Instead of moving the 3-point line, erase it. (Insider: college basketball).

Not all the games Oregon's Ernie Kent worked as a coach featured a 3-point line that was 19 feet, 9 inches removed from the goal. He spent seven years in Saudi Arabia, guided a U.S. team to the Jones Cup title in Japan and is preparing to serve as boss of this country's junior national team at a qualifying tournament in Venezuela. He knows what sort of difference it would make if the NCAA were to move its long-range arc back to the international distance.

Not enough, and too much.

"I don't think it's going to affect the guys who are really good shooters," Kent says. "That's just going to be a matter of stepping back. But it's going to take the shooting percentages down. We keep changing our game, and it's such a great game as it is. Our society loves to watch the college game maybe even more so than the pro game."

For the first time since the 3-point shot was introduced in 1986, despite more than a decade of cries that the 19-9 distance made the shot a virtual layup, the NCAA rules committee approved an experiment with a slightly longer 3-point shot. In all "exempt" games--events and tournaments such as the Maui Invitational and Preseason

! NIT--the line will be set at 20 feet, 6 inches. That is the international 3-point distance used in the Olympics and World Championships.

The experiment with moving the line is not, as one might hope, an admission the shot is too easy to be worth a 50 percent bonus. It is a corolary to the rules committee's experiment with an NBA-width foul lane, which NCAA officials coordinator Hank Nichols believes would open up room for offensive movement and allow the game to flow more freely.

Coaches contend the wider lane can't be considered without a longer 3-point shot. If an expanded key leads to defenders being stationed an extra foot or two from the goal, they can close out more quickly on 3-point shooters. Backing up those shooters mitigates that concern.