I was not aware Wade Phillips had a water polo coaching tree. How else to explain the unbelievably dumb move made by U.S. women’s water polo coach Adam Krikorian that almost cost his team a trip to the gold medal match?
U.S. Women’s Water Polo Team Makes Olympic Final Despite Bonehead Move By Coach
Oops! Coach calls an illegal timeout that allows semifinal match to be sent into overtime.
The U.S. led Australia, 9-8, in the semis and the Aussies had the ball with time running out. With seconds to go, an Aussie player took a shot that hit the crossbar and bounced out (what fun it was to hear NBC’s Mike Emrick call that!) and there was a mad scramble for the ball.
With 1 second left, the clock stopped. Krikorian had called a timeout. The only problem was that in water polo you can’t call a timeout unless your side possesses the ball and no one had the ball. After a long officials’ conference, they ruled it was an illegal timeout and gave Australia a penalty shot, which they made, sending the game into overtime.
The U.S. dominated the OT and won, 11-9. To his credit, Krikorian took full responsibility for the blunder in an interview with NBC:
“That was my fault... Obviously not a very smart decision on my part. But this is a team game and even a coach makes mistakes sometimes and you need your team to pick you up and they picked me up. They’re pretty special. I was a little bit out of it after that.”
See More:
