I watched the final. I thought that, despite the somewhat anti-climatic ending of the Ohio State alumni winning the game with a made free throw, the Elam Ending probably provided a better finish (from a casual viewer's perspective) than what would likely have happened with the normal rules.
Based on
this play-by-play description, it appears that Buford's game winning free throw put the Ohio State team up by 6 with what would have been 1:10 on the clock in a normal game. If there was still 1:10 left on the clock, I would expect a "normal" game to end with a series of increasingly more desperate three point attempts by the Marquette team, followed by a series of time consuming series trips to the free throw line by Ohio State (interrupted by a several timeouts by both coaches). Now if Marquette made a couple threes and Ohio State missed a couple free throws, this might have led to a more compelling viewing experience. However, the odds a pretty good that a "normal" game would have taken 10+ minutes of real time without ever getting closer than 4 points. At some point, if I was a casual viewer, I might change the channel during one of the commercial breaks and not go back.
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One other thing that occurred to me last night is that, while the Elam Ending succeeds in removing the incentive for the trailing team to foul intentionally, I wonder if it creates scenarios where the
leading team has an incentive to foul intentionally. For example, in last night's game, Marquette had the ball needing 6 points to win. At this point, Ohio State only needed 2 points (one basket) to win. Marquette's best chance of winning probably involved making a pair of 3 pointers and getting one defensive stop.
If I am Ohio State, why not foul intentionally every time Marquette gets the ball? If this happens, Marquette's best chance is probably to make all their free throws. Even if this happens, Ohio State is guaranteed to get at least two possessions to get the one basket they need to win. More realistically, Marquette is probably going to miss at least one free throw
(a 70% shooter only has about a 10% chance of making six in a row). In this case Ohio State gets now gets at least three possessions to make the one basket they need.