2011 Tournament Discussion Redux

[Texas Aggie]

Players make half-court shots to win regularly

So untrue, its ridiculous. There is no regularity with a HALF court made shot and maybe one or two ~80 foot shot PER YEAR in all of basketball -- high school and college. Its extremely rare, especially in championship play. When it does happen, the shooter is almost always facing the basket and has both hands and arms available, unlike this situation where the player had only one. I have called a 3/4 court shot attempt shooting foul before when the guy almost got tackled when trying a late shot. I'm well aware that such a foul can happen.

he was prevented or slowed

He wasn't. Watch the tape: he quickly realized there was going to be a foul called and he just heaved it. The foul called was a common foul, not a shooting foul, so even the official realized he wasn't in the act of shooting.

call it cowardly

You can name call all you want, but I stand by my point: there was no advantage gained and the call shouldn't have been made. If the NCAA director thinks there was, fine. We disagree. But I'm not going to support the call just because an official made it and it was supported by the brass. I've had missed calls supported publicly.

My point about OT was simply a "when in doubt" decision tree. It wasn't meant to justify not making a call that SHOULD be made. We don't run from correct calls. If you thought that's what I meant, you were mistaken. What I meant was, if you are in doubt -- and 90 feet from the basket, you should have at least a little doubt on an arm grab with less than a second when there is significant body contact in the lane that goes uncalled all game -- you can pass on the call, we go to OT, and we start all over.

I have made calls 90 feet from the basket before VERY late in the game. I wish I had some (1-2) back, but I stand by others (2-3). Had this been me, I would have wanted this one back.

The percentages of the shot don't matter

I agree. But this has nothing to do with my point.

Everyone that has argued with my post has still not made a good case for there being an advantage gained with the late arm grab. Do you call a shooting foul when a an out of control offensive player drives the lane, throws up a prayer, goes down mainly due to being out of control, but there was contact on the play? I don't. There are many other times we let contact go uncalled. Why must this arm grab be called? What advantage was gained?

RE: Duke/Kentucky: several problems with this comparison:

-- Duke had a timeout; neither team here did.
-- Duke was inbounding the ball with players in Duke's frontcourt; there was few or no Butler players in Butler's frontcourt.
-- Duke's clock started when touched inbounds AFTER the pass down court; Butler's clock started on the touch and would have run out with ball being passed.

Not saying it hasn't happened, but you will be hard pressed to find an example of a team winning from 90 feet with a running clock starting at 1.4 on the tip.