Intentional Miss FT Situation

[crosscountry55]

Had this come up in my game tonight and if I had it to do over again... Anyway here’s the situation for everyone’s benefit.

2.3 seconds left, Team A down by 2 with no timeouts left and A1 at the line for a final FT. Puzzlingly, HC B calls a timeout, which gives A a chance to think through their next move (you have to know when to let it ride and I think HC B gifted Team A a needed discussion here, but I digress...).

I take advantage of the TO to meet with my partners and talk about what is likely coming next: an intentional miss. We all agree it’s likely, but in all my years I’ve always seen intentional misses of the type where you throw it off the top of the square and hope it caroms off the front of the rim. Today was different. A1 farts a softball toward the table side of the rim. I’m C, with what I’m feeling is primary coverage on the rim. I see the ball miss and scrape the bottom of the backboard. “Tweet tweet tweet,” violation, clock started so let’s go put 2.3 back on. But then T comes over and says it nicked the rim. Well sugar....now I’ve got an embarrassing IW. So I just eat it, we go to the arrow (pointing toward A), explain it to the coaches (they were both of surprisingly understanding), and get the clock back to 2.3. Team A botches the throw in and turns it over, clock expires, and we run away.

When we had the chance, I wished we’d discussed this potential scenario. In the future, for this specific situation, I’ll make sure we have the trail as primary for any “graze” shots on table side when an intentional miss is possible or likely. So...food for everyone’s thought.


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