I’m watching the UNC-Duke basketball game right now and just heard Clark Kellogg repeat a common cliché that has been taken as basketball wisdom for as long as I can remember: “You don’t want to foul at this stage and let them score points with the clock stopped.” As often as this is repeated, this is utter nonsense. There is essentially no difference between points scored at the free throw line and points scored from the field in terms of time elapsed. Yes, the clock stops while the free throws are being taken, but if both free throws are made, the time elapsed is virtually the same as if a shot from the field had gone through the basket. The only possible difference is that the clock may run for a couple extra seconds after a made shot from the field (before the final minute, at least, when any differential is eliminated because the clock stops on a made basket).

Granted, if a team is in the bonus, fouling a player in the backcourt is a bad foul because it gives a higher percentage scoring opportunity with less time elapsed, but fouling someone on a shot or in a threatening scoring position is no worse simply because a team is ahead late. In those circumstances, a foul is good or bad by the same standards it would have been at other stages in the game. In fact, it can be better in some cases simply because the player fouled may not be a great foul shooter. Bottom line is that the notion that fouling late “allows a team to score with the clock stopped” is a piece of basketball wisdom that should be eradicated from the proverbial basketball canon.