The last minute of competitive basketball games generally takes a long time to play out because the losing team tends to foul to try keeping the game close. That did not happen in the NCAA Tournament title game on Monday night between UConn and Kentucky, and John Calipari explained why after the game.
The Kentucky coach told CBS’ Tracy Wolfson that Kentucky didn’t foul because UConn was too great at their free throws.
“I needed to do a couple more things to help [my team], to get them over the hump, and we just didn’t have enough,” Calipari said.
He then went on to explain why they didn’t foul.
“We couldn’t foul late. I know everyone’s [asking] ‘why didn’t you foul?’ Because they’re not missing! Those two guards never miss! Our best chance was two-possession game, stop them, make a basket, timeout, try to steal — that was our best chance.”
Calipari also added that he thought at halftime that they would win the game. They came close, but fell short.
Calipari’s reasoning actually makes sense. UConn went 10-of-10 at the free throw line in the title game and set a tournament record for highest free throw percentage. Hoping for them to miss at the line was a longshot. The real problem was the same one Calipari has experienced before; his team couldn’t make free throws.
