Trouble Scoring on Last Possessions?

M

MAdel

< 25 Posts
Is it my imagination, or do we have an inordinate amount of trouble scoring on last possessions? I doubt there are any statistics on this kind of thing, but after watching our team over the years I almost never believe we're going to score when we need to on a final possession of the half or of the game. Last night (Pittsburgh) was just the latest example.
 
The last time I can remember us scoring on the final possession of a game was at the end of regulation the night before against Illinois.
 
In the first game against Navy, J'Covan turned the ball over on the final possession with 2 seconds left in the half. Louisiana Tech had the last possession before half in that game. Against Illinois, Joseph and Balbay missed the final shots at the end of the game that would have avoided overtime, and then Joseph missed the final shot against Pittsburgh. I don't know whether our percentage is worse than other teams in that situation, but that's simply a strong impression I have after watching a lot of games.

A related question is whether calling a timeout in such a situation helps or hurts your chances of scoring. This analysis says only 35.7 percent of teams scored after calling timeouts while teams that didn't call one scored 53.0 percent of the time: harvardsportsanalysis.wordpress.com/2010/08/30/late-game-timeouts-if-the-game-is-tied-let-them-play/
 
Didn't we beat WVU a few years back by hurring the ball up after they hit the tying shot with like 6 seconds left?

Unless you have some really specific play to set up that exploits some particular weakness, I do think it's often more advantageous for the D to get a chance to regroup for the final shot than the O. Of course, your offense has to be ready for it ahead of time and know that there might not be a timeout called and be ready to go out there - that's probably what an early timeout is for. At the 0:44 mark or whatever you tell your team "If they score to tie or take the lead in the final 10 seconds, don't expect a time out, just hurry the ball in-bounds and sprint down the court for our final shot."
 
stat --- Kenton Paulino hit that shot against WVU.

We didn't have any timeouts left in the Pitt game.
 
Ah, I didn't realize we didn't have a timeout to use in the first place. Who knows, maybe that was a blessing in disguise.
 
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