Ball State Professor Proposes End to Fouling as a Comeback Strategy

[VUGrad1314]

Thoughts on this? It would certainly be a radical change to the end of games.

https://www.thestarpress.com/story/sports/college/ball-state/2018/06/30/elam-ending-basketball-tournament-nick-elam-ball-state-professor-cincinnati-reds/737906002/

[VUGrad1314]

Here are 3 objections I have even though I understand and respect the spirit of his proposal.

1. trailing teams often don't start fouling until the final 60-90 seconds, not in the final 4 minutes.

2.  it diminishes the importance of free throw shooting a valuable skill already in serious decline. I'm all for exciting endings, but I oppose the total erosion of important fundamental skills.

3.  I think the "target score" should be increased from 7 points more than the leading team's total to 10 or 12, especially if you're going to take away so much game time.

[VU2014]

I'm good with basketball the way it is. Keep it simple. But it should be a rule in high school basketball to have a Shot Clock. Playing keep away at the end of games isn't basketball. High School basketball is almost unbearable at the end of games sometimes.

[VUGrad1314]

Here's another strike against the "Elam Ending:" It doesn't actually fix the problem it seeks to address. Instead of the foul barrage by the trailing team occurring at the end of the game, it will begin much earlier in the half as the trailing team attempts to narrow the gap before the game opens up again at the 4 minute timeout. You'll start seeing teams start trying to pile up team fouls much earlier in the half so that the team in the lead still has to go to the line a lot. Teams will begin to use their end of game strategies much earlier. And if teams are thinking about and employing end-of-game strategy closer to halftime, then what is the point of having a halftime period to make adjustments if you have significantly less time to implement and judge the efficacy of those adjustments . Sure, the ending might be more exciting , but getting to that ending will be the same boring slog, except this time it's spaced much closer to another extended stoppage. This would make the second half more boring for fans on balance,especially those watching on TV.  What we have may not be a perfect system but neither is this. In the face of two imperfect systems, I will throw my support behind the one that has served the game just fine for decades. This is college basketball. By and large these kids are playing because they love the game. We don't need gimmicks here, and that's really all this "Elam Ending" is.

[historyman]

Here's another strike against the "Elam Ending:" It doesn't actually fix the problem it seeks to address. Instead of the foul barrage by the trailing team occurring at the end of the game, it will begin much earlier in the half as the trailing team attempts to narrow the gap before the game opens up again at the 4 minute timeout. You'll start seeing teams start trying to pile up team fouls much earlier in the half so that the team in the lead still has to go to the line a lot. Teams will begin to use their end of game strategies much earlier. And if teams are thinking about and employing end-of-game strategy closer to halftime, then what is the point of having a halftime period to make adjustments if you have significantly less time to implement and judge the efficacy of those adjustments . Sure, the ending might be more exciting , but getting to that ending will be the same boring slog, except this time it's spaced much closer to another extended stoppage. This would make the second half more boring for fans on balance,especially those watching on TV.  What we have may not be a perfect system but neither is this. In the face of two imperfect systems, I will throw my support behind the one that has served the game just fine for decades. This is college basketball. By and large these kids are playing because they love the game. We don't need gimmicks here, and that's really all this "Elam Ending" is.

I think you are wrong about the strategy that would develop. If you have over a quarter of a game to win the game and the score is close enough to comeback why would you start fouling before the 4:00 minute mark in the 4th quarter (second half)? If the score is not close enough to comeback why would you start fouling? I think you are implementing a bad strategy for the Elam Ending that would never happen and there goes your whole premise out the window.

[IndyValpo]

First off, I hate the constant fouling at the end of games but this is probably the dumbest idea I have ever read.

You want to speed things up, here a couple of simple ideas:
Reduce the # of timeouts a team has, with media timeouts teams stockpile till the end.
Don't stop the clock after made baskets late in games