What's up with point guards in the Sunshine State?
For the second time in as many nights, a guard playing for a team from Florida took an ill-advised buzzer beater that led to his team's eventual defeat in the NCAA tournament. On Friday, it was Florida State's Derwin Kitchen. On Saturday, it was Florida's Erving Walker.
With the score tied at 60 and the shot clock turned off, Erving Walker ran down the clock and put the Southeast regional final on his shoulders:
That was the play? Hold the ball near half-court, start moving with 3.2 seconds, have Patric Young throw a simple screen at the top of the key and hope a 24-footer goes down? I'd like to think that Billy Donovan called for something different when he called timeout before Matt Howard made the game-tying free throw; maybe he hoped to free Walker on the screen and thought the lane would open up. The problem wasn't as much with the play's design, but that it started with 3.2 seconds left.
When you start a play with that little time on the clock, the back-up options dwindle quickly. There's no opportunity to find an open teammate or buy some time by driving and kicking it out or in taking a shot and hoping for a tip-in off a rebound. The shot is the play, and that's it.
After Walker's brick, I got a text from a friend of mine who knows basketball. He defended the shot by writing, "Walker had been on fire and Florida was playing with house money. There was nothing to lose."
Except, Florida had everything to lose. By playing for a low-percentage shot and accepting overtime as an inevitability, the Gators gave Butler new life. The Bulldogs had been down nine points at the second-to-last TV timeout. They were playing on borrowed time. Erving Walker and Florida committed a cardinal sin with that shot. They gave an underdog another reason to believe.
Alexis Bledel Kim Kardashian China Chow Alecia Elliott Kat Von D
No comments:
Post a Comment