Comments on: Harvard Study: No Discernible Advantage to Fouling While Up Three

By: jstevrtc

jstevrtc — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 07:12:56 +0000

In reply to Rudy.

The study claims that every game evaluated was in its LAST possession, meaning that, in most cases, there were at most 35 seconds left on the clock. Most likely there was less, since no coach would foul while up three with that much time left. Doing the study any other way wouldn’t make much sense (no coach in his right mind is going to foul intentionally if it’s not assumed to be the last possession of the team that’s down three), so the ability to generalize is there. If you ask a coach that question, and they say, “How much time is left?” I think I’d reiterate the fact that it’s the last possession. Even if there’s 1:30 left, and one or more offensive rebounds happens, you can count on the fact that the coaches fouled intentionally at an “appropriate” time. Of COURSE a coach is less likely to foul with 20 or so seconds left. That’d be idiotic.

I would wager that if the HSAC went back and checked when most of the intentional fouls occurred, it’d be with less than ten seconds left, and many of the examples would be with even less than that. If you want only data that includes intentional fouls in the last five seconds, I think it’s a reasonable assumption that that’s exactly what you’re getting, because to foul with MORE time is so much riskier. The study is retrospective, meaning it’s based on real-world events that happened in the past, so you’re not going to get a skewed sample where all these coaches are fouling intentionally with, say, 30 seconds left. Yes, the HSAC should have included that information in their writeup. But I think this is much less of an issue than a few people are making because coaches just aren’t going intentionally foul up three points unless it’s the right thing to do, considering how much time is left. There are only, what 52 occurrences in the sample? How many coaches out of that 52 do you think intentionally fouled with a LOT of time left?

John from RTC

By: Rudy

Rudy — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 15:13:12 +0000

Matt B is absolutely right. If there is no analysis of “when” the foul occurred, then this analysis tells us nothing.

If you ask any coach this question – “If you’re up 3 on the last possession, do you foul”…the coach will answer your question with another question…”How much time is left?”

By: Matt B.

Matt B. — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:54:46 +0000

I think the percentage of teams choosing not to foul is a little misleading. The study was based on a teams last possession with a chance to tie. The HSAC readily admits in their comments that they were unable to use a time element because of a lack of standardization in NCAA play-by-play data. This means that games in which a player took a three to tie with 15 or 20 seconds left are treated the same as a buzzer beater if it was the trailing team’s last chance to tie the game with a single possession. I’m sure that if you limited the data to possessions that ended within the last 5 seconds, the percentage of games in which a team chose to foul would go up.

By: G. Floyd

G. Floyd — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 15:37:44 +0000

I would love to see the statistics when teams are down by 2, do they go for the win or tie. Do teams up by two foul a bad free throw shooter? If you are playing against Chandler Parson or Da’Sean Butler do you just accept a last second loss?

By: Brian

Brian — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 14:17:22 +0000

I’ve never been a fan of fouling when up 3 but to me this study proves that both methods are effective. Of course when you’re up 3 with a few seconds left you have a very good chance of winning the game anyway.

I was also surprised that not fouling was the overwhelming choice of coaches, considering how much this gets talked about in end of game situations.