Bizarre Ending in the Desert

I'm a day late posting this one, but I didn't get a chance to watch UAB's wild 72-71 win at Arizona in the quarters of the Preseason NIT until tonight.

In case you didn't see it, the clip is here. You can't really see the score, though, so I'll do my best to explain it:

UAB up 71-68 and the ball, like 45 seconds left. Arizona interim coach Russ Pennell orders the foul, which is something I don't think coaches do enough in these situations: Lengthen the game, make the other team hit free throws, don't give them a chance to run 30 seconds off the clock and ice it with a bucket. The gamble pays off, as UAB misses the front end of the one-and-one, and Arizona rebounds.

On the ensuing Wildcat trip, Arizona freshman Garland Judkins is fouled. He makes the first. 71-69, UAB, with about 35 seconds left. He misses the second, but UAB's Robert Vaden can't corral the rebound. The ball squirts to another Arizona freshman, Kyle Fogg, who lays it off the board and in. 71-71.

UAB inbounds, and Fogg -- apparently unaware that his bucket tied it up -- reaches out and grabs the Blazer ballhandler. As the crowd, the bench, and Pennell go nuts, Fogg still hasn't realized his mistake. Only when sophomore Jamelle Horne comes over and tells him does Fogg realize his error. He's distraught.

But he's also lucky, because UAB missed the front end of yet another one-and-one. Arizona calls timeout. The play was for Nic Wise, who missed a jumper (he shot a tick or two early, by the way, and he had taken a very ill-advised shot a possession or two earlier. The play should have been for Chase Budinger). At any rate, UAB rebounds, and Paul Delaney III begins dribbling upcourt, heaving a three-quarter court shot...

while Horne lunges at him with both hands from behind, grabbing his jersey!

The ref has no choice. Delaney's heave misses, but the whistle blows with eight-tenths of a second left. Intentional foul. Delaney hits one of two, UAB survives an adventurous inbounds pass, escapes the McKale Center with a victory, and punches its ticket to Madison Square Garden and a date with Oklahoma in the semis.

***
Hard to know exactly what happened here. It's possible that both Fogg and Horne mistakenly thought they were behind, though this is hard to reconcile in Horne's case, since he was immediately aware of Fogg's mistake and there was a timeout in between the first foul and the second.

ESPN analyst Len Elmore posited a different theory, which is that down three points with 45 seconds left, Pennell put the intentional foul defense "on," and either never called it "off" (unlikely, given his reaction to Fogg's foul and the fact that there was a timeout between the two fouls) or Fogg and Horne never realized it was "off."

At first, Elmore's explanation didn't make much sense. Why would any player think it was correct to foul when the score was tied? But as I thought about it more, it reminded me of a point I'm always making and a conversation I had about it with a mid-major Division I assistant coach I know.

I think coaches end up wasting timeouts in close games to tell their players something the kids should know already. For example, let's say Arizona had the ball with 40 seconds left down three. The Wildcats kids should know what the coach wants them to do there, whether it's run a specific play for a three or get a quick two and then foul. Instead, the coach ends up burning a timeout to remind them of the strategy, which incidentally gives the opposing coach the opportunity to communicate strategy to his players, get his personnel right (subbing in his best defenders or free throw shooters, for example), and maybe draw up a play or two for when they get the ball back.

My point is that the players should be smart enough to know what to do in these common lage-game spots. It's apparent, however, that a great many players don't. Whether it's because they lack "Basketball IQ" or they simply lose their heads in the moment, they have a tendency to do the wrong things in these spots. So my position has always been that coaches need to spend more time "coaching" these specific situations in practice.

I brought this up to my friend, the assistant coach, and he told me that they do coach situations; the kids just temporarily forget in the heat of the moment.

So, did Fogg and Horne suffer the same bizarre mental breakdown on back-to-back possessions, somehow forgetting the score? Or were they simply following orders; that is, had they simply not heard that the intentional foul play was off? I suspect we'll never know, as it's not in the team's interest to continue to discuss this in the media. It seems implausible that Horne, especially, would have realized the intentional foul was "off" when Fogg tied the score, and then not realized it seconds later.

But anything's possible, and Elmore and my friend certainly know more about the brains of college basketball players than I do. If Elmore's theory is correct, it goes a long way to proving my friend right.