The worst grade school coach isn't dumb enough to call for a foul at the end

[ErickJD08]

This whole thread reminds me of people who like to say you're more likely to be struck by lighting twice than win the lottery.  The truth is that you're much more likely to never know anyone that has experienced either.

In that 1.8 second situation last night, a team in MU's position is going to win the game 99.999% of the time.  Honestly, who cares about which outcome is more likely to lead to a .001% chance of USF winning?

True... But in that situation, by fouling, you create the possibility of actually losing.  IF you tell your guys to just lay off and let them shoot a three, you can't lose.

[bilsu]

If that's your definition of an intentional foul, wouldn't every one of USF's fouls in the final minute or so also qualify?
Fortunately, that's not really the intent or spirit of the intentional foul rule.

The definition of an intentional foul is fouling without trying to go for the ball. Going by my visual memory Crowder grabbed the player form behind with no attempt to go for the foul. It definately fits the definiation of an intentional foul. Now there are a lot of intentional fouls, but as long as the ref can see you swiping at the ball it is not considered intentional. Grabbing a player from behind is intentional and was stupid on Crowders part. He should of went agressively after the ball either creating a foul or knocking the ball away.

[MULS1999]

Besides your imagination, upon what are you relying for these figures?
A guy who studied this during the 2009-10 season found that there were 52 times a team down three with under 10 was fouled and attempted to tie the game off the rebound of a missed second free throw. There of them succeeded. That's 6 percent. But that's with as many 10 seconds remaining. Are you suggesting that there's no difference between being able to accomplish this with 1.1 seconds versus as many as 8 or 9 seconds?
Interested in knowing how you're deriving your figures.

I saw that info, as well, and I think it's instructive -- but all of the stats on this are culled from fairly small sample sizes and from contexts that are not all that analogous.  And much of what we are all relying on here (including me) is anecdotal. 

The fact that a team was able to make-miss-rebound-score 3 times out of 52 (10 seconds vs. 1.8 seconds notwithstanding) demonstrates to me a certain degree of feasibility.  I mean, 52 occurrences is a very small number compared to the hundreds of desperation 3/4 court heaves that are attempted each year at the end of halfs -- much less heaves that come off of FT misses with under 2 seconds left.  Have you ever seen that happen in a game -- a guy get a rebound, turn and fire from 85 feet and make it?  I think I saw a youtube of it happening in a high school game once.  But I doubt it's happened more than a dozen times in the past 20 years of college hoops.  On the other hand, I've seen the intentional miss tip-in executed in games on several occassions. 

To be clear, I wasn't attempting to assign specific percentages so much as to suggest that I think the make-miss-tip scenario is some multiple of x more likely to occur than the rebound-turn-make-3/4-court-shot-in-1.8-seconds scenario.  It might not be an opinion backed by empirical evidence, but the anecdotal support for the proposition seems pretty strong --at least to me.   

[StillAWarrior]

True... But in that situation, by fouling, you create the possibility of actually losing.  IF you tell your guys to just lay off and let them shoot a three, you can't lose...

...in regulation.


I'm no basketball (or statistical) expert, but I've seen more teams sink "impossible" end-of-game buzzer beaters than I've seen execute the last second make FT; intentionally miss FT; tip-in.  

That said, I have to agree with Benny B.

[TJ]

This whole thread reminds me of people who like to say you're more likely to be struck by lighting twice than win the lottery.  The truth is that you're much more likely to never know anyone that has experienced either.

In that 1.8 second situation last night, a team in MU's position is going to win the game 99.999% of the time.  Honestly, who cares about which outcome is more likely to lead to a .001% chance of USF winning?

This thread has 3 general points of view: it was a good decision, it was a bad decision, & we won so it doesn't matter.

To the third: Why do you care so much that we're talking about it?  It's interesting to some of us.  It's a discussion about the strategy behind the game.  It's more of a macro discussion about the "proper" way to handle the situation (of course there is no one "proper" way, but everyone has an opinion).  It's about evaluating the decisions the coach makes in crunch time and discussing whether we agree or disagree with them.  It's not hurting anyone, so please stop complaining about it.

Also, to the one who said "Buzz knows more about basketball than any of us" - true, but that doesn't in any way mean that he will always make the right decision or is somehow above criticism because of it.

[MULS1999]

According to this piece at SportsQuant -- http://www.sportsquant.com/AnnisJQAS1030.pdf -- the win percentage associated with make-miss-tip is 95.88%, which suggests a conversion rate of 4.12%.  Now, again, assumptions in this analysis abound, but I've neither read nor seen anything to suggest the conversion rate for rebound-turn-heave is anywhere close to that.

The SQ study is based on Mark Few's decision not to foul and, instead, to defend against the three pointer on his defensive side of the court in a Maui Invitational game against Mich. St.  In his comments after the game, Jay Bilas came out strong against fouling, even in that situation, in order to not bringing losing in regulation back into the equation.  I'm not sure I would go that far, but this is an interesting read nonetheless.

[StillAWarrior]

According to this piece at SportsQuant -- http://www.sportsquant.com/AnnisJQAS1030.pdf -- the win percentage associated with make-miss-tip is 95.88%, which suggests a conversion rate of 4.12%.  Now, again, assumptions in this analysis abound, but I've neither read nor seen anything to suggest the conversion rate for rebound-turn-heave is anywhere close to that.

The SQ study is based on Mark Few's decision not to foul and, instead, to defend against the three pointer on his defensive side of the court in a Maui Invitational game against Mich. St.  In his comments after the game, Jay Bilas came out strong against fouling, even in that situation, in order to not bringing losing in regulation back into the equation.  I'm not sure I would go that far, but this is an interesting read nonetheless.

I'm not going to pretend to understand all the statistics and math in that, but isn't this the conclusion:  "These computations suggest two things. First, immediately fouling the offensive team is a superior strategy; and second, this is a problem many coaches envy, as even the sub-optimal strategy results in winning in excess of 85% of the time."

Another thing I noticed in there:  "The debate is one of college basketball's most spirited: Leading by three points in the final seconds, do you foul before a shooter can fire in a [three-point field goal] that ties the game?"  It certainly always is a spirited debate on this board, and I know that ultimately we all just agree to disagree.

[77ncaachamps]

Just in case anyone wants to know... after the game, I talked to Benny A in the parallel dimension where Crowder didn't foul.  USF missed the half-court heave.

So this was going to be a W, foul or not.  The right decision is the one that yields the desired outcome.  In this case, either decision was the "right" decision.

I talked to Benny Z.

USF won on a 3/4 court shot.

[ATL MU Warrior]

I talked to Benny Z.

USF won on a 3/4 court shot.

That dimension sucks!

[314warrior]

I think this is a very interesting question ever if it both strategies result in very high winning percentages.  It may be a bit esoteric, but it is an interesting facet of the game and makes for a good discussion.

According to this piece at SportsQuant -- http://www.sportsquant.com/AnnisJQAS1030.pdf -- the win percentage associated with make-miss-tip is 95.88%, which suggests a conversion rate of 4.12%.  Now, again, assumptions in this analysis abound, but I've neither read nor seen anything to suggest the conversion rate for rebound-turn-heave is anywhere close to that.

Thanks for the paper.  It was very interesting.  He added another layer of complexity on top of the basic probabilities.  As far as choosing values - "We find that for virtually any reasonable values of these probabilities, intentionally fouling the opponent increases the chances of eventually winning the game."  It would be interesting to compare this a large pool of game data, and I'd be surprised if this hasn't been done for a large data set.  It wouldn't be hard to do if you had detailed digitized score book information.