Me Thinks He Doth Thinks Too Much (WIHAWIHI Part 3)

Pittsburgh's Lamar Patterson was right where he needed to be.

With five seconds to play, Patterson was one on one with his defender in a tie ballgame against Notre Dame.  He drove the lane and as he lifted off the ground and reached out his hand to administer the winning layup, a whistle blew.  If you watched the replay, you notice Patterson looking over his shoulder wondering what happened.  He obviously didn't think he was fouled (he wasn't) and he certainly didn't commit any kind of foul (he didn't).

Imagine his surprise when after he landed, he realized he was fouled.

By his coach.

The clock stopped with 2.7 seconds indicating the point at which the refs granted Pittsburgh head coach Jamie Dixon a timeout.  One that he requested.

One would think it was because he had a better play designed but the fact that he left them only 2.7 seconds in which to execute it left little room for anything but perfect execution.  It wasn't perfect and the game went to overtime.  Pittsburgh eventually pulled it out but thanks to Dixon's "overcoaching", it could have been much worse.

The new trend in "overcoaching" is to foul a team who is trailing by 3 or 4 late in the game so the most they can get is two points from free throws instead of a tying or deficit reducing three.  This trend backfired against Oklahoma State last week.  The Cowboys led Iowa State by 3 with five seconds left in the game.  The Cyclone's Naz Long took the ball up court and eluded three different Cowboy defenders who flailed at him, trying to commit the foul instead of playing actual defense.  Long pulled up at the top of the key at the buzzer and drained a game-tying three for Iowa State who eventually won the game in overtime.

The unfortunate impacts of this new "methodology" is to make the end of a game even more painful with constant fouling on both sides in the ultimate game of tit-for-tat.  It is not unheard of for eight to ten points to be scored in the final 10-15 seconds of a game because of the slew of one second fouls that provide both teams an opportunity to score dead ball points.  And it serves to turn a good college basketball game into a marathon mess that does not necessarily determine the winner as the best team in the game.

But the point of all this goes back to coaches coming up with new strategic ways to combat already flawed strategies because of the one in a thousand chance that it might actually work.  The way to combat the constant fouling?  Coach your team to shoot free throws.  If you think about it, the free throw really is the easiest shot in the game--uncontested and from the same distance every time.  Sure, there is pressure but if you practice enough, it should be a mere formality.  The problem is that today's average athlete does not put in near enough time on the free throw, much less the other fundamentals of the game (and that holds for pretty much any sport--the best players put forth the effort more so in practice than in a game).

Same can be said for Dixon's ill-fated timeout.  At some point, you make the decision to let the players play it out.  Or you immediately call a time out to draft a play.  Neither decision is made with 2.7 seconds left.  At some point in the game, players need to be allowed to play, coaches should stop overcoaching and bloggers will blog about the stupidity of it all.

When Larry Bird was a NBA coach, he basically refused to order his team to foul late in games.  Sure, he was not above "Hack-a-Shaq" but that was an "in-game" strategy.  It's not a last minute, last ditch effort for a miracle.  His theory was that if you could not beat a team during the regular course of the game, you should respect the fact that you were beaten by a better team and move on.

It is old school.  It is NOT giving up.  It is a mantra for respecting the game.

A coach may bring a team together, provide an environment conducive to playing as a team and coach fundamentals.  But coaches don't win games.  Nothing bugs me more than the millions these coaches get to head up a program.  They are glorified recruiters--no one talks about players in the NBA being disciples of some coaching philosophy from college.  When is the last time you heard a NBA team drafted a player because of who he played under in college?  Sure, there are college programs that have longstanding reputations but it isn't because of coaching.  The Coach K's of the world run clean programs but they have the benefit of the best talent pools, based on reputation alone.  But Coach K might be the blueprint for my point.  He has developed a program--not magically won games at the end because of some brilliant play call (Laettner's 1992 miracle not withstanding).  At some point a coach, much a like a ref, needs to step aside and let the game be about the players and the talent that is in front of them. 

And not about Jerry-rigging a result.

Peace,
Reg