by cu8493 » Thu Feb 13, 2025 9:55 am
My two cents: (and conceding Mac is a hell of a lot better at the coaching thing then I ever was) They were not yet in the double bonus. If you miss on purpose, either we get the rebound still down 3 or they get the rebound and we have to foul down three - which is what happened of course. If you make the 2nd free throw, two good things could happen - turnover on the inbounds pass down two (how often have we seen that go against us) or you foul immediately if you don't get a TO on the inbound and they miss the front of the one and one (in which case we are down 2) or they miss the 2nd (in which case it is still a one possession game). If Neal makes the 2nd and we are down 2, they don't foul Green on the rebound of the missed free throw or we are shooting two at the other end. So, we'd have 6 seconds to get up court and get off a shot when they are going to make sure they don't foul -advantage offense.
When the other team is not yet in double bonus, and without doing any kind of statistical research, I think the chance of getting the rebound on an intentional miss is lower than the chances of one of the good things happening after a make (either TO on the inbounds pass or the other team missing the first free throw (as they did)). If Jamaya makes the 2nd free throw, we are down 2 with 6 seconds. If we don't get a TO on the inbounds and foul immediately, there is still plenty of time to get up court and a decent shot to tie or win after the missed free throw. I get it if he made both at the time its likely game over. But, we effectively gave them two chance to get up four by intentionally missing Neal's 2nd free throw. I didn't like having Neal miss the 2nd intentionally with 6 seconds to go.
Even with about four seconds left, if Jason hits the 2nd free throw, its a one point game. Four seconds is enough time to get a shot off from inside half court even if we didn't get a TO on the inbound and UConn made both free throws. And if they missed a FT there also, we'd be down 1 or 2 with a chance of a shot to tie or win (not high probability, but I think a greater chance than we had of getting the intentional miss). My thought is only under about 2-3 seconds on the game clock do you go for what I think is a much lower likelihood of success play of intentionally missing the free throw. I give Mac that with four seconds, its a lot closer call, but I still think enough time that we'd have a better chance of a positive outcome if we'd made the 2nd free throw there.
