Last Saturday morning, I sat down to do something that I increasingly rarely do: I watched a full college basketball game on television, live and in real time. Ohio State at Indiana. A couple of teams I really like to watch — players like Troy Williams, Yogi Ferrell, D’Angelo Russell and Sam Thompson – all among my favorites in the sport this season. This was a game that featured a ton of thrilling plays, a strong but unsuccessful comeback by Ohio State in the final minutes including a potential game-tying shot — many of the elements that make for a great college basketball game. And yet, for the final four minutes, I was often bored out of my mind. Why? Let’s just look at a play-by-play, including real Eastern Standard Time and game time of the final 3:37 of action in a game that, while maybe a bit on the high end of the spectrum, was not in any way extraordinary in terms of length or length of crunch time.

If You Call One More Timeout, I’m Gonna Flip This Thing Right At You (Michael Conroy, AP Photo)

Indiana/Ohio State (January 10, 2015) – Final Four Minutes

• 1:51:51 PM EST With 3:37 left, Ohio State threw the ball out of bounds and initiated the under-four media timeout. At this point, the teams still had a combined seven timeouts remaining. It would take more than 30 minutes before this game, which ended in regulation time, finally ended.
• 1:55:05 Ball inbounded following media timeout.
• 1:55:15 (3:32 on game clock) Whistle blown following a James Blackmon layup and foul. Jae’Sean Tate fouls out.
• 1:56:26 Blackmon’s free throw goes through the bottom of the net.
• 1:56:42 (3:19 on game clock) Following a Shannon Scott jumper, Thad Matta calls his first timeout of the half; he has three remaining.
• 1:57:47 Play resumes.
• 1:57:57 (3:11 on game clock) Sam Thompson is fouled, and one.
• 1:58:28 Thompson’s one shot is through the net.
• 1:58:41 (3:05 on game clock) Blackmon is fouled.
• 1:59:31 Blackmon’s second shot is through the net.
• 2:00:32 (2:08 on game clock) Thompson is fouled, and one.
• 2:01:08 (still 2:08) Thompson misses, D’Angelo Russell rebounds, is fouled, Nick Zeisloft fouls out.

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