The last 27 seconds of the 13-14 season

Submitted by will on

So I loved this past season, and am cognisant that the team outplayed our post-McGary back surgery expectations. They were a ~22 foot shot from a 35% three point shooter away from OT that might have gone to the Final Four. I know I shouldn't complain.

But I have to get this question off my chest, and I'm sure I'm not the only one thinking it:

With 27 seconds left and the game timed Kentucky inbounds the ball; they have shot 55% from the FT line during the game, and have averaged 68% for the season. Except for Aaron Harrison, no one on the team shoots above 75% from the free throw line.

The game has been an offensive one, with neither team being very successful on the defensive side, and our team all season has been able to make up for defensive inefficiencies because of our explosive offense.

Why not foul, put them at the line for a 1 and 1, and then put the ball in the hands of our offense - worst case down 2? 

I know hindsight is 20/20, and I'm obviously biased because we lost and I was screaming to foul them before they could take a shot.

I welcome attempts to try and convince me that our strategy was better than fouling would have been.. I love Coach B, and we will be back in the final four again soon with him at the helm. Was this a mistake?

OK, its off my chest. Bring on football season, and hopefully above freezing weather sometime soon.

 

MGlobules

March 31st, 2014 at 11:35 AM ^

with the shooter unchallenged, I'd buy into the criticism. Instead we pushed him way outside and got a hand so far in his grill some KY supporters were saying Harrison was fouled. All he has to make is one of two or three free throws, right? What am I missing? 

alum96

March 31st, 2014 at 8:59 AM ^

He would forever have been second guessed but you are not the first to bring it up.

If scenario

  1. Foul Kentucky with 10 seconds or whatnot
  2. They make 1-2 points
  3. We miss a higher quality shot

happened...

Idiots all over talk radio rail into Beilein for giving them "free points" in a game that was tied.

He was damned if he did, damned if he didn't.

Dude made a 3 pointer over an outstretched LeVert playing as good of defense as you  can ask to win the game - sometimes people just make plays against you.

BlockM

March 31st, 2014 at 9:02 AM ^

They won on an NBA range three from a kid who is not a phenomenal shooter barely over the outstretched arm of our best perimeter defender. I'd say Beilein's plan was spot on.

S5R48S10

March 31st, 2014 at 9:08 AM ^

Let's say we fouled them and they missed the front end of the 1-and-1.  Based on what I saw yesterday, a strong argument could be made that Kentucky would be the team more likely to come away with that rebound, and now one of their giant leapers has the ball within 4 feet of the basket. 

BlueKoj

March 31st, 2014 at 9:10 AM ^

Down by two not the worst case. Worst case: front end make, back end miss rebounded by them. They either put it back or kill the clock.

Not a mistake at all.

Sllepy81

March 31st, 2014 at 9:15 AM ^

even if they make 1 shot we had to take 3 to make the previous of a lucky tip in.

my only complaint is we played to afraid of having Morgan foul out, he ended the game with 3 fouls and gave up a foulable dunk or blockable with what they got away with towards the end.

TrueBlue2003

April 1st, 2014 at 1:37 AM ^

when they foul to increase possessions at the end of games.  there are cases when stopping the clock and likely changing possessions is worth the chance of extra points for the other team results in a better probabiltiy of victory than the alternative. the OP brings up a good point and this might not have been a bad time to deploy the strategy given how easily they were scoring.

Blue Mike

March 31st, 2014 at 9:16 AM ^

Didn't LeVert foul them with 10 seconds left, because we had a foul to give?  If anything, Beilein had the correct strategy, LeVert jumped the gun.  He should have waited as long as he could, since they were going to hand the ball off and let Harrison wait to take the shot anyway.  Another couple of seconds off the clock, and the inbound/get a clean look is tougher to get off.

In the end, Kentucky made a shot to win the game, it happens.  

westwardwolverine

March 31st, 2014 at 9:18 AM ^

Whoever it was that noted that Kentucky was 7/11 from three after being something like 32% all year correctly noted the reason the Wildcats won the game. That's really all you need to know. An average day for Kentucky and we win. They just had some extra magic this time and that swung the game away from us and toward them. 

mgobaran

March 31st, 2014 at 9:19 AM ^

Yeah, I was hoping they would before that play even started. But I was also hoping LeVert could have come up with a steal or something. Too bad he had 4 damn fouls. 

Great season though. I am going to miss the hell out of Jordan Morgan. And I don't even want to think about who else is leaving.

Perkis-Size Me

March 31st, 2014 at 9:19 AM ^

Yeah I was hoping they'd foul too. I knew Kentucky would drain the clock one way or another and I didn't want to run the risk of them sinking a shot with us having only 2-3 seconds to work with. Give us 15-20 seconds, down by 2 at the most (probably only 1 with how bad their free throw shooting is), and put it in the hands of our offense to make a play. Allow Beilein to reach into his bag of tricks and pull something good out.



But, simply put, it's hard to defend against shots like that. Kentucky is typically a bad 3 pt shooting team, and that was more a desperation shot than anything. Can't do anything about it. The shot fell, and that's that. Should we have fouled? I think so, but I don't know squat about basketball X's and O's, and especially not as much as Coach Beilein. We lost, but we took a team full of NBA first round draft picks, and several lottery picks, and pushed them to the brink. We're going to experience heartbreak in the tournament more than we will experience joy.



We'll get back to the Final Four. With Beilein at the helm, we'll always be in contention.

Naked Bootlegger

March 31st, 2014 at 9:23 AM ^

I would've been tempted to foul #44 if he got the ball with more than 5 seconds left in the game.   He was sub-50% from the FT line.   I would've sent Horford and Morgan in the game to increase our rebound chances, then called an immediate time out to draw up a game-winning offensive play after gathering the rebound (as stated by BlueKoj, though, Kentucky still had a great chance to get an offensive board on a miss).

Alas, this scenario didn't happen.   The next best thing happened...Kentucky got nowhere near the rim on the last possession and were forced to take a beautifully defended 3 point attempt.    No regrets.  

 

Thorin

March 31st, 2014 at 9:26 AM ^

I trust John Beilein and his judgement more than any Michigan coach in the last 35 or so years that I've been watching Michigan sports. That said, I can see discussing whether he sat JMO too long or went to the 1-3-1 too late, but I honestly can't remember a team fouling in that situation.

Bodogblog

March 31st, 2014 at 9:26 AM ^

The only thing I wished was done differently is the last LeVert foul.  Instead of fouling intentionally, he had a great chance to be aggressive and go for the ball.  Maybe he pokes it away clean, maybe he fouls and the ref doesn't call it. 

Even that's hindsight - if he goes for the steal and the player goes right around him for an easy lay-up, we're all asking why. 

It was a great game, no regrets at all. 

TrueBlue2003

March 31st, 2014 at 2:55 PM ^

We do this often when we have fouls to give.  We just kind of lazily foul them, happy to make them inbound the ball again.  There's no point to it because we don't even pressure the inbounds pass.  Go for the steal or save the foul in case you're in a position where you get beat on a drive and actually benefit from committing a foul on the floor.

Simps

March 31st, 2014 at 9:27 AM ^

I actually laid this plan out to my girlfriend as we waited through the commercial break. It would've been my strategy given UK's poor free throw shooting. However, I can see the other side of the coin and you can't play much better defense than we did there. He hit an amazing fade-away 3 with a guy in his grill. It's a tough pill to swallow, but it wasn't like they had an easy drive to the lane. 

mishler3

March 31st, 2014 at 9:31 AM ^

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Caris was in perfect position. The game should've have never come down to this situation. If we are better on the D glass, we win by 6-10 points.

blahblahblahh

April 1st, 2014 at 4:18 AM ^

pretty much perfect. levert "bit hard," as you say, because the drive was clearly more dangerous. you would rather give up the tough three to a 35% shooter. and I think it's an understatement to say he did a "good job" of recovering. if he was an inch closer, he probably would have blocked it (http://www.umhoops.com/2014/03/30/photo-gallery-kentucky-75-michigan-72/kentucky-75-michigan-72-41/)

Caris seems to never get the appreciation he deserves for his work on either end of the court. he was 4/7 with 5 assists. he had two steals and a block. he was the one flying through the air half a minute earlier in the game to keep hopes alive when it was 73-75. he never seems to get full approval from fans.

JHendo

March 31st, 2014 at 9:43 AM ^

The game was tied, the shot clock was turned off and they had the ball.  In that situation, I don't think you defend it any differently than we did.  You're suggesting that instead of forcing them into a contested low percentage shot (which we did), we give them an uncontested high percentage freebie.  The odds of him making the shot he did were not in his favor, but hey, shit happens.

I'm not dissapointed with how we played Kentucky's final possession.  I would've been had we lost after fouling and putting them on the line instead.  What am dissapointed about though is why we didn't put the ball in the hands of the guy who's made two half court shots this season.  I know Nik is our man and had to be the one to get that last shot, but Walton had proved he can make those.

MaximusBlue

March 31st, 2014 at 9:44 AM ^

Of course you can second guess everything now but the kid hit a hell of a shot from deep. It's not like he shot over a shorter Walton. Levert is at least 6'5 and lanky. He got a great contest on the shot. Better offense will always beat good defense. Just gotta tip your cap and say good shot. It happens. It just sucks it had to happen to us on the biggest stage.

Everyone Murders

March 31st, 2014 at 9:49 AM ^

To bring this together (much has been noted above), it's not accurate to just assess the UK field goal percentage vs. the UK free throw percentage.  You have to also consider the odds of getting the rebound after a missed free throw attempt. And the odds of UK fouling U-M on a rebound attempt off a missed shot.  And so on.  There are lots of variables at play.

I think Beilein had the right approach, and Levert played the shooter extremely well.  That was an incredible shot, given the situation, and every once in a while you just have to tip your hat to the opposition for making a clutch shot.  UK has really come together for the tournament, and we lost a close game to a great team.  There's no shame in that, even if it did not shake out the way we'd hoped it would.

Cville Blue

March 31st, 2014 at 9:51 AM ^

I think they made the right decision.  I expected Harrison to miss that shot, but he hit it.  If they played it again, I would expect Beilein to make the same call.  We had some crazy things go our way last year in the tournament.  It just didn't go our way this time.

HarBooYa

March 31st, 2014 at 9:53 AM ^

This is a good strategy. But if you are playing real live basketball, this should not happen unless your coach wants get fired. Give points in a tie game, presume we will get a missed ft or make a shot on the other end. We should just pull a guy off the court to really throw them off.



Dude hit a ridiculous shot. Only thing we should have done differently is perhaps give the first foul a bit late and deny the on bounds a bit more.

Darker Blue

March 31st, 2014 at 9:55 AM ^

Kentucky beat us by making an incredible shot. Dont worry about the last 27 seconds of the season and instead focus on the first 89,373 seconds of this season. 

 

*Don't beat me up too bad if my math is wayyyyyyyyyy off. 

JHendo

March 31st, 2014 at 10:29 AM ^

Had we known for a fact that we could cleanly inbound the ball and that Kentucky would let us sprint to half court untouched in ~1 second, then yes, that would be a perfect.  Fact is, the assumption has to be that Kentucky would never let that happen and there are too many other variables to come into play with that little amount of time left (how long will it take for the ref to recognize the timeout, etc...).  I have a feeling that plan to take a timeout at halfcourt would've ended anti-climatically with us not even getting a shot off in the end, and I'll take a bad shot over no shot at the end of game any day.

MichiganG

March 31st, 2014 at 9:57 AM ^

The simple math is that a 1+1 has a higher expected value than a normal trip down the court.  That difference becomes even more pronounced when a team is having such success at offensive rebounding.

UMGaucho

March 31st, 2014 at 2:30 PM ^

What you are failing to consider is the expected value of a UM possession, which they would have had if they'd fouled UK twice around the 20 to 25 second mark.

Offensive rebounds is also not a relevant consideration since UK also would have had a chance to rebound their own board with a few seconds left of in-game play had we not fouled with a simliar (if not much more higher) likelihood than on a foul shot.

I'm not saying JB should have done that... obviously that strategy is highly untraditional, but an argument could definitely have been made.

MichiganG

March 31st, 2014 at 10:26 PM ^

No, that is taken into account.  That's, in fact, exactly what I typed.  A 1+1 is more valuable than a normal trip down the court.  That normal trip down the court counts for Michigan, too.  Now, Michigan has a great offense and so that helps minimize the issue, except offsetting that is the terrible defensive rebounding.  And, yes, Kentucky could have gotten the OReb either way, but that's factored in, too (their odds of scoring on that OReb are considerably lower than on a 1+1 because they would have had 2 seconds to collect the OReb and get a successful shot off).

Not saying the argument can't be made, but the math favors giving them the last shot.  

k.o.k.Law

March 31st, 2014 at 10:00 AM ^

was correct, we had just held them to a shot clock violation the last trip down

Lavert fouled at the right time

that is NOT the play Calipari drew up, it  amounted to a desperation three

just was not meant to be

Bb011

March 31st, 2014 at 10:03 AM ^

No.No. No. Honestly, we played it perfectly, but even when that happens, the other team sometimes just makes a bigger play. I give credit to Kentucky because that was an amazing shot, and I would play it the exact same way again and I'm sure he wouldn't make it again. That is basketball though, and all but 1 team will go home unhappy.

Bocheezu

March 31st, 2014 at 10:08 AM ^

was the scramble at the other end to tie the game.  They didn't get the first shot up early enough for a proper 2-for-1; I think it went up ~35 seconds, which is about 5 seconds late, assuming you make the shot and want 5 seconds to come back down after playing defense.  The scramble took about another 10 seconds off the clock and you have no chance to come back down later.  Now you're at the mercy of your defense.  They played defense fine, the guy had to make a Trey Burke-esque 3 to win the game, nothing you can really do about that.