{"id":1307,"date":"2016-12-23T12:45:34","date_gmt":"2016-12-23T18:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/?p=1307"},"modified":"2019-08-18T21:49:03","modified_gmt":"2019-08-19T03:49:03","slug":"the-evolution-of-end-game-customs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/the-evolution-of-end-game-customs\/","title":{"rendered":"The evolution of end-game customs"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the absence of an imminent court-rushing, coaches not shaking hands at the end of a game is a serious breach of post-game etiquette. Fran McCaffery’s refusal to follow decades of hoops tradition and not offer parting pleasantries to Brian Jones <\/a>Tuesday night was caused by another breach of etiquette – when the winning team has the ball and the shot clock is off in a lopsided game,\u00a0the time to play basketball has ended.<\/p>\n

When North Dakota’s Corey Baldwin stole the ball from Nicholas Baer with a few seconds left, he violated one of the unwritten rules of the game. McCaffery overreacted by a few orders of magnitude, but in most cases the coach of the offending team would feel obligated to apologize to the opposing coach in the handshake line for such actions by his players.<\/p>\n

It didn’t use to be like this, though. The late-game concession dance has taken years to develop. Back in the ’70s and ’80s , nobody even knew how to dribble out the end of the game. You played until the horn. Witness the final minute of this lopsided contest between DePaul and UCLA from 1980. DePaul has a 14-point lead at the beginning of this sequence, but both teams are still competing like the outcome is in doubt.<\/p>\n