Get A T.O., Baby!

We are now down to the season's final football game, the Cheaters' Bowl, aka Super Bowl.  That February 1 duel will be between the Patriots' head coach, Bill Belichick, who got caught cheating more than once in the NFL (plus new allegations regarding ball deflation last Sunday), versus the Seahawks' head coach, Pete Carroll, whose program at Southern Cal got caught cheating by the NCAA, which levied stiff penalties against the Trojans, causing Carroll to get out of Dodge before the posse arrived.

The wait between football season and baseball spring training is about four weeks.  I like hockey, but not enough to watch it on the tube.  It must be about time to write about basketball.

This post contains my observations about one of the key elements of the game, viz., time outs.  To be clear, I'm not referring to media time outs, but rather time outs charged to a team.  Since I follow college hoops more than any other level, this post mostly pertains to that game, although you are invited to extrapolate what I've written into the pro or high school game.  I have collected my thoughts into five tidbits.

1. The Initial Time Out.  One of the sublime satisfactions of coaching, playing or cheering for a team occurs when the opponent is forced to call the first time out of the game.  Of particular joy in a televised game is when the opposing coach feels the need to call that initial T.O. before the first media time out (which is scheduled to occur after the first whistle following the 16-minute mark).  "The wheels are coming off the wagon.  Help!"

When a coach uses that very early time out, it's tantamount to him admitting to his team that they're either not prepared (read: getting out-coached) or that they are not executing the game plan.  Waiting for the media time out may be too late to salvage things.  They need to huddle up NOW!

The coach most famous for espousing the theory of "forcing" the opponent to call an early time out was The Wizard Of Westwood, John Wooden of UCLA, commonly regarded as the greatest college coach of all time.  He almost never called the first time out of the game.  One of the rare times he did was against Notre Dame on January 19, 1974, when the Irish snapped the Bruins' record-setting eighty-eight game winning streak.  Irish Coach Digger Phelps told his team during that noteworthy T.O. that they were going to win the game; the great Wizard had caved.  The documentary Eight-eight And One includes recollections about that game by some of Wooden's players, like All American center Bill Walton.  According to Walton, when Wooden called time, his own players couldn't believe he'd done so, it was such a rarity.

Incidentally, in last Saturday's Gopher-Rutgers game, Rutgers head coach Eddie Jordan decided to call a time out at the 16:18 mark of the first half.  His team was off to a horrible start, trailing the Gophs 10 to 2.  He felt he couldn't wait for the fast-approaching media time out.  The fans in The Barn recognized the desperation, and cheered wildly.

2. The Second Time Out.   There is an old saying that you can't take time outs home with you.  In other words, if you have five time outs per game, you should use all of them, especially if you're losing, because you obviously can't carry them forward to your next game.  However, you can carry unused time outs from the first half into the second half.  Most coaches do not want to use more than one time out in the first half.  They want to go into the second half with four T.O.s in their pocket.  (The teams are already getting four media time outs per half, at the 16, 12, 8 and 4 minute marks.)  Using that second allotted charged time out before the half is usually a sign of weakness, desperation, unpreparedness, or a combination thereof.

Some coaches, both in hoops and in football, use the theory that they "only use the first half to get to the second half."  In other words, we are not looking for the blow out win right away.  We're not going to show all our cards in the first half.  Waiting until the second half to display new wrinkles makes it harder for the opponent to make adjustments.  Opponents' adjustments would then have to be made on the fly during the second half rather than having an entire half time (usually about twenty minutes) to do so.  All the more reason to save as many T.O.s as you can for the second half.

Only rarely are games won in the first half.  Coaches believe, "If we are at least close -- a deficit of less than double digits in basketball, or no more than a two-possession deficit in football -- there is no need to abandon the game plan." Using up a second charged time out in basketball during the first half would indicate an abandonment of the game plan.  No coach plans to burn two of his precious time outs in the first half.

3. The Final Time Out; End Game Strategy.  One of the great debates on basketball strategy is whether the coach should call a time out very near the end of the game, to go over with his players what he wants them to do in the final seconds.  I am in the camp of The General, Bobby Knight.  His ego, not to mention his skill as a coach, led him to this train of thought:  My team is better coached and better prepared than your team.  We have practiced end-game situations -- including with the lead, tie game and trailing scenarios -- countless times at every practice since Day One.  My kids know what to do without me calling time.  If I call a time out near the end of a tight game, that acts as something of an equalizer.  It gives you (the opposing coach) a chance to go over things with your team, a chance that my players don't need.  I have faith in my guys.

Of course, if you have a veteran (upperclassmen) team led by a savvy point guard, using Knight's approach is a lot easier to adopt.

In the January 6 game between the Gophers and Ohio State, the score was tied at 72 in overtime with 24.1 seconds to go.  Each team had one time out left.  The Buckeyes inbounded the ball at the far end.  OSU head coach Thad Motta chose not to use his time out, and was rewarded when forward Marc Loving  sank a nine foot jumper to put his team in the lead by two with 5.6 seconds to go.  Gopher coach Richard Pitino elected not to use his time out.  Instead, senior point guard DeAndre Mathieu came down the floor and proceeded to throw the ball away in the front court.  Game over.  A lot of the Minnesota faithful, and some media talking heads and scribes, took Pitino to task for not using a time out before the Gophers inbounded the ball.  I claim Pitino did the right thing, even though it did not work out.  Mathieu is a veteran point guard.  It's easier to attack a defense in transition instead of using a T.O., which would have given Motta time to scheme.  Them's the breaks.

In a bit of humorous irony, Dan Dakich, who was the ESPN television courtside analyst for the game, expressed great surprise that Pitino did not utilize a time out at the end.  What makes his comment ironic is that Dakich played four years for Knight at Indiana, and then was an assistant under Knight at IU for twelve seasons.  Apparently he and The General did not see eye-to-eye on end game strategy.

4. The Wasted Time Out.  How many times have we seen a player call a time out to avoid a turnover?  This happens often when the player with the ball is trapped, or is about to be tied up following a mad scramble with bodies strewn all over the hardwood.  My theory is this: Unless the situation occurs in a very close game with under five or six minutes to go in the second half, you are better off not using one of your precious T.O.s.  It's not the end of the world if your player gets tied up, especially outside of that five or six minute window.  Half of the time, your team is going to be able to retain possession of the ball anyway, because the possession arrow is in your favor.  If the arrow is going the other way, so be it.  I'd rather give up the ball that one time, play good D, and still have that T.O. to use later.  Any player who uses a time out to avoid a turnover in the first half should have to pick up towels in the locker room for a week.

5. Limiting End Game Time Outs.  Even basketball enthusiasts like my daughter, The Dolphin, think that games drag on needlessly at the end because each coach calls a series of time outs which they've been judiciously saving the entire game.  Here is my solution to the problem.  Change the rules so that after the last media time out (which, again, occurs at the first whistle following the four minute mark), each team is permitted a maximum of only two time outs, even if they have more than two left.  I would really prefer changing the rule to one (instead of two) time outs permitted during that period, but realistically, that is unlikely to happen in the current climate.  Even if each team used up all of their allotted T.O.s, under the proposed new rule at least they all wouldn't be bunched up at the end of the game.