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LAS VEGAS -- Dr. James Naismith created the original 13 rules for basket ball in 1892, outlining the method of scoring, what constitutes a foul and how to determine which team wins.Those rules evolved as the game grew.The peach baskets were replaced by rims and backboards were added. Team sizes were trimmed from nine to five players, the name of the game became one word. Players were allowed to dribble the ball, scoring increased from one to two points for a made basket.Other rules were added later: A midcourt line to prevent stalling, a 3-second area to keep offensive players from camping around the basket, goaltending to stop tall players from swatting nearly every shot away from the basket.But as basketball expanded into multiple levels, the rules spider webbed into varying directions.International basketball developed different rules than the NBA. College basketball had its own tweaks, even from mens to womens. High school and youth basketball created their own sets of rules to suit players in those age groups.Everyone is playing the same basic game, but not always under the same regulations.FIBA, the NBA, college and high school, I wish we all had the same rules, said Nevada coach Eric Musselman, who spent nine years as an NBA coach. To me, its too confusing for the average fan to watch an NBA when theres a 24-second clock in the NBA, then you watch the NCAA and theres a different clock. Or you watch a womens game and theres four quarters and the mens game has two halves. Weve got to make it simple for the fan.It can be confusing. Depending on what level the game is being played, the 3-point line, the shot clock, even the rim and court sizes could all be different.Take timing.FIBA plays four 10-minute quarters while the NBA has four 12-minute quarters. Mens college basketball has two 20-minute halves, but the women play four 10-minute quarters. The WNBA used to have 20-minute halves, but now has 10-minute quarters. High school games have four 8-minute quarters.Shot clock, same thing. FIBA, the NBA and WNBA all have a 24-second shot clock. NCAA men and women have a 30-second shot clock, though the men were 35 seconds before the 2015-16 season. In high school basketball, some states have a shot clock, others dont.Even timeouts are widely varied; type, duration, number allowed, who can call one.I cant understand why we cant have world rules, New Mexico coach Craig Neal said. Everybody plays by the same line, everybody plays by the same shot clock, the same ball. To me, thats kind of confusing.Distances can vary, too.FIBA has a trapezoid lane that widens from 12 to 19 feet. The NBA and WNBA lane is 16 feet straight across, but the NCAA lane is 12 feet, same as high schools.The NBA has the deepest 3-point line at 23 feet, 9 inches. FIBAs line is 20-6, just like the WNBA, and the NCAA line is 19-9, just like high schools.In North American sports, changes are often made in ball sizes, court/field dimensions, goal sizes. Depending on the age group, the basketball rim can be 10, 9 or 8 feet high.We make more modifications for the sports than any other country, Wake Forest coach Danny Manning said. I just think weve got to get to a point where the rules are the rules. Internationally, you have the FIBA rules. Those are the rules.The key is finding a set of rules that will work everyone. That wont be easy.For one, the games are different.Basketball, as much as any other sport, has a massive gap in talent from one level to the next. NBA players are bigger, stronger, faster, play more above the rim and can shoot from farther out than anyone else, even on the international level. For them to have the same rules as, say, a 12-and-under rec league team may not make that much sense.I think there needs to be a combination of international play in the NBA and college rules, Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said. I dont think you definitely go to NBA rules. I dont feel that way because its a different game, a different caliber of athlete.Theres also an issue of getting FIBA, the NBA, NCAA and National Federation of High School Associations to collaborate. That may be next to impossible.Everybodys going to make their own decision, ACC Commissioner John Swofford said. The NBAs going to do what the NBA wants to do, the Olympic committee is going to do what they want to do. But I think its worth considering.---AP Sports Writer Dave Skretta in Kansas City, Missouri, contributed to this story. For more AP college basketball: http://collegebasketball.ap.org Hydro Flask Kinder . The parade and rally were held to celebrate the Saskatchewan Roughriders 45-23 win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Sunday in the CFLs championship game. Hydro Flask 40 OZ . -- Ryan Getzlaf grabbed the three pucks wrapped in tape and held them up to his chest in the Anaheim Ducks dressing room for a celebration nine seasons in the making. http://www.hydroflaskkorting.com/ . The parade and rally were held to celebrate the Saskatchewan Roughriders 45-23 win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Sunday in the CFLs championship game. Hydro Flask Korting . Calgary scored on the first shift, and Michael Cammalleri scored twice as the Flames cruised to a 5-2 win over the Washington Capitals on Saturday. Hydro Flask Dop . Both players have lower body injuries that will keep them out of the lineup until at least January 31, which is the first game they can be activated from IR. In winter Australians love their footy. And this Olympic year we will all suddenly become experts in swimming and rowing and BMX and the like. Scores from a Test in Colombo or Galle might seep in at the edge of the public consciousness, mentioned late in the nightly news bulletin. A flicker of recognition will register when the names are mentioned. Did they say Warner? Starc? Theres cricket on, is there?So what hope does an Australia A series have of generating any attention at all? The same hope that Australia has of winning an Olympic medal in handball. And yet it is well worth keeping an eye on Australia A this winter in their four Tests against South Africa A and India A, and a quadrangular one-day series. These matches in Queensland will feature a young group of men who could just be Australias batting future.To the fair-weather cricket fan, the last Sheffield Shield season was as normal: their state either won the title or didnt, and that was the extent of their interest. If a ball is bowled and Channel Nine didnt show it, was it bowled at all? Yes, it was, it and 56,000 others like it. And as the more ardent fans know, it was a season of quiet revolution, a summer of breakthroughs for a number of young batsmen.For some years the Sheffield Shield has been dominated by older batsmen. At different times runs have been piled up by Adam Voges, Michael Klinger, Ed Cowan, Marcus North, Chris Rogers, even Ricky Ponting in his valedictory season topped the run tally. The occasional young batsman came through, Joe Burns or Usman Khawaja, say, but they were the exceptions.Two summers ago, only one of the Sheffield Shields top ten run scorers was 24 or under - Cameron Bancroft - and just as significantly, six of the top ten were in their thirties - Voges, Klinger, Cowan, Shaun Marsh, Rob Quiney and Callum Ferguson. The selectors rewarded Voges with a Test call-up, but they must have wished there were more youthful batsmen applying the pressure. *Head was withdrawn from the squad to play county cricket with YorkshireLast season, there were. Of the Shields top ten run scorers in the 2015-16 summer, seven were aged 24 or under - Bancroft, Travis Dean, Peter Handscomb, Matt Renshaw, Kurtis Patterson, Travis Head, and Sam Heazlett - and only one was in his thirties - George Bailey. And the next two on the list outside the top ten - Alex Ross and Jake Lehmann - were also in the under-24 bracket.Every one of those young batsmen was named in the Australia A squad, although Head was later withdrawn so that he could take up a county contract with Yorkshire. Also picked were Marcus Stoinis, 26, who was ninth on the Shield run tally; Chris Lynn, 26, a Test batsman-in-waiting whose past two summers have been curtailed by injury; and wicketkeeper Sam Whiteman, 24, averaging 37 in first-class cricket.That is why this winters Australia A matches will be so fascinating. How will this group of young batsmen handle the step up? Who will thrive? Who will succumb to nerves? Bear in mind that this time last year Dean and Heazlett had not even made their first-class debuts, while Renshaw, Lehmann and Ross had played just one, two and three games respectively. These are batsmen who have emerged rapidly.None more so than Dean, who last year was completing a greens-keeping apprenticeship at Werribee Park Golf Club when he was handed his first Cricket Victoria contract. The states new coach, David Saker, was a key backer of Dean and when the young opener was given his first opportunity in the Sheffield Shield side, he did not disappoint.Against Queensland at the MCG, Dean became the first man ever to score a century in each innings of his Sheffield Shield debut. And both innings - 154 and 109 - were unbeaten, which meant he was on the field for every ball of the match. Dean, who is now 24, went on to play every game for Victoria and scored 111 and 54 in their Sheffield Shield final triumph, finishing second on the Shield run tally.The other man who began the summer uncapped was 20-year-old Heazlett, who like Dean plundered a century on debut. He wasnt far off matching Deans feat of a hundred in each innings on debut, scoring 129 and 78 against Tasmania at Bellerive Oval. Heazlett, who is studying to be a physiotherapist, finished with 649 Shield runs for the summer; only Matthew Hayden andd Graeme Hick enjoyed more prolific debut seasons for Queensland.dddddddddddd.His state team-mate, the opening batsman Renshaw, finished the summer as Queenslands leading Shield run scorer and fifth on the overall competition tally. Renshaw, now 20, quietly accumulated 738 runs for the Shield season and proved himself a similar batsman to Western Australias Bancroft, a grafting opener with immense concentration. Renshaws maiden hundred, scored in Mackay, was a near nine-hour 170. To find such a young man with such an old-school approach to batting, and the talent to match, is potentially significant for Australias selectors. Renshaw, like Bancroft, looms as a Test opener of the future. He cites Alastair Cook as a batsman he would like to emulate, and like Cook, Renshaw was born in England. He still holds a British passport, but is firmly part of the Australian set-up now.The other batsman Renshaw idolised as a young kid was Michael Hussey, and there is a tinge of Hussey elsewhere in this squad as well. Lehmann also nominates Hussey as a batsman he looked up to as a child. And what a childhood it was. Like Shaun and Mitchell Marsh, Lehmann had the rare privilege of spending time in the Australian dressing rooms as a kid, as the son of Darren Lehmann.But his name and background naturally led to higher expectations, and when he was chosen for his South Australia debut last year, there were no doubt some wondered if he was being favoured. Three centuries last summer, including 205 against Tasmania in Hobart, silenced any doubters. Lehmann, now 24, might bat a bit like his father but he is very much his own man.His South Australia team-mate Ross, also 24, is the only one of these Australia A batsmen who is yet to make a first-class hundred. He has come close, though, with a best of 92 not out and six fifties to his name, all last summer. Ross also impressed in the BBL, particularly through his use of the sweep shot, and he was named the Bradman Young Cricketer of the Year for 2016.Those are the really new faces. Then there is Handscomb, highly rated for many years, third on the Shield run tally last season with 784, including 112 and 61 not out in a Man-of-the-Match performance in Victorias successful Shield final. Handscomb was 24 when last season ended and has since turned 25, still young in batting terms, and had his first taste of international cricket as an injury replacement in Australias ODI squad in England last year.Bancroft, 23, has also been named in an Australia squad already, though for the Test tour of Bangladesh last year, which was cancelled for security reasons. Another solid summer for Western Australia - 732 runs at 45.75, including three hundreds - has done him no harm. David Warner and Joe Burns are the incumbent Test openers but Bancroft is waiting patiently, fitting for a batsman of his temperament.Patterson, 23, has finally started to live up to the promise he showed when he struck 157 on New South Wales debut at the age of 18 back in late 2011, at the time becoming the youngest batsman ever to score a Sheffield Shield century. He was sixth on the Shield run list last summer, with 737, including two centuries.The one member of the Australia A batting group who was much further down the Shield run list in 2015-16 was Whiteman, but then he is primarily chosen as wicketkeeper anyway. That he can bat is unquestionable, and this is a perfect opportunity for him to position himself close behind Peter Nevill in the Test keeping queue.And then there are the two (slightly) older members of this Australia A batting outfit. Stoinis has played for Australia in ODI and T20 cricket, and keeps scoring well for Victoria in all formats. Lynn is arguably the best batsman of the lot, but shoulder injuries in the past two summers have curtailed his run-making ability. This is a terrific chance to push his case for higher honours.All of these men will get the opportunity this winter to test themselves against India A or South Africa A, or both. And the Australian sporting public might not notice them just yet, but dont be surprised if one or more of these young batsmen find their way into an Australia team sooner rather than later. ' ' '