Giving fouls before the end of the first half

[Eric15]

I just have to get my head around the risk/reward of this strategy, and understand what Boeheim is possibly thinking. (Full disclosure, he has 1000 more wins than me).

If it's a 2 point game at the end of regulation and your opponent has the ball with 20 seconds left and you have fouls to give, obviously giving fouls is smart because the entire game is hanging in the balance and you want to maximize their chances of taking a bad shot with little time left.

But how is doing this at the end of the first half possibly a good idea? You get 5 fouls in college basketball. For each foul you give, that increases the chances of fouling out by 20%. For a team that has virtually no bench like we do, isn't having Howard and Battle (our only two good offensive players) intentionally racking up unnecessary fouls just utterly and completely insane?

Either put someone like Bayer in to intentionally foul, or just play good defense at the end of the half.

 

[AirForceOrange]

Yeah...I didn't quite understand the reasoning either...

 

[TinyManInside]

Terrible coaching move in our present situation. Indefensible.

 

[Forloveoforange]

Yes, the only reason is we aren't getting the ball back, but otherwise, it doesn't make sense in that particular situation. Lets not do that.

 

[RF2044]

I just have to get my head around the risk/reward of this strategy, and understand what Boeheim is possibly thinking. (Full disclosure, he has 1000 more wins than me).

If it's a 2 point game at the end of regulation and your opponent has the ball with 20 seconds left and you have fouls to give, obviously giving fouls is smart because the entire game is hanging in the balance and you want to maximize their chances of taking a bad shot with little time left.

But how is doing this at the end of the first half possibly a good idea? You get 5 fouls in college basketball. For each foul you give, that increases the chances of fouling out by 20%. For a team that has virtually no bench like we do, isn't having Howard and Battle (our only two good offensive players) intentionally racking up unnecessary fouls just utterly and completely insane?

Either someone put like Bayer in to intentionally foul, or just play good defense at the end of the half.

Strategically, it makes sense to shorten the clock and have them have to inbound the ball [where something could go wrong] and reinitiate the offense with a lot less time to make something happen. I can get behind the strategy as a general principle.

But it makes ZERO sense to do it when we literally do not have backup guards who are on scholarship, and only 6 healthy players comprising our rotation. Despite what I say above, I actually think it is stupid for our two best scorers--who we need to play 40 minutes--to be coached to willingly give away fouls. The benefit of doing so isn't worth the cost -- it might not have hurt us yesterday, but it was a dumb strategy to employ under these circumstances. Just play defense for the last 20 seconds, and stop the other team from scoring.

 

[Ryand877]

Agreed. If fouling was THAT important, bring in Bayer to do it. Didn't make any sense.

 

[Forloveoforange]

And you're not given any more fouls for overtime either, if it goes to overtime or multiple overtimes.

 

[Nicknack]

Probably not worth the risk; however, in a game like last night 2-3 points is H U G E. Boeheim obviously felt that it was worth it. His strategy did end up working though regardless of what we all say. They didn't get a basket to push the lead at half and Battle nor Frank fouled out.

 

[Eric15]

Probably not worth the risk; however, in a game like last night 2-3 points is H U G E. Boeheim obviously felt that it was worth it. His strategy did end up working though regardless of what we all say. They didn't get a basket to push the lead at half and Battle nor Frank fouled out.

Frank finished with 4 fouls. Is it possible he was playing more hesitant defense knowing that he couldn't risk any extra fouls?

 

[Alsacs]

Probably not worth the risk; however, in a game like last night 2-3 points is H U G E. Boeheim obviously felt that it was worth it. His strategy did end up working though regardless of what we all say. They didn't get a basket to push the lead at half and Battle nor Frank fouled out.

Frank had to let a layup go in the middle of the 2nd half because he had 3 fouls and couldn’t hack the guy.
It was stupid.

 

[Knicks411]

Yeah I have no problem doing it as a strategy, just do it with a walkon or something

 

[tbonezone]

jb is new to this strategy and evidently hasn't figured this out. he's like a senior citizen trying to program a satellite smart remote when he really should just stick to the garage door opener.

 

[Eric15]

Basically, we are executing this strategy like we have an extra platoon of players on deck like one of these recent Kentucky teams, when in reality we are Hickory High School with 4 players.

 

[Knicks411]

I imagine JB would say he doesn't trust the walk-ons to foul or something

 

[Forloveoforange]

Yeah I have no problem doing it as a strategy, just do it with a walkon or something

 

[patcuse]

I imagine JB would say he doesn't trust the walk-ons to foul or something

Well the last time we used a bench player Howard Washington he was called for an intentional foul what is now a flagrant one. So maybe.

 

[Alsacs]

Well the last time we used a bench player Howard Washington he was called for an intentional foul what is now a flagrant one. So maybe.

Washington fouled a guy without the basketball.
It isn’t close to the same situation.
Jim Boeheim screwed up last night having his only 2 guards waste fouls.

 

[Knicks411]

Well the last time we used a bench player Howard Washington he was called for an intentional foul what is now a flagrant one. So maybe.

That's fair. Slightly different scenario, since that was on an inbound as opposed to live ball, but I get it