Remember Northwestern gave the 2018 Final Four team all sorts of trouble. Playing them has been less than fun for a while now.
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No spot on!
Did you even watch the game?
OK, but thatâs somewhat circular reasoning at that point; youâre assuming that timeouts are helping the team thatâs doing poorly, so one team wants the timeout and the other doesnât. Unless you assume that momentum is a thing, I donât see how you can say that who calls the timeout should matter.
In your defense, Northwestern did call a timeout right before Michiganâs 14-minute, 7 point debacle. And it was right after that when Eli Brooks missed a wide-open three that was dead on line and came up short. Iâm sure youâre not arguing that Eli missed the shot because Northwestern had called a timeout on their previous possession, or that Michigan suddenly started turning the ball over every trip down the court because of Northwesternâs timeout. Did Northwestern play noticeably better after that timeout? Iâd assert that they were basically the same team the whole game. (In fact, Northwesternâs offense came out of halftime on fire; they made their first four shots, IIRC, and only fell down as much as they did because of the Eli Brooks steal and, well, 3 > 2).
Not sure if they didnât show a replay, but he didnât give up on the play. He was trying to put the shoe back on, it wasnât going on like it shouldâve, he realized what was happening, started heading back, and by then it was too late. I think people have a predisposition to want to make it an effort thing because of his somewhat disappointing play when in reality it was just a heat of the moment miscalculation where he likely thought he could just slide the shoe back on no problem and it would be better for the team than playing without the shoe. Not saying it was a defensible move and I have no problem benching him for a stretch because obviously it cost the team. But some people in this thread seemed to think it was laziness, which watching it in person I can very much say it wasnât.
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If thatâs what works for you, have at it. But I would not expect to mandate my style for you just as I would not expect you to mandate your style for me. If youâre done with it then just be done with it. Not necessary to lecture and judge people for being the unique individuals that they are.
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Just focus your feelings on the words âbeat Northwesternâ.
Thatâs a real bad win. But it still was a win. This situation was nearly as bad as IUâs on Sunday. It was a clear let down situation. Obvious things got let down, but eventually they straightened things out. Actually kind of a nice little comeback.
Golf clap from me.
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Iâm not sure about research or debate on calling a timeout when the other team is on a run, but Dean Smith HATED to use timeouts except down the stretch.
We seem to be looking at this really differently because I canât imagine a coach who thinks everything is going well wanting a timeout to occur either automatically or by another means. I would strongly think that as a coach if your team is playing great, you would love it if there were no whistles and no breaks until your team is gassed or the 20 minutes runs out.
Bigger win than the last 2 even though worse opponent as has every reason to find up the tent and take an L but no⌠They found a way to win 
with Jones leading the way 
and Hunter fouled out by a shoddy (being kind there) ref team! Great backbone! Need the tshirt âMichigan vs Everyone (including the refs)â!
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Certainly not laziness (absentmindedness would be a much better word, if itâs a word) and I wasnât at the gym so I didnât have your perspective, but it sure seemed like forever between the time it happened and the time he stopped messing with the shoe. It probably just felt like forever because I knew exactly what was going to happen.
My only input to the timeout discussion is to ask what people think would be done differently in a Juwan called timeout than in the various media timeouts that occurred in this stretch.
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Ok, but Dean Smith always had very veteran teams and very much expected his leaders to be coaches on the court. I mean thatâs the program my basketball life comes from, itâs a very specific situation. My HS coach was a coach because he played for Dean and was expected to not just be a player but also a coach on the court.
Not mandating anything, but if you decide to give up on the team every game because of some adversity, go ahead. I get people like being negative. Thereâs a reason why 97.1 feeds off of negative energy, because it sells to the woe is me crowd. Many people who can take a look in the mirror and realize that at least make an effort to change.
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Brandon Johns doesnât do anything because heâs a bad person or a bad teammate, itâs just a lack of tenacious approach to the game and keeping your focus on maximize winning in every moment.
You play the possession with one shoe if you have to. Only a moon unit thinks he has that much time to fiddle with his shoe while his man runs up the court, unguarded in a 5 on 4.
Itâs a bummer, but itâs a highly benchable offense. Thereâs only so much patience you can have with a guy. I also think it was bonkers that he had to lay the ball in instead of dunking the damn thing, he got fouled, and what could have been a 3 point play ended up being a 1 point play. It was infuriating. Heâs too big and too athletic not to dunk there.
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Whatâs the protocol there for officials? If a guyâs shoe is off, you treat it as nothing, just play on?
That is a great point and maybe telling about this Michigan team. I am not in the locker room or at practices, and I am sure these players are not bad guys, but do we have many/any of those âcoach on the floorâ types? (Smith had MANY players go on to be coaches as well.)
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I find this all crazy. Honestly, the logical extension of what you guys are trying to say is that coaches would never call timeout. And yet they do. Many of the very very good ones. In the midst of runs. All the time. Why do they do that? They must think they have a good reason, no
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Thatâs because coaches, for the most part, are not statisticians. 
This is precisely why sabrmetrics became a thing: because baseball teams were making subpar decisions based upon concepts â like momentum (aka riding the hot hand) â that everyone was certain were real, but which turned out to have no mathematical foundation.
Humans are bad at randomness. We tend to see patterns where none exist (See: the existence of Las Vegas).
My assertion is that coaches believe in momentum for two reasons:
1 - their coach did
2 - confirmation bias: they remember when a timeout happened and then the team played better.
I honestly donât think thereâs any more to it than that.
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Yes, play on. Itâs that dudeâs problem. Itâs kill or be killed there.