I’m sorry for the way this sounds, but seriously, so what? I mean, I’m not disputing that the opportunity was there to score 100 points. I’m not disputing that the other team wasn’t playing defense. I’m simply saying that the winning team had a choice, and their choice was, evidently to get to 100.
I mean, really?
Seriously?
Now 100 fucking points is “so low.”
So, you’re saying that somehow, the winning team had some sort of discretion they chose to exercise in the fourth quarter, when they didn’t score a humiliating amount of points?
Have you considered that if you take those last two paragraphs I’ve quoted above and put them together, it isn’t that difficult to paint a picture of what happened in the second half of that game? That it’s really fucking obvious that they eventually let up a little bit, but that they didn’t do it until way, way later than was necessary unless they had it in mind to score 100?
I’m saying that if they were being big mean bully girls then 100 points is a pretty pathetic score, and that it really isn’t that astonishing. Apparently in the league these teams play in there are some schools that have a basketball team and there are some schools that have some girls who like to get out for some healthy exercise every once in a while.
So what you would have preferred that the coach do is to tell the girls to sit on their hands for 16 minutes. “Yeah, I’m sorry you came out here to play basketball, why don’t you just play a bit of keepaway, instead. That’ll be a nice way to burn the rest of your afternoon.” I think it must have been agonizing to be out on the basketball court, trying to maintain enthusiasm and play like a team while at the same time not actually playing.
Also, I don’t entirely believe that the Covenant team didn’t score for the last 4 minutes of the game. What did they do, pass the ball around in an endless circle for 4 minutes? Yeah, that sounds respectful. The same news story says that in the 4th quarter they were full court pressing and shooting 3-pointers. So we have a team that can score 25 points in the first 3 minutes of the game using the press, but takes 4 minutes to score 12 in the 4th quarter, when they are driven by animal blood lust to rack up 100, and then they just fuck around for half a quarter. That’s the story that you’re telling. Well, I just don’t think it’s plausible and nothing I’ve read is very convincing.
The reporter in the first link talked to a high school basketball coach from New Hampshire who had been in exactly this situation before, and this is what he said:
As for whether they let up a bit at the end, I expect they let up a bit pretty much from the beginning, and then got close to 100 and then tried to get 100 even. And I don’t feel the least bit bad that they did, because it’s a nice round number. The only first person account I’ve seen of the game is from the Covenant coach, and his account sounds plausible to me. In his version the team scores 12 points in the last quarter and he doesn’t say anything about quitting early.
OK, good. Now you’re lined up with everyone else who hasn’t listened to a god damn thing the other side is saying, so I don’t need to respond after this.
I haven’t quoted any newspaper articles. My only “source” is the final score of the game and the bullshit the coach said, and the only “story” I’m telling is through words being put in my mouth by, for instance, yourself. I don’t give a fuck what the fans and the reporters said. When you beat a team 100-0, and 88 of those points are in the first three quarters, you ran up the score.
Seriously, man, I’m behind you on this, but people are almost literally sticking their fingers in their ears and chanting “la la la I can’t hear you” at this point. Let it go; no one who is saying, by page four of this thread, that the only choices are to run up the score or “sit on their hands” is really paying attention, or really interested in a reasonable conversation.
I’m listening to what you’re saying, I just think that the story you believe probably bears little resemblance to the actual game.
Right, so I guess this is the part where I say I don’t have to respond to anything you say because you’re basing your feelings off a pair of numbers and something you think you heard someone say?
The final score was 100-0, no one disputes that. The coach of the losing team, in a newspaper article written by a very credulous reporter, says the opposing team stopped playing with 4 minutes left in the game.
Now, I agree with this completely:
Well, except for the last bit, of course. My impression is that the Dallas Academy team was so hapless that there was basically nothing that could be done to avoid scoring points except to just say “by gum, I’m just not going to shoot the ball anymore.” The girls on the losing team all came out and said, basically, “yeah, we really don’t play this game very well, we think of it as a learning experience and it’s fun to hang out with friends!” Now, I think that, when down a few dozen points, those girls are going to completely shut down. After all, if you’re not even trying, it doesn’t matter how bad you lose.* So the Covenant team went from playing a game against a hapless team to playing a game against a team that had already quit. My guess is that the Academy girls quit playing after the first 3 minutes of the game after they went down 25-0.
Basically, I’m taking the Covenant coach at face value: they started the game playing for keeps, racked up some big numbers real early, and then switched to a conservative game. A conservative game against a team that’s not playing or is just not very good could have scores like the ones from this game.
Back in the Nagano Olympics they had women’s ice hockey for the first time, and some of the games were painful to watch. In particular, the Canadian women played the Japanese team, and the game was completely lopsided–there wasn’t anything the Canadians could have done to make it less so.
Or maybe the coach is just a dick.
This is among the reasons why I hated playing team sports in gym class in high school. If the teams were in any way lopsided, the team on the losing side would just give up right there. It’s not fun to lose, but if you just tell yourself “oh, I’m not even trying” then you’re not getting beat. Problem solved.
It is about sportsmanship. I coached a womans softball team that was very good. When we were beating a team too badly ,my players felt sorry and let up. Then they had a mercy rule to prevent slaughters. But you could always find a way to take it easy if you wanted to.
If they could not even get a foul shot , they were not playing at all. The game was a farce.
When I first heard this story, I didn’t understand what the winning team had done wrong. Like a lot of people on this thread, I thought that to do anything less than play their best would be to treat the other team disrespectfully, and that if there was any obligation, it was for the losing team to forfeit.
But my wife played on the basketball team in High School and she had exactly the opposite reaction. She told me she had played in a couple of games where her team had run up a huge margin against the other team. She said that in these games, her coach started having her team (the winning team) handicap itself in various ways, for example, by only going for three pointers or only passing the ball once per point (or was it passing a whole lot? I forget and I don’t really know basketball that well) and things like that. The team didn’t call attention to the fact that they were doing this, they just did it and let the other team catch up a little bit to the best of their ability.
Seems kind of funny to me, but my wife’s impression is that this is just standard operating procedure, and that the disrespectful thing would be to not do something like this once one has such a wide margin. It would be sort of “rubbing it in.”
I still think the norms should be different than what they are–it should be the burden of the losing team to forfeit–but given what my wife says about what the norms actually are I no longer am sure the winning team in the current story should be excused.
This is why men still run the world – women start to feel sorry for them if they get behind. Will women ever learn the lesson of keeping the boot (or fashionable pump) planted on the neck?
Marta was watching basketball game with me when she said, “You know, most of these sports are based on the idea of one group protecting its territory from invasion by another group.” “Yeah,” I said, trying not to laugh. Girls are funny.
The only thing i don’t get is the outrage over the three point shots. Taking lots of three pointers does not mean they were running up the score. In fact if they were doing that they would score A LOT less than if they took all the guaranteed layups they easily could have had against that team. IMO the fact that they were chucking up three pointers which don’t really get a lot easier even against a bad team instead of easy layups leans a lot more towards the “holding back” side of the equation.
The “no mercy” crowd always seems to miss the point of these threads.
The reason you don’t run up the score has much less to do with protecting the feelings of the losers; it’s about protecting the sensibilities of the winners. Getting your ass thoroughly kicked in public can indeed be a valuable learning experience.
But what, exactly, is the learning experience one takes from winning 100-0? How is a child supposed to feel after knowing that he thoroughly destroyed a much-less skilled opponent? Pride? Joy?
I, too, worry about creating a bunch of whiners unaccustomed to failure.
But I’m also worried about creating a bunch of un-empathatic me-first bastards.
…not to be cliche, but is this just an American thing?
The All-Blacks are the New Zealand national rugby team, and when they aren’t choking at the world-cup are generally regarded as one of the best rugby teams in the world. There biggest winning margin was against Japan where they scored 145 points to 17: that works out to be 21 tries to 2.
What got the biggest cheers that day? Obviously the two tries scored by Japan. Whenever the “minnows” score against the Blacks the look of elation on the face of the try scorer is fantastic to see.
While the All-blacks didn’t field their full-strength team they didn’t let up and they didn’t “play down” and I don’t doubt thats exactly what Japan wanted. What sort of achievement is it to score tries against a team that isn’t putting in any effort?
Another instance at the World Cup 2007: (Noone bring up the game against France, allright!)
Play hard, play fair, have a beer (or a juice!) with the opposition after the game, thats sport isn’t it?
The idea that a team would “handicap” itself in anyway except resting players seems to be a completely different paradign: am I alone amongst non-US dopers?
My impression is that the Dallas Academy team was so hapless that there was basically nothing that could be done to avoid scoring points except to just say “by gum, I’m just not going to shoot the ball anymore.” The girls on the losing team all came out and said, basically, “yeah, we really don’t play this game very well, we think of it as a learning experience and it’s fun to hang out with friends!” Now, I think that, when down a few dozen points, those girls are going to completely shut down. After all, if you’re not even trying, it doesn’t matter how bad you lose.* So the Covenant team went from playing a game against a hapless team to playing a game against a team that had already quit. My guess is that the Academy girls quit playing after the first 3 minutes of the game after they went down 25-0.
