Up 3 - Foul? That Fails Too Sometimes

College Basketball
1

This past weekend, Maryland was up by 3 over Virginia with 4.1 seconds left. MD fouled, VA made the first, and then intentionally missed the second. The ball went out of bounds of MD. Now, with 1.7 seconds to go, VA had the ball in MD’s down by two. VA made a 2 pt jumper off the inbounds and forced OT (and then went on to lose).

If they hadn’t fouled and VA had made a 3, people would have said they should have fouled, but I haven’t heard anything in reverse. What’s also interesting is that the foul strategy put VA in a position to win it in regulation with a 3. I’m not sure where I stand on the issue, but it was interesting to note a counter to the examples where teams make half-court 3s.

2

Ken Pomeroy basically said there is no difference between fouling and not fouling

3

Thanks for the heads up, I just went and found kenpom’s blog entry. It’s kind of surprising how much sway the “fouling is better” argument seems to have considering the reverence in which kenpom is held.

4

I think fouling seems more logical in a vacuum without accounting for human elements but alas