OK - here's the strangest ending I've had in a long time and it involved an intentional foul. I was working a girls HS camp and the game rules were as follows:
running clock
no timeouts, except for an officials timeout to correct something
no free throws - if a shooting foul, award the points, if the shot goes in, give the points and one - if a common foul, just give the ball back to the fouled team OOB
obviously, no bonus
This was an eval camp and they just wanted the kids to play and show off their skills to the college coaches who were watching. I guess they didn't care about free throw shooting skills.
Team A was up by one with less than a minute to go (oh yeah, no overtimes either
) Team B had the ball to inbound and coach A yelled at his team to just foul as soon as the ball was inbounded. This meant team B just kept inbounding with the clock running and no chance to score. It was a very clever strategy on the part of Coach A. The players on A either were actually making attempts on the ball or else they were darn good actors. However, with just under 10 seconds left, B1 inbounds to B2 and A1 just runs up and grabs her with both hands. I call the intentional and the clock runs out. According to the rules, team B automatically gets two points for the intentional and wins the game.
Here's the best part - no complaint from Coach A. He directed his disappointment toward A1 for committing the intentional foul.
My partner and I had a great time discussing this one before the next game started. In fact, I wound up explaining the ending to about 5 groups of parents and a few of the college coaches. Most of them just nodded their heads and said, "Oh, I see".
I loved those game rules, especially the running clock, the no team timeouts and the no overtimes and I think the NF should adopt them.
