this whole recruiting world that we're in."