Should Davidson's coach have used his timeouts earlier?

Davidson coach Bob McKillop had four timeouts in his pocket when Marquette started its improbable comeback on Thursday.

When the Golden Eagles advance a three-pointer to cut the lead to two with 29 seconds remaining, he didn't call a timeout.

After Marquette hit another with 10 seconds go away to get within atomic number 53 point, he didn't use one either.

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All told, there were five instances in the final 90 seconds of the game where another coach might have called timeout to compulsive up an offense, talk about a defense or calm his players down as they attempted to pull the biggest kerfuffle of the NCAA tournament. McKillop passed on them all.

It wasn't until Davidson threw away the ball, and the game, on an inbounds pass with six seconds left(a) that McKillop finally stopped the clock. By then, it was too late. Marquette took the lead and Davidson was ineffective to score with one second on the clock. The upset like was denied.

Twitter had turned against McKillop while Davidson was blowing its lead. Reaction from television analysts was just as swift.

"This is the reason people get fired," Charles Barkley said after the game, referring to McKillop's late-game strategy, just now not specifically addressing the timeouts.

 

Materials taken from USA Today