With the second round NIT game tied at 71 and less than half a minute to go, a Wildcats player intenationally fouls a player for Alabama-Birmingham. The fans, coaches and other players react with total dismay at a move that made no sense. Luckily for Arizona, it’s a one-and-one and UAB misses the first shot. All is forgiven!
So Arizona gets the ball back, goes for the win, and misses. UAB gets the rebound in the final seconds, and just as a guard prepares to put up a 50-foot heave…
ARIZONA COMMITS ANOTHER INTENTIONAL FOUL!
UAB gets two more free throws with 0.8 seconds left and ends up winning, 72-71.
Only a handful of sports plays have ever made my jaw drop, and unfortunately the Wildcats’ performance tonight is on the list. I’m not a fan, but I feel sorry for them. That’s two of the stupidest errors I’ve ever seen in sports, but for two players to make the same mistake in the span of half a minute of play - not even four minutes of real time - is just unbelievable.
You’d think after ONE time, the other players would realize they had to know the score. The player who committed the second foul made some kind of lame excuse to the effect of ‘I was trying to foul him intentionally’ - he grabbed the guy’s jersey, it was a clear foul - 'but the ref shouldn’t have called it.
Including at least 40 percent of the players 'Zona had on the court at the end of this game. It’s not just that one of them made this mistake that’s amazing- it’s that they repeated the error so fast.
What I don’t get is that after the second horrific foul, the announcer keeps talking about how he thought “they had a play on” and that the coach must have crossed up the signals when he “called the play off”.
What?!? The score was tied when AZ brought the ball down. What scenario would have had them intentionally fouling going back down the court? What “play”?
I don’t know that you can blame the coaches on this. How do you coach someone not to foul when the score is tied? I know that they are freshmen, but didn’t their high schools have late game situations? These guys are dumber than bricks…
Jamelle Horne, who committed the second foul, is a sophomore. The coach speculated that Horne thought there was more time left, and the player himself said he didn’t want to give the opposing guard an uncontested shot, so I guess that’s true - but he was actually in the process of putting up a more-than-halfcourt shot, so I don’t know why you would foul a guy from behind as he’s about to make a heave like that. He wasn’t even trying to get further down the court, just running into his shot.
And of course in the end, he got the most uncontested shot possible.
I didn’t watch the video, but based on what is being said here I can’t possibly explain the strategy to fouling with less than 3 seconds left and the game tied.
But is there a strategy to fouling with let’s say 20 second left and the game tied? If the other team has the ball, they are more certainly going to run down the shot clock and try for the last shot to win the game. If they make it, you lose. If you feel your offense is good and your defense is bad, why not give up the 1 or 2 points and then try for the last shot yourself. This really doesn’t apply if there is just a second or two left in the game because then you wouldn’t have enough time to really try to setup your offense and score, but with more time it might work.
I remember a game once where UCLA was down by 5 with 9 seconds to play. I was thinking it might have been against Arizona, but it was long enough ago that it was probably a PAC 8 game, so I guess not. It was definitely before the three-point rule. Whatever team it was just kept fouling UCLA’s best free throw shooters, who hit six straight for the win. I was listening to the game on the radio, but it was still amazing enough for me to remember it 30 years later. I give that one the prize for “worst fouls ever”.
Hell, the Raptors once lost a playoff SERIES when Chris Childs just threw the ball away because only seconds were left and thought the Pistons were up by 4.
In fact, they were only up by 3. Childs later admitted he didn’t actually know what the score was at the time.
