The VERY last play of the MWCT

FloridaAggie13 · Post by **FloridaAggie13** » March 25th, 2020, 8:22 am

After Sam's shot.

Monday morning quarterbacking I know, but I absolutely hate it when teams don't guard the player inbounding the ball, especially when they have to go the length of the court.

I always remember Coach K. of Duke basically saying he was relieved when Kentucky/Rick Pitino decided not to guard Grant Hill as he inbounded the ball, throwing it 3/4 of the court to Laettner for the winning shot in what is one of the most famous shots in NCAA Tourney history.

SDSU got a great shot with the ball easily going to their best player. Why not put Queta or Kuba on the baseline guarding the passer and making it a much more difficult throw? Maybe Flynn has to stop to get the ball and not catch it on the run? This little change in momentum would have forced him to shoot from well over half court.

2004AG · Post by **2004AG** » March 25th, 2020, 8:51 am

FloridaAggie13 wrote: ↑
March 25th, 2020, 8:22 am
After Sam's shot.

Monday morning quarterbacking I know, but I absolutely hate it when teams don't guard the player inbounding the ball, especially when they have to go the length of the court.

I always remember Coach K. of Duke basically saying he was relieved when Kentucky/Rick Pitino decided not to guard Grant Hill as he inbounded the ball, throwing it 3/4 of the court to Laettner for the winning shot in what is one of the most famous shots in NCAA Tourney history.

SDSU got a great shot with the ball easily going to their best player. Why not put Queta or Kuba on the baseline guarding the passer and making it a much more difficult throw? Maybe Flynn has to stop to get the ball and not catch it on the run? This little change in momentum would have forced him to shoot from well over half court.

I agree. I thought that was a HUGE mistake by Smith. Flynn would have to have caught it farther back and his shot would have been a lot more difficult.

But now we will be accused of wanting Smith fired.

hipsterdoofus21 · Post by **hipsterdoofus21** » March 25th, 2020, 8:53 am

Grant Hill jokingly asked once on the Dan Patrick show "why isn't that play known as "The Pass" instead of the "The Shot"? "

But the point is correct, we should've had someone there to make that pass as difficult as possible. We have 3 seven footers on the team, seems like one of them would've been ideal for the job. I also didn't like how easily Flynn got to catch it and then had a completely open look. We took 2 timeouts to design a defense that allowed their best player and shooter an open catch and look.

NVAggie · Post by **NVAggie** » March 25th, 2020, 9:15 am

The plan for that last shot was terrible. We were lucky. I couldn't believe how clean the look was for Flynn. Coach Smith should definitely learn something from that mistake. He nearly cost Sam Merrill his SHOT.

JSHarvey · Post by **JSHarvey** » March 25th, 2020, 10:44 am

And given that Flynn's shot missed by a tiny fraction of an inch we were very lucky. My guess is that this was the last time such an uncontested last second shot will ever happen under Coach Smith's tenure here.

Yossarian · Post by **Yossarian** » March 25th, 2020, 10:58 am

Watch Flynn's shot again.

He takes three steps setting it up. He traveled. He takes a step and then he takes two more steps to set his feet to shoot. The shot shouldn't have counted even if it went in.

And yes - they should never be able to pass a ball half the court down without an defender somewhere between the passer and the receiver.

FloridaAggie13 · Post by **FloridaAggie13** » March 25th, 2020, 11:07 am

Yossarian wrote: ↑
March 25th, 2020, 10:58 am
Watch Flynn's shot again.

He takes three steps setting it up. He traveled. He takes a step and then he takes two more steps to set his feet to shoot. The shot shouldn't have counted even if it went in.

And yes - they should never be able to pass a ball half the court down without an defender somewhere between the passer and the receiver.

Yeah, never leave it up to the refs to blow the whistle in moment like that. Sam was clearly fouled on his shot and there was no call. Really could have been a four-point play and game over.

Aggiesbleedblue · Post by **Aggiesbleedblue** » March 25th, 2020, 11:27 am

On the contrary, if I’m Dutcher I would’ve thrown the ball in to half court and taken a timeout. Would’ve given them 2 seconds to draw up a play from half court to potentially get a much better look. The timeout doesn’t advance it like in the NBA, but I’ve never understood why more college coaches don’t do that with an uncontested pass to mid court and 2.5 seconds on the clock

FloridaAggie13 · Post by **FloridaAggie13** » March 25th, 2020, 11:37 am

Aggiesbleedblue wrote: ↑
March 25th, 2020, 11:27 am
On the contrary, if I’m Dutcher I would’ve thrown the ball in to half court and taken a timeout. Would’ve given them 2 seconds to draw up a play from half court to potentially get a much better look. The timeout doesn’t advance it like in the NBA, but I’ve never understood why more college coaches don’t do that with an uncontested pass to mid court and 2.5 seconds on the clock

I think that's what Smith was defending against, hence the basically zone defense with four defenders lined up across mid-court.

Again, put Queta or Kuba on the baseline and force a highly contested pass that maybe gets deflected or ends up being almost a hail mary throw.

Usu0505 · Post by **Usu0505** » March 25th, 2020, 12:19 pm

Yossarian wrote:Watch Flynn's shot again.

He takes three steps setting it up. He traveled. He takes a step and then he takes two more steps to set his feet to shoot. The shot shouldn't have counted even if it went in.

And yes - they should never be able to pass a ball half the court down without an defender somewhere between the passer and the receiver.

Sam was also hammered on “The Shot”. There would have been nothing tricky tack about that call.

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Aggie84025 · Post by **Aggie84025** » March 25th, 2020, 12:23 pm

I would have put Queta in front of mitchell with his arms up. It would have been a much more difficult play at that point. I love Coach Smith, but we could have defended that play a lot better.

ShowMeAggie · Post by **ShowMeAggie** » March 25th, 2020, 1:13 pm

Aggiesbleedblue wrote: ↑
March 25th, 2020, 11:27 am
On the contrary, if I’m Dutcher I would’ve thrown the ball in to half court and taken a timeout. Would’ve given them 2 seconds to draw up a play from half court to potentially get a much better look. The timeout doesn’t advance it like in the NBA, but I’ve never understood why more college coaches don’t do that with an uncontested pass to mid court and 2.5 seconds on the clock

I had to double check to be sure (thanks, videobot!), but as it played out, Dutcher didn't have any timeouts left. I guess he could've not used his last timeout to try to gauge our defensive approach (he used two TOs after "the shot"), but in the end, the approach you suggest wasn't an option...

t_creer54 · Post by **t_creer54** » April 8th, 2020, 6:53 pm

FloridaAggie13 wrote: ↑
March 25th, 2020, 8:22 am
After Sam's shot.

Monday morning quarterbacking I know, but I absolutely hate it when teams don't guard the player inbounding the ball, especially when they have to go the length of the court.

I always remember Coach K. of Duke basically saying he was relieved when Kentucky/Rick Pitino decided not to guard Grant Hill as he inbounded the ball, throwing it 3/4 of the court to Laettner for the winning shot in what is one of the most famous shots in NCAA Tourney history.

SDSU got a great shot with the ball easily going to their best player. Why not put Queta or Kuba on the baseline guarding the passer and making it a much more difficult throw? Maybe Flynn has to stop to get the ball and not catch it on the run? This little change in momentum would have forced him to shoot from well over half court.

This wasn’t the only thing I disagreed with in the game. In the first half when we doubled in the post on defense that made no sense to me. Queta was able to hold his own on Wetzell, and with how SDSU has really good shooters, it made no sense. I’m glad they swapped it up though.

brownjeans · Post by **brownjeans** » April 8th, 2020, 8:14 pm

I would have had Kuba and Queta in the lineup - one maybe to play the guy throwing the ball in (or Brito since the player could run the baseline - I think), the other around mid court to try to intercept the long inbound pass. None of our guys even attempted to move past half court. I thought our defensive plan/execution on that inbound pass was weird. But we won, so I got over it.

Elkaggie · Post by **Elkaggie** » April 8th, 2020, 8:27 pm

One of the most overlooked missed calls that we benefited from.. Quetas air ball that he caught and put back in. That’ a travel every single time.

Aggiefever · Post by **Aggiefever** » April 8th, 2020, 8:41 pm

Elkaggie wrote: ↑
April 8th, 2020, 8:27 pm
One of the most overlooked missed calls that we benefited from.. Quetas air ball that he caught and put back in. That’ a travel every single time.

I don’t think it is a travel. If the ref determines that it was an attempted shot (which I think it was even though he lost it on the way up), it does not have to hit anything and the shooter can be the first person to touch it/rebound it.

dyedblue · Post by **dyedblue** » April 8th, 2020, 8:43 pm

Elkaggie wrote:One of the most overlooked missed calls that we benefited from.. Quetas air ball that he caught and put back in. That’ a travel every single time.

This is college, not the NBA. You can catch your own air ball as long as it was a legitimate shot attempt. Their is no possession and thus no traveling violation.

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scotlandog · Post by **scotlandog** » April 8th, 2020, 8:48 pm

Elkaggie wrote:One of the most overlooked missed calls that we benefited from.. Quetas air ball that he caught and put back in. That’ a travel every single time.

That shot went straight upwards. I’m not sure it wasn’t partially blocked but if it wasn’t I’m sure that’s what the refs were thinking happened and why it wasn’t called. If you’re going to air ball it, do it really bad and they’ll think you got fouled. Haha

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SectionBAggie · Post by **SectionBAggie** » April 8th, 2020, 8:56 pm

In 1993, Jimmy Degraffenried hit an uncontested 3-point shot from 40+ feet in the Spectrum to give Weber a walk-off buzzer beater win 87-86. After the game, someone asked Eustacy why they had allowed such a shot. His response was (essentially) we got them to take the very shot that we designed - a 40 foot shot as time expired. Sometimes they go in. But we liked our chances.

Amidst all the hand-wringing about the last shot, the defensive strategy had one goal - a miss.

We will never know, but would fans have been happier to have them guard the inbounds and then have SDSU make the shot? It happens a lot. Look up YouTube on last-second shots.

No other defense would have allowed fewer points than the one that was run. Was it nail-biting? Absolutely. Was it effective? Same answer.

t_creer54 · Post by **t_creer54** » April 8th, 2020, 10:21 pm

SectionBAggie wrote: ↑
April 8th, 2020, 8:56 pm
In 1993, Jimmy Degraffenried hit an uncontested 3-point shot from 40+ feet in the Spectrum to give Weber a walk-off buzzer beater win 87-86. After the game, someone asked Eustacy why they had allowed such a shot. His response was (essentially) we got them to take the very shot that we designed - a 40 foot shot as time expired. Sometimes they go in. But we liked our chances.

Amidst all the hand-wringing about the last shot, the defensive strategy had one goal - a miss.

We will never know, but would fans have been happier to have them guard the inbounds and then have SDSU make the shot? It happens a lot. Look up YouTube on last-second shots.

No other defense would have allowed fewer points than the one that was run. Was it nail-biting? Absolutely. Was it effective? Same answer.

Ha. Degraffenreid. Coached high school b-ball in my region.

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