Late game situations: Calling timeout

Harvard Sports Analysis recently broke down whether a team that is tied late in the game with the ball should call a timeout. After looking at the 2009-2010 season, he found that teams that did not call a timeout scored an average of 1.06 points per possession compared to .773 for teams that did call a timeout.

Read the entire article here

I have always been of this mindset for several reasons. The main point is that when the offense calls a timeout, the defense has time to catch its breath, regroup and set up for the possession. When you don’t call a timeout, the defense can be scrambling and the offense can take advantage of this.

Let’s take a look at one of the best examples of this from last season, Maryland-Michigan State: