Inside the Play: Indiana buzzer-beater

In the postgame press conference, head coach John Calipari was most upset by his team’s execution on the last play. In the timeout before the play unfolded, Calipari hammered home that UK needed to foul around halfcourt, because it had two to give.

UK didn’t foul. Calipari had no answers for why they didn’t either. Neither did Doron Lamb. It was just a mistake.

“We executed everything to a T until that last five seconds where they didn’t foul,” Calipari said. “And I don’t know what happened.”

Calipari said he had no idea what was going through their minds, and he said nobody was taking responsibility after the game for the breakdown. Well, let’s find out just who erred in our Inside the Play:

Quick game reset: Indiana is down two points with 5.6 seconds to play. The inbounds goes to senior Verdell Jones III, who catches it at the free throw line.

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Jones, who was looping from the top of the screen to the bottom, is running at a pick set by Cody Zeller.

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Marquis Teague, guarding the ball, anticipates the screen and actually tries to jump past the screen before Jones makes a move. Jones sees it and sharply cuts left, leaving Teague flat footed and out of the play. Teague may have done this because he had been told to foul at half court; whatever the case, Teague whiffs, and no one else is around to foul, as Calipari had instructed because UK had two to give.

Darius Miller is there to pick up Jones, but here’s where you can see the play breaking down. Lamb is at the top of the screen; he has to stay on his man. Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist are grouped together in this frame; Kidd-Gilchrist is sliding over to cover the lower Indiana player, while Davis is waiting on Zeller because he can’t just leave him an open path to the rim. Essentially, Miller has two people running at him because Teague is so far removed, and frankly, Teague doesn’t exactly hustle to get back and help.

Miller cuts off Jones’ drive to the left, but Jones stops, pivots and sees a trailing Christian Watford, who has hit 9 of 21 3-pointers. Teague is lagging too far behind to help. Davis can’t leave Zeller. And so Watford has space.

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Watford catches it with space. Teague sees, too late, that he should speed up to try and block it. Miller also sees it and tries to close out on Watford. It doesn’t work, as Watford hits the three and sends Assembly Hall streaming onto the court.

Here’s the play in full video:

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