I’m not sure people realize how savvy of a PG you have to be to pull of what Quadir Copeland pulled off in the closing minutes of the SMU game on Tuesday night.
First, let’s set the stage.
There is 1:45 left in the game.
NC State is trying to close out a back-and-forth shootout on the road, but SMU will not go away. Every big shot NC State hits, the Mustangs answer.
NC State needs to hold the lead, run down the clock, and get out of there.
SMU’s Boopie Miller had just knocked down a corner jumper to cut State’s lead to 4.
On the inbounds, Quadir Copeland lets the ball roll down the court before touching it.
Now, I had to catch myself, because for a minute, I was thinking he was having a mental breakdown. Usually, when you see a PG let the ball roll down the court, it’s to make sure the clock doesn’t start. You do this when you want to elongate the game and keep time on the clock. But NC State needed to run down the clock.
But then, I saw it.
I’m so used to seeing that technique used to preserve the clock that I wasn’t seeing the 4-D chess that Copeland was playing.
The game clock runs on a made basket for most of the game. The only time it STOPS on a made basket is within the final minute.
In this case, there was 1:45 left, so on the corner make by SMU, the clock continued to run.
Copeland was aware of this.
The caveat here is that while the game clock continues to run, neither the SHOT CLOCK nor the 10-second backcourt count start until a player touches the basketball.
Copeland let the ball roll, and SMU’s Boopie Miller let it happen, thinking that Copeland was making a mistake in preserving the clock (which would have worked to SMU’s advantage).
By the time Copeland picked the ball up, 13 seconds had run off the clock.
He then proceeded to hold the basketball and run down the clock even further.
His goal was to get into the paint and get to the foul line, and with 8 seconds left on the shot clock, he got inside, drew a pump fake, and got SMU’s big man in the air. He jumped into him to get the foul, which was Yigitoglu’s 4th.
Copeland hit 1 of 2.
NC State ended up winning the game by 1 point on a rushed final possession by SMU.
What if NC State didn’t have that point, and what if SMU had those extra seconds to set up a better final play?
This Copeland play isn’t going to show up in the box score, but it’s one of the most savvy plays I’ve seen by a PG in a long time. And when you stack it on top of the 16 assist, zero turnover, 10-rebound double-double, you start to understand that we are watching a very special player who is just beginning to come into his own.
To really respect what you’re seeing here, you have to put yourself in his shoes…
Copeland, to that point, had played 31 minutes. He was probably gassed.
NC State had just gone 1:30 without a bucket, in a back-and-forth barnburner, before he drove and found Lubin for a bucket to put the Pack up 6. SMU then came down and hit a jumper to cut it back to 4.
So you’re up 4, and there is less than 2 minutes left.
At this point, Copeland has to be thinking about the coming possession. We need to run something that milks the clock, but gets us a good shot. It’d be best if we can get something going to the bucket and give us a chance to get to the line.
While thinking about that, he processed the time on the clock was still above 1-minute, meaning the clock continues to run on the made basket. He also has to be aware of the rule that the SHOT CLOCK doesn’t start until he touches the ball.
He was able to, within an instant, mentally separate the clocks, realize he could milk more time on that current possession by delaying the start of the shot clock, while the game clock continued to run.
And he did this in the heat of the game. Immediate calculations and situational awareness. No timeout or coaches explaining anything.
I’m not joking when I tell you that this type of in-game awareness and the mental processing speed needed to do this is almost unprecedented in today’s college basketball.
Yeah, Q has great handles, elite vision, amazing footwork, and the ability to score at the rim. And yes, those will get him to the next level. But what you just saw here. This type of on-court IQ, this will make him an eventual star at the next level and will give NC State the chance to do something pretty special down the stretch.
