Abstract

According to the commentary on college basketball games, the prevailing wisdom concerning tactics associated with trying to win a game in which a team trails in the late stages, but is still close, is to “extend the game”; that is, to try to create as many more possessions as possible. Even when a team is down by only 3 points, announcers will advocate trying to score 2 points quickly rather than attempting to tie the game. In this paper, we analyze the situation in the title according to the points associated with the various outcomes from 2-point strategies and 3-point strategies, use the resulting model to suggest what the issues are in choosing a strategy for a particular team on the basis of its strengths or its opponent's weaknesses, and suggest how statistics might be gathered to inform the probabilities used in the model.

Play-by-play announcer: “The Hurrahs are down 81–77 with the ball coming out of this time-out and there are just 52 seconds left. I guess they'll shoot the three. Right, Billy?”

Expert analyst: No Jim, this is still a two-possession game. There is no need to panic; look for the easy two.

This conversation shows up time after time on both college and NBA telecasts. Apparently, if the announcing “experts” reflect the collective thinking of the coaches, this is the strategy that most coaches intend to play in this situation.