Should UK have called timeout against Seton Hall? There’s no easy answer.

To call or not call a timeout, that is the lingering question after Kentucky’s 84-83 loss to Seton Hall on Saturday.

Kentucky chose not to call a timeout when Seton Hall went ahead by one point with eight seconds left in overtime. UK players came up the court radiating indecision. Keldon Johnson put up an I-got-to-shoot-because-time-is-running-out three-pointer that never reached the rim. The buzzer sounded.

Let the second-guessing begin.

“I was shocked when I saw that he did not call a timeout,” former UK assistant coach Doug Barnes said of UK Coach John Calipari. “And I can tell you why: you’ve got that many new players out there. I was just shocked.”

After the game, Calipari acknowledged that second-guessing was merited. “I probably should have called a timeout,” he said.

Calipari pointed out that coaches cannot directly call a timeout once the ball is inbounded. Then, only players can call a timeout.

Rule 5.14 from the NCAA Men’s Basketball Rules and Interpretations says a coach can only call a timeout during a dead ball situation, before the inbounder releases the ball or when the referees are at a sideline monitor reviewing a play.

Calipari reminded reporters in the postgame news conference and again on his radio show Monday night that he prefers not to call timeouts. But Barnes said that the eternal coaching dilemma about whether to call a timeout should not depend on a coach’s philosophy. Timeout situations are too fluid, he said.

“It really depends ... on what kind of team you have,” he said. “And that can actually change from year to year, and can change from the first of the season to the last of the season.”

For Barnes, Kentucky’s lack of experience — UK ranks next to last nationally in experience according to Ken Pomeroy — suggested a timeout was in order.

When hired onto Eddie Sutton’s first Kentucky staff in 1985-86, Barnes hoped to learn the secret on how to handle late-game situations. He hoped to learn this from Sutton, who had won many games in the final seconds for Arkansas.

Barnes likes to tell the story of how he kept reminding Sutton that Kentucky had not worked on late-game situations prior to that first season. Then finally, the day before the opening game. Sutton told the UK team that one player — Barnes remembered it being James Blackmon — would get the ball and shoot. The other four players would get in position for a putback.

“There was some wisdom to what he said,” said Barnes, who described Sutton’s philosophy as three-pronged: get the ball in the hands of the best scorer, don’t complicate the scoring attempt and sell the players on the idea of success.

“Like ‘You’re going to hit this shot, so don’t worry about it,’” Barnes recalled Sutton’s counsel. “‘And if you don’t hit it, don’t worry about it because, Kenny (Walker), you’re going to get it and put it in.’”

Of course, it’s not that simple. There’s the other team to consider. A timeout lets the opponent set up its defense.

Barnes recalled the 1983 national championship game between North Carolina State and Houston. N.C. State Coach Jim Valvano called time to plot a game-winning shot. Houston Coach Guy Lewis countered by changing his defense: from man-to-man to a 1-3-1 trap.

“N.C. State had no clue what to do,” Barnes said. “That’s the reason they ended up just throwing the ball up there. Because they had prepared for a man-to-man.”

Of course, Lorenzo Charles grabbed the airball near the rim and dunked it a split-second before the buzzer sounded. Serendipity is a part of decisions about timeouts and the subsequent second-guessing.

Seton Hall Coach Kevin Willard second-guessed his decision at the end of regulation to guard the inbounder rather than have a fifth defender out on the court. A review of the previous play served as a de facto timeout.

“I thought I’d be smart ...,” he said. “It took them so long to review that I had too much time to think.”

Timeouts preceded Danny Ainge’s winning shot against Notre Dame in the 1981 NCAA Tournament, Tyus Edney’s full-court driving layup in 4.5 seconds against Missouri in the 1995 NCAA Tournament and the backdoor layup that allowed Princeton to beat UCLA in the first round of 1996.

As every UK fan knows, Duke called timeout with 2.1 seconds left to plan Christian Laettner’s dagger into the heart of the Big Blue Nation.

But Valparaiso was out of timeouts when Bryce Drew took a touch pass and beat Ole Miss at the buzzer in 1998 and Indiana did not call a timeout before Keith Smart’s shot beat Syracuse in 1987 title game.

Former Auburn Coach Sonny Smith recalled using a timeout to set up John Caylor’s game-winning three-pointer at No. 1 Kentucky in 1988 and not calling a timeout in a two-point home loss to Kentucky in 1983.

“It’s danged if you do, danged if you don’t sometimes,” he said.

Saturday

Utah at No. 19 Kentucky

5 p.m. (ESPN2)