Well the late game situation I have been tracking since day one at the high school, college and NBA levels is starting to raise some eyebrows and get people talking (and thinking).
Especially after Saturday where Syracuse was in a “Foul or Defend” decided to play defense against Villanova. The ‘Cuse, known for their 2-3 jumping-jack zone gave up a three to send the contest into overtime.
The Orange lost the game in the extra session.
My guy Mike DeCourcy of the Sporting News wrote about it today. (Thanks for the mention Mike)
A friend of mine, Steve Finamore, the head coach at East Lansing High in Michigan, has been charting these situations throughout the season 2012-13 season. He became fixated on the issue after twice choosing not to foul last season and giving up tying 3s—against the same team, to the same player, from the identical spot on the floor.
According to Finamore’s numbers, there have been 279 total situations this season in which a team was ahead three points with the other team in possession of the ball and seven seconds or less to play.
— 259 times the team did not foul relied on its defense; 46 allowed a game-tying 3-pointer that forced overtime. That’s a 17.7 percent failure rate.
— 20 times the team chose to foul on purpose to prevent the 3-pointer; only one, Kent State in a game against Valparaiso, was tied by a team that rebounded a free-throw miss and converted a basket. That’s a 5 percent failure rate.
As far as Finamore is concerned, this season’s failure rate of the fouling strategy should be zero percent.
“Upon further review, the officials blew this,” he said. “A Valpo player committed a lane violation, which was not called.” He added that Kent coach Rob Senderoff told him he still would call for a foul the next time he encountered this situation.
Couple of hours later while watching Kentucky and LSU, John Calipari was up three with 3.1 to play decided to foul LSU. The Tigers missed the first free-throw, Cats get the rebound, get fouled and make two free throws.
I saw Cal in the huddle go over the strategy, I read his lips; he mentioned “foul.”
Sure enough the Cats fouled. Game over, thanks for coming, arrive home safely. Kentucky wins!
Kentucky fouling is the 21st time a team utilized the “foul” strategy and won the game without going to overtime. Keep in mind, the team trailing has to make the first free-throw, miss the second, get the rebound and score. All you have to do is rebound the miss. If you get fouled, go down the other end and sink your free-throws.
As for Syracuse, they became the 48th team to give up a three this season and play five more minutes of basketball.
Foul or Defend?
What do you do?
Hoops135@hotmail.com
Twitter: @CoachFinamore
They’re some really interesting statistics.
I’ll admit, I’ve always been a coach who has asked his players not to foul in late game situations. Play tough defense and hope for the missed 3-point attempt. I don’t know why I decided to use that strategy… I guess I never really thought about the alternative much.
Thank you for opening my eyes to a different approach.
- Coach Mac
Coach Mac,
You are not alone in this thinking. Nothing wrong with your philosophy.
Tom Izzo is 4-0 this season in the Foul or Defend when he plays defense.
Thanks for visiting.
Good luck the rest of the way and down the stretch.
Steve
Coach, is the Syracuse-Villanova game really a good example of the “play defense” strategy failing? It’s one thing to foul when the opponent has to go the length of the court in 4 seconds as in LSU-Kentucky. There you can have your players foul with no risk of giving up 3 FT’s and a guarantee of no more than 4 seconds left on the clock. There was also a timeout allowing Calipari to lay out his strategy to his players. In the Cuse game, Nova got the ball with about 15 seconds left and put up its first shot with 9 seconds left. After that there was a fight for the rebound and a dishout for a last second tying 3. It seems like a situation like that is a lot tougher for a coach to script or control. Would you tell your team during a timeout with 15 seconds left to “play defense, but if they miss a shot, grab someone on the rebound, but only if there are no more than 3 or 4 seconds left”. That seems like a lot for a player to process and may lead to results you don’t want.
If your justification for fouling is that your opponent can only tie the game by (1) making a FT, (2) missing the second intentionally, (3) rebounding the miss, and (4) scoring on a putback, then you can only foul with no more than 4 or 5 seconds left on the clock. With more time than that, a lot more things can happen, and not all of them are good.
I am curious how much time was left in the situations in which you found the fouling strategy to work. If all or most of them come with 4 or fewer seconds left, I think it’s dangerous to conclude that the strategy would be just as successful if used frequently with 6 or 7 seconds (or more) left. If an opponent makes the tying 3 with as much as 2 or 3 seconds left, the player making the shot must have started his shooting motion with 5 or 6 seconds left (taking into account the time to release the shot, the ball to go through the hoop, and the clock to stop). If you include situations like this as “failures” of the play defense strategy, you may be overcounting the failures because there was no real opportunity to foul without giving up 3 FT’s or leaving too much time on the clock.
John,
You emailed the same exact question(s) – I sent you a reply.
Thanks for writing and appreciate your concern.