NCAA used to prohibit certain jersey numbers in basketball?

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A crazy rule of the sort used to exist in Louisiana high school basketball back in the 1970's. The players on the home team had to wear even-numbered jerseys, and the visiting team had to wear odd-numbered jerseys.

So a player who wore number 12 for home games would wear 11 or 13 for road games. Maybe there was a good reason, but I don't know what it was.

ETA: The player also had to raise his hand when he was called for a foul.

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And what was the logic only allowing blocks of 5?

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If you read the article, the logic is there. I don't agree with it, but the rationale is spelled out

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Rule 1, Section 22, Article 7, Clause b. 2 currently allows numbers to include 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, making it easy for officials to signal fouls. Their right hand indicates the first digit and left hand indicates the second digit.

The proposal would let players wear Nos. 0-99 this season, bringing college basketball in line with the NBA after adhering to the same rules as the National Federation of State High School Associations since the 1960s.

While some might argue the change could cause miscommunication between the official and scorer’s table, with the hand signals for No. 9 possibly being mistaken for the No. 54, NBA officials don’t seem to have those issues.

Another uniform-related proposal includes no longer requiring players to submit a waiver to wear religious headwear on the court. Both rules will be reviewed by the NCAA Playing Rules Committee on June 8.

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I heard this rule a while back. I was told it was so the ref could signal the fouling players by using both hands. So 15 would be 1 on one hand and 5 on the other.

Yes. Everyone who followed college basketball with any degree of interest over the last 50+ years or so knew this was a rule. That's why I was surprised when I saw Wright with his #6 jersey.


I don't know if the NBA ever had the rule. But if it did, it went away a long time ago.

I get the rationale for the rule because it may be difficult for the score keeper to hear the number of who the foul is on in a loud arena. That said, the NBA seems to manage just fine. The only real difference is the ref will now have to go to the scorers table to tell the scorer who the foul is on rather than just signal...which is not that big of a deal.

It’s because officials only have 5 fingers to signal fouls.

nm