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It’s always easy to raise questions in hindsight, but Junior Cadougan’s buzzer-beating 3-pointer deserves closer examination.

Kevin Ollie (AP)

UConn coach Kevin Ollie said he “didn’t have a chance to tell Boatright to foul at that time.” It all happened very fast: Boatright buried a turnaround to put UConn up 69-66 with 5.9 seconds left, then Cadougan raced down the court and launched the game-tying longball.

In retrospect, Shabazz Napier said the Huskies should have fouled. Knowing the outcome, anyone would say so.

But is that the right move?

Some coaches prefer to foul because two free throws cannot tie the game (although a made free throw, a miss, an offensive rebound and a putback can). Others let things ride out, and that strategy seems to fail more often than the other.

Maybe Ollie should have called timeout after Boatright’s shot dropped and then instructed his team to foul. Maybe he anticipated that Marquette would want to re-group, so he didn’t think to do so. After all, in such a situation, the team with possession usually burns the timeout.

The other debate here pertains to Marquette: Run a designed play out of a timeout or hurry up the floor before the defense can set-up (or foul)?

Marquette coach Brad Autry opted for the latter, which paid off big-time. Cadougan, a 16.7 percent shooter from deep, delivered on a lightly contested 30-footer. Of course, in those instances, defenders are reluctant to aggressively contest; fouling a 3-point shooter is worst-case scenario.

My gut says Autry did the right thing, and UConn was wrong for not fouling. If Autry had called timeout, odds are the Huskies head home 1-0 in Big East play.

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A boring 30 minutes turned into a wild finish Tuesday night as UConn, once again powered by Shabazz Napier, cut into a 10-point deficit and took a 69-66 lead on Marquette.

Shabazz Napier (AP)

Junior Cadougan, a 16.7 percent 3-point shooter for the year, drilled a buzzer-beater to force overtime. And after an odd beginning to the extra session, the Golden Eagles pulled out an 82-76 victory at the Bradley Center.

Some links, notes and quotes:

*My column from the game. Bad breaks doomed UConn, but a last-second lapse didn’t help.

*Big East official Karl Hess admits the refs botched the call at the start of overtime. UConn should have been awarded two points.

*DeAndre Daniels (11 points, one rebound) left with a chin injury at the 12:36 mark of the second half. He didn’t return until Niels Giffey fouled out with 17 seconds remaining in overtime.

“We went with Niels because he was playing well,” said UConn coach Kevin Ollie. “He was boxing out, playing hard. DeAndre got popped in the mouth pretty good, he started bleeding again, but with the flow of the game, I couldn’t get him back in….we can’t get outrebounded like we did in the first half, so I had to insert somebody.”

*Shabazz Napier was prolific, matching a career-high with 29 points and also leading the Huskies with eight rebounds (you can view that as a good thing or a bad thing).

“Every time I need something from him, he performs,” Ollie said. “He was a great player today. He made shots, he was in attack mode, and he’s one of the best rebounders on our team.”

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Big East official Karl Hess released the following statement on the missed call at the beginning of overtime that would have resulted in two points for UConn, giving it a 71-69 lead.

It was an incredibly bizarre sequence: Both teams lined up incorrectly at the beginning of overtime and were unknowingly going the wrong way. A Shabazz Napier layup (at his own basket) was goaltended by Marquette’s Jamil Wilson, and after discussion, the officiating crew ruled that the 12 seconds had indeed elapsed, but the basket did not count.

Here’s the postgame statement from Hess:

“Based on rule five, section one, article three, when the official permits a team to go in the wrong direction and then the error is discovered, all activity and time consumed shall count as though each team had gone in the proper direction. Play is then resumed with each team going in the proper direction.”

“The players went in the wrong direction tonight. Because we allowed that to happen, the only thing that was wrong is there was a goaltend on the play. We should have scored the goaltend and given Connecticut two points for that.”

“You have no team control after that, because you have a shot, so now you go to the alternating possession arrow. Because there is no team control at that point and then Marquette gets the ball and you head them all in the right direction.”