Got Philk? said:
I'll stop being negative after this post. Calipari should have fouled and not allowed a 3. Then...in OT, he should NOT have fouled and had his players play D when they were down by 3.
On a brighter note...I'll agree with you Headache. I was a little bit stunned to see Roy Williams with a Jayhawk on his shirt last night.
he deffinetly should have taken a time out on the made free throw to at the very least discuss how they were going to defend that last play. now a lot of things could have gone wrong even if he did choose to foul... kansas has a ton of bigs who could have gotten a putback or a tap back on a missed second free throw... also if they had fouled too quickly, kansas could have made both and then fouled memphis again, and with the way memphis was shooting free throws down the stretch, kansas very well could have ended up with the ball, 4-5 seconds left and a chance to win the game... but then if you foul too late you could end up fouling a shooter in the act.
i'm not completely against just D'ing up and not fouling. that said... the time out should have been taken to at least discuss all options. i was in a similar situation, all be it a jv game against st. francis prep doesn't exactly have the pressure of a national championship game against kansas... we made our free throws to take a 3 point lead with 5 seconds left and then took a timeout. i was in mid sentance telling them to foul as they crossed half court, but then changed my mind and just had them play D... my reasoning was that i had some really dumb kids on the court and i could invision one of them committing either an intentional foul or fouling a shooter, and my one real smart player, my point guard, already had 3 fouls, and i didn't want him to pick up a 4th just in case they did end up tying the game and we had to go to OT. so that could have been a thought in calipari's mind... do i trust my kids to make the right decision regarding the foul? or do i just let them do what they've done all year, D up, and force one of kansas' shooters to make a very tough shot over a very long player.
damned if ya do, damned if ya don't... but i still would have at least taken the T.O. to think it over.
back to roy williams... if i were a carolina player who was trying to make a decision on wether or not to come back to school, seeing roy wearing the logo of the team that just crushed my national championship hopes would seal my decision to declare for the draft. but that's just me.