Who Should Take the Last Shot in a Tournament Game?

Situation: Your team is down by one with 12 seconds to go in a tournament game, where if you lose you go home, and you have the ball at half-court. You call a time out.

Who do you go to for the win. A senior, usually. Not me, I always went with a junior because if he is not successful and your team loses then the senioe has to live with that there is no redemption for the senior as it is his/her last game. The junior has next season.

I always went with an underclassman, usually a junior, because if he fails he still has next year to end his/her career on.

I remember a situation over 20 years ago in an Regional Final, the game was tied with 3 seconds to go and we had to go the length of the court to score.

We set up a play and it worked to prefection and we got a catch and shoot layup and the player missed the layup shot, and we lost in overtime.

However, the player was a junior and he came back the next year and helped lead us to a state championship.

I remember the player coming up to me and saying “thank you” for that second chance. A senior never gets that second chance.