Basketball is a fast-paced team sport that requires endurance, skill and a quick eye to catch all the details. Like in most team sports, a timeout allows the coach and players time to clarify a strategy, attend to an equipment failure or injury and to otherwise communicate with each other. Timeout rules in basketball vary, depending on the association in which each team plays, the Federation Internationale de Basketball or FIBA for international play, the NBA and WNBA professional basketball, and the NCAA for college players.
Who Calls a Timeout
International basketball players governed by FIBA must always have a coach call a timeout for the team. Professional players in the men's and women's divisions can call a timeout themselves. NCAA basketball teams must have either their head coach or a player call for the interruption.
Duration of Timeouts
FIBA rules specify that a timeout lasts no longer than 60 seconds. NBA rules allow for a single 20-second timeout in addition to the full 60-second break. WNBA players are allowed 120 seconds for a full timeout as well as a 20-second interruption. The duration of an NCAA basketball timeout is either 75 or 30 seconds.
Number of Timeouts
FIBA rules call for two timeouts in the first half of the game and three in the second half. If the game goes into overtime, each team can call one timeout for each extra period. WNBA players are awarded one 2-minute timeout in each half with one 20-second timeout in the first half and two 20-second breaks in the second half of the game. NBA timeouts are limited to six 60-second interruptions and one 20-second time out for each half.
NCAA teams use timeouts differently depending on whether their game is televised. A non-televised game is allowed six timeouts per game; four are 75 seconds and two are 30 seconds each. Games that are broadcast revert to a timeout schedule more consistent with NBA or FIBA play, and consist of one 1-minute timeout and four 30-second timeouts per game. All but one of the timeouts that are not used in the first half of an NCAA basketball game can be carried over to the second half. Timeouts in the NBA, WNBA and FIBA do not carry over.
Opportunity
A timeout opportunity is limited to certain moments during a basketball game, including after a single free throw or the last in a succession of free throws is shot, when the ball is dead and the clock has stopped, or after a successful field goal. Only the non-scoring team can request a timeout after a field goal has been scored.
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