RedlessWardrobe said:

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No real problem thus far with Mark Fox's coaching. But last night in the last 4 minutes I don't recall the ball even being in the hands of Anticivech. Based on the way he was playing, this should have never happened.

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Bear8995 said:

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I agree but I put this on the players. Down 4 with less than a minute, you have to start fouling. Especially when we only had 4 team fouls. As collegiate players, and collegiate players at Cal, they should be smart enough to know this.

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KoreAmBear said:

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Bear8995 said:

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I agree but I put this on the players. Down 4 with less than a minute, you have to start fouling. Especially when we only had 4 team fouls. As collegiate players, and collegiate players at Cal, they should be smart enough to know this.

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Why aren't the coaches yelling to foul? That would have immediately solved the issue. I think the coaches froze thinking maybe we could get the ball back with enough time. Nah.

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Bear8995 said:

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I hear everything you are all saying and agree that the offensive rebound messed things up, but with 4 team fouls, and with the shot clock resetting to 20 seconds after a foul, I would have fouled whether the coach told me to or not. Maybe he would have benched me for doing so but I would have done it.

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NathanAllen said:

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SFCityBear said:

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Bear8995 said:

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I agree but I put this on the players. Down 4 with less than a minute, you have to start fouling. Especially when we only had 4 team fouls. As collegiate players, and collegiate players at Cal, they should be smart enough to know this.

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I should probably not say anything, since I was unable to see the game, but if you believe that Cal needed to start fouling, that decision is usually the coach's decision to make, in all the games I ever saw or played in. That should not be left to the players. They can bring it up to the coach in a timeout. It is just too critical to be left to kids, some them of might be freshmen or sophomores, and this might have been the biggest game they ever played in. The coach should tell them exactly who to foul, and when to foul. If the coach had told them to foul, and they did not foul anyone, then that would be on the players. It may be different in the NBA, I don't know. Just my opinion.

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Agreed. It's the coaches' job to keep track of that sort of game management. I obviously wasn't in the huddle, but from my living room, it looked like UCLA's offensive rebound is where things went awry.

UCLA rebounded Hyder's missed layup at 1:03 to go. At that point, down four, I personally would prefer to start fouling since there were only four team fouls and they needed to start to get the Bruins to the free-throw line for the one-and-one and possible change of possession on a front-end miss.

But Fox/Cal looked fine to playout that possession, which I think is a fine choice. It wasn't like UCLA was converting points at a high clip. But then when Jaime Jaquez grabbed his own offensive rebound at 38 seconds to play, Cal DEFINITELY should've started fouling. For whatever reason (Fox/staff not communicating or players just not registering), Cal didn't foul and didn't get the ball back until another UCLA miss with 21 seconds to play.

So, UCLA held onto the ball up four for 43 seconds from 1:03 to 21 seconds to play. Even with Hyder's quick layup, to bring it back to a two-point UCLA lead, Cal needed to foul three times in the final 13 seconds just to put UCLA on the line. That's not ideal.

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Big Dog said:

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IssyBear said:

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NathanAllen said:

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SFCityBear said:

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Bear8995 said:

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I agree but I put this on the players. Down 4 with less than a minute, you have to start fouling. Especially when we only had 4 team fouls. As collegiate players, and collegiate players at Cal, they should be smart enough to know this.

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I should probably not say anything, since I was unable to see the game, but if you believe that Cal needed to start fouling, that decision is usually the coach's decision to make, in all the games I ever saw or played in. That should not be left to the players. They can bring it up to the coach in a timeout. It is just too critical to be left to kids, some them of might be freshmen or sophomores, and this might have been the biggest game they ever played in. The coach should tell them exactly who to foul, and when to foul. If the coach had told them to foul, and they did not foul anyone, then that would be on the players. It may be different in the NBA, I don't know. Just my opinion.

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Agreed. It's the coaches' job to keep track of that sort of game management. I obviously wasn't in the huddle, but from my living room, it looked like UCLA's offensive rebound is where things went awry.

UCLA rebounded Hyder's missed layup at 1:03 to go. At that point, down four, I personally would prefer to start fouling since there were only four team fouls and they needed to start to get the Bruins to the free-throw line for the one-and-one and possible change of possession on a front-end miss.

But Fox/Cal looked fine to playout that possession, which I think is a fine choice. It wasn't like UCLA was converting points at a high clip. But then when Jaime Jaquez grabbed his own offensive rebound at 38 seconds to play, Cal DEFINITELY should've started fouling. For whatever reason (Fox/staff not communicating or players just not registering), Cal didn't foul and didn't get the ball back until another UCLA miss with 21 seconds to play.

So, UCLA held onto the ball up four for 43 seconds from 1:03 to 21 seconds to play. Even with Hyder's quick layup, to bring it back to a two-point UCLA lead, Cal needed to foul three times in the final 13 seconds just to put UCLA on the line. That's not ideal.

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For me, the issue was to not start fouling, but to start playing over aggressive defense. Don't give them a foul, but go for steals or muscle their men to prevent any high percentage shot. It seemed that we had some "free" chances to take, yet we played careful.

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I was thinking the same thing. Crash the boards, crash the ball handler, run over guys on the inbound, run hard at everyone but the guy in three-point land. Maybe get lucky and get a turnover. At worst, its foul #4.

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RedlessWardrobe said:

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Bear8995 said:

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I hear everything you are all saying and agree that the offensive rebound messed things up, but with 4 team fouls, and with the shot clock resetting to 20 seconds after a foul, I would have fouled whether the coach told me to or not. Maybe he would have benched me for doing so but I would have done it.

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It just doesn't work that way. They're playing in an empty arena. All it takes is the coach to call for a foul. And if not him, how about his 4 or 5 assistants noticing it? Played a little basketball myself. Sometimes the players don't even know the score, let alone the amount of team fouls.

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