When a discussion on “ways to improve college basketball” develops, the first thing you’ll likely hear is that timeouts need to be reduced, guldarnit.
After the timeout discussion runs its course, the next biggest topic is likely to be all the fouls at the end of a game, or if not that, the larger lamentation that the final minute of a game takes 15 real-time minutes.
Other central areas of reform, spelled out in this fine piece by TSS basketball writer Steve Fetch, are related to the creation of a more fluid game enhanced by the adoption of multiple FIBA rules.
It’s not until you go much deeper into a “fix college basketball” conversation that you’ll encounter the desire to remove the one-and-one from the sport. This is not an item at the very top of most fans’ wish lists, if only because timeouts have become such a glaringly obvious flaw, a major drag on the quality and attractiveness of the TV product.
Yet, while timeouts are an irritant, they generally don’t influence outcomes except on the matter (addressed by Steve Fetch) of live-ball timeouts when being trapped in backcourt or other danger zones on the floor. For the most part, the river of timeouts coursing through the final minute of a game is the product of coaches insisting on drawing up plays in a huddle, rather than trusting their players to execute in the natural flow of live-ball action.
Want to know what influences college basketball outcomes a lot more than timeouts themselves? The one-and-one, or more specifically, a missed front end of a one-and-one. Chris Dobbertean, the superb bracketologist for SB Nation at Blogging The Bracket, calls them “burnt ends.” After all, teams do get toasted when they miss front ends in the final minutes of a game.
Plainly put, this is how North Carolina lost to Duke Wednesday night in a classic worthy of the great rivalry, which stands alongside Louisville-Kentucky as college basketball’s most celebrated feud.
People are still wondering, “How did North Carolina blow a seven-point lead inside the final two minutes?” Yes, Tyus Jones of Duke affirmed his reputation as a strong crunch-time player, consistently attacking the basket and generating a series of makes for the Blue Devils. Yes, North Carolina committed a few untimely turnovers and was unable to hit a relatively decent look at the buzzer, a clean jump shot from Marcus Paige, who simply picked the worst night of the season to score only five points and fade into the background. Those developments certainly contributed to Duke’s memorable rally.
Yet, the centerpiece of the Cameron Comeback was North Carolina’s inability to hit two front ends of one-and-ones. UNC did not turn the ball over on those two possessions. Duke did not get a defensive stop — it chose to foul, to break the rules, in the attempt to extend the game and create extra exchanges of possessions. North Carolina foul shooters encountered one of the central and defining in-game pressure cookers of college basketball and failed two out of three times. Duke got two free possessions from those front-end misses. The rest — like the Tar Heels themselves — was history.
*
A CURIOUS OMISSION FROM THE ANALYTICS REVOLUTION IN BASKETBALL
With all the advanced analytics in basketball — a genuinely wonderful development — it is noticeable that regular conversations about college hoops statistics do not cite what I call “adjusted free throw percentage.” Some people, somewhere, might publish statistics on this topic, but it is not something readily apparent in either prominent publications or commonplace discourse on College Basketball Twitter.
“Adjusted free throw percentage” is a simple acknowledgment of the reality of one-and-ones, and more precisely, those “burnt” front ends that are missed. When you miss a front end, you technically miss only one foul shot, but you are essentially missing two, because you deprive yourself of that second opportunity when you miss the first one.
The box score from last night’s North Carolina-Duke game will tell you that UNC made 12 of 20 free throws. However, if you are a student of the sport, you can piece together details from a play-by-play log. If you ever notice that a player shoots one and only one foul shot (a miss, naturally) and is not following a made basket for an and-one opportunity, you can tell that he missed a front end of a one-and-one. If you look through the play-by-play log of last night’s UNC-Duke game, you can see that the Tar Heels did not shoot any one-and-ones in the first half, but missed two front ends late. While the outward numbers — and the actual number of foul shots attempted — say that UNC went 12 of 20 at the charity stripe, the Tar Heels essentially went 12 of 22.
The final score, of course, was 92-90 in favor of Duke.
Those two foul shots UNC never got to attempt — because of missed “burnt” ends — kinda sorta mattered.
Here’s the key point to realize about front ends: If you make them but miss the second foul shot, you still get a point on that possession. If you miss the front end, you can’t get a chance to split a pair of foul shots and walk away with a point. Front ends load so much pressure on one shooter and one shot in one moment. They are great for sustaining drama in much the same way that the artificial addition of the two-minute warning in the NFL creates an extended endgame and makes it harder to sit on a lead.
This might be great for dramatists, but it takes something away from the notion that if you were better for the first 58 (out of 60) minutes or the first 39 (out of 40) minutes, you deserve to have more leverage, not less, at the very end of a game. The existence of the one-and-one after the seventh, eighth and ninth team fouls (provided they’re not player-control fouls, aka, charges) is an accomplice of endless timeouts in extending college basketball games to absurd lengths.
That said, if coaches on teams that trail late in games aren’t exploiting the one-and-one as a way to make a comeback, they’re not doing their jobs properly.
Want to see an example of a coach who properly exploited the one-and-one on Tuesday, while Mark Fox committed one of the most remarkable coaching implosions in recent college basketball memory?
With six seconds left in Tuesday’s Texas-Oklahoma game, Sooner coach Lon Kruger fouled when leading by three points (69-66). There is a contentious and ongoing debate in the college basketball community about whether to foul or play defense when leading by three points in the final seconds of a game. (Side comment: Both sides have entirely valid and substantial points to make here, but we can do without appalling comments such as this one, okay? If you believe in fouling up 3, you’re not responsible for a public health crisis.) However, it should be a nearly unanimous point of agreement that IF any sort of strategic (purposeful) endgame fouling is to be pursued, it’s especially worth doing if a team is in the one-and-one and not the double bonus (on the 10th team foul or any subsequent foul after that).
Texas was in the one-and-one with six seconds left, so when Kendal Yancy missed the front end, the added benefit Oklahoma gained was that Texas couldn’t get a second foul shot it could (possibly) miss to set up a tying two-point basket off a rebound, or perhaps a winning three-pointer. If Texas had been in the double bonus, Yancy would have gained a second shot regardless of the outcome of the first one. With the front end in play, though, Texas stood on a thinner ledge, and Yancy’s miss essentially sealed the Longhorns’ fate.
One more detail about the above scenario: Given that Yancy wasn’t trying to miss the front end of a one-and-one — no one ever would; intentional misses only come on second shots at the foul line — there was no long carom off the rim. Oklahoma was in position to rebound, and Texas was not ready to corral a long or odd bounce.
*
The front end of the one-and-one should be abolished. Fouling — breaking the rules — should not be rewarded. Yet, what helped Jim Valvano and North Carolina State beat Houston in the 1983 championship game is still being rewarded today in the ACC. Last night, the front end of the one-and-one helped a man who coached in the ACC alongside Valvano back in 1983:
Coach K.
The front end of the one-and-one might not be in place on a 10th team foul. Its existence in college basketball is much more limited than it was in 1983. Yet, it still wields considerable power late in games… as we all saw last night in Cameron Indoor Stadium.