Half the distance

You know how it is when you’re driving down a road you have driven a thousand times, and suddenly you see a building or something else that you swear you have never seen before — only to find out it has been standing there since time began?
Well, I have been experiencing that feeling in my own living room lately.
Within the last couple of weeks, I have apparently been paying much better attention to professional basketball than I ever have because I am finally noticing nuances about the game that I have never before.
I recently discovered the Offensive Basket Interference call, and two weeks ago I just realized that the pros have the option to advance the ball to half-court during the last two minutes of the half, after a made basket, after calling a full-time out.
At least, I think that’s how it works.
At any rate, as I was watching the game where I noticed this intriguing twist, I got to thinking how much I like the idea of how this option could impact the game.
Basketball, at every level from high school to the pros, has been getting bigger and faster as the years go by. As athletes, equipment and training get more talented and sophisticated, bigger challenges need to be implemented to keep things interesting.
If high school teams had the option to advance the ball to half-court in the waning minutes or seconds of a highly contested game, imagine the possibilities!
First and foremost, strategy would become imperative as timeout utilization would be key throughout the contest. In four quarters, each team is allotted five timeouts — three full (1:00) and two 30 second. 
Obviously, coaches already use these timeouts strategically because they do not want to waste those precious opportunities to break up the action on the court. But to know you may have the opportunity to give your team an advantage like advancing the ball late in the game would make the decision to use up timeouts early even more critical.
And then there’s the offensive opportunities that the team with the ball will gain. Suppose your team is down one to three points with less than two seconds on the clock. If you get possession of the ball underneath the other team’s basket, the likelihood that you can inbound the ball and get off a decent shot to win or extend the game into overtime is pretty slim. 
However, if you could take the ball out at half-court, things would get pretty interesting real quick!
The discipline of the athletes on the court, as well as their determination to win, would factor into the outcome of the game. Defense would become even more imperative, and offensive execution would need to be precise. Those last two seconds would have everyone on their feet,
collectively waiting to exhale until the final buzzer rang. 
I can hear the cacophony that would invariably ensue as the winning team and their fans celebrate, while the losing team and their fans feel the pain of
disappointment.
Ironically, this rule if applied at the high school level would have come in handy for Dogie head coach Allen Von Eye on Saturday. Newcastle and Wheatland were tied at 31 with .9 seconds left in the game when the Dogies took possession of the ball after a made Bulldog free throw. Had he had the option to call a time out and advance the ball to half court, his team could have gotten a shot off before the end of regulation! 
I don’t know if a lot of coaches would agree with me — they’re already under a lot of stress in those late-game situations — but I would love to see the possibility of going half the distance come to high school basketball.