Heard the talk this morning on the pod about the need to fix a better penalty to prevent a defensive team from committing a penalty that essentially uses up the offense’s remaining time in the game. I would compare this to “fouls to burn” in college basketball. The offense needs a bucket with 6 to 10 seconds left in the game. The defense has 2 or 3 fouls before the offense is in the bonus. They allow a pass and ‘tweet’… foul.. return to Go. Now there are 4 to 7 seconds. Repeat.. ‘tweet’.. foul… return to Go. Repeat… 1.5 to 3 seconds now… maybe not enough time to have a full/normal shot at goal. If football gets the option of declining the penalty and getting the time back (and that’s not a bad idea) shouldn’t basketball get the same option?
Now, there are different reasons a team may not have committed enough fouls to put the opponent at the foul line. Maybe they are excellently disciplined, and have earned the right to have fouls to burn. Maybe the refs “let them play” and very few fouls were called period. Maybe one team had 20 fouls called on them and the other had 5 called the whole game. I’ll hang up and listen.
Now, there are different reasons a team may not have committed enough fouls to put the opponent at the foul line. Maybe they are excellently disciplined, and have earned the right to have fouls to burn. Maybe the refs “let them play” and very few fouls were called period. Maybe one team had 20 fouls called on them and the other had 5 called the whole game. I’ll hang up and listen.
