If the news accounts are correct the winning team -
Kept their a-list players in the game.
Ran up the score.
Employed full court press into the fourth quarter
Took the high scoring 3 point shots
Didn’t back off till they hit 100-0.
That’s not only being a bully its just plain stupid.
Ever watch a college or pro game where the game reaches a point of “no return”? What does the winning team’s coach do?
Takes his “A team” off the court/grid. How stupid would he look if he lost a star player to an injury after the game was in the bag.
Makes his team extend time controlling the ball. Every time you score you hand the ball to the opposing team providing them with an opportunity to score and gain momentum. It makes a whole lot more sense to stall the ball, practice ball control and penetration drills. Taking shots just puts your players in a position where they might get hurt or have the clock stop. This strategy shows itself in football too - no passes - run plays by your “hands” fullback.
Adjust defense - half court defense, let the other team burn up clock in the backcourt. Engage them in the front court. Same thing in football - prevent defense squeezes the sidelines but allows plays to the middle of the field where the clock doesn’t stop.
So I would have fired the coach too. He’s a jerk for sure but he’s also a bad coach for not wisely managing a blowout.
I tend to agree with this. I never could muster enough outrage for teams who “run up scores.” I could understand it being a potential problem in pre-collegiate sports, but then institute a slaughter rule, like many baseball and softball leagues have. Not to get all “back in my day,” but in grammar school, we had an awful soccer team and usually only seven players would show up(the minimum amount of players you were allowed to field; any lower and you’d forfeit). So week, after week, it was eleven (and backups) against seven (who had to be on the field the whole time). Scores were awful, in the range of 20-0. It’s a miracle it wasn’t worse. We scored one goal all season (when our whole team showed up.) I don’t recall anyone easing up on us because we were only seven aside, and it never occurred to me that one would. Blowouts happen in sports. So what? The only problem I see is what was stated above: risking injury to key players on the dominant team. That’s the only problem I would have with this type of coaching.
Heard about this game over the weekend, but I haven’t seen any video.
I don’t know what exactly the outraged people here expected of the winning team. Were they supposed to miss on purpose? Give the ball away a lot? Stop playing defense? What would be the point of that? If I were on the losing team, I’d find that more insulting than simply taking an ass-whuppin’.
There’s really not much you can do in basketball to keep it from becoming a rout when one team is hopelessly outclassed. There’s a shot clock, so you have to at least attempt to score, unlike football wherein you can keep doing short running plays and eat the clock for an entire quarter. The three-point shots actually sound to me like they were trying not to run up the score; three pointers are much harder to make than, say, layups, so the odds are they missed many of 'em. Your “points per shot taken” ratio would be much higher with easier inside shots. If they were running it up, would they really have scored 33% fewer points in the second half than they did in the first?
Short of the losing team waving the surrender flag, I really don’t see what else anyone could have done.
There’s a difference between playing for fun and playing to compete. When playing for fun, sure you might make some concessions to the other team, because if you outclass them too badly it’s fun for nobody but the jerks who get off on stomping others.
When playing to compete, however, winners are under no obligation to hold back. If there is no mercy rule, and the losing team wants to keep playing, then you keep playing. I’m amazed there wasn’t a forfeit at halftime, but that’s hardly the coach’s fault.
Wow, you guys are so right. No one should be punished for playing their hardest and trying to win no matter how bad the score gets.
Just like that softball gal from West Oregon who hit the home run but couldn’t run the bases. What was Central Washington thinking?!?!? Carrying her around the bases like that. Shouldn’t they have been trying to win? Giving her a home run instead of the double she deserves is just insulting to her. She could have learned a good lesson but those damn Central Washington gals ruined everything. In the name of competitiveness “kick your opponenent while they’re down” is what I say. If she couldn’t run the bases she shouldn’t have been out there in the first place.
I believe the hitter blew out her knee rounding the bases. It was a great moment in part because the players understood sportsmanship, and recognized there’s something in between “you have to score as many points as you can” and “you have to hold back and not embarrass anyone.” What they did showed respect for an opponent.
It sounds like the two situations have nothing in common. An unforunate accident happened so they helped finish what she had earned. That doesn’t even resemble the occassion this thread is about.
Why does every “running up the score/sportsmanship” discussion wind up with this stupid argument? The outraged people here actually know what it is to play sports, have played sports before, and know it’s possible to pay hard without running up the score.
You don’t have to stop playing defense, or miss on purpose or give the ball back on purpose, and you know that. If you don’t know that, then you need remedial courses on how to play sports, because anybody, even a basement dwelling TV watching couch potato, knows that there are different strategies to every sport, and some of those strategies don’t involve scoring as fast as humanly possible. Hint, when the other team is clearly and ridiculously outmatched, you can turn off the full court press.
There is also the fact that this is a supposedly “amateur” sport. Amateur coming from the Latin amare - to love. These girls are supposed to be playing for the love of the sport, not a desire to humiliate your enemies. The girls in the other uniforms are not the enemy, they are the other team, without them, the gym would be empty and you wouldn’t have any game to play. THIS is why all athletes need to respect and appreciate their competition, the sport would not exist without them.
That doesn’t seem like a terribly fair game to begin with. But I’d be much more sympathetic if it was, say, elementary school kids. By high school, I think you’re old enough to learn that sometimes things are not fair, sometimes you and your teammates suck in comparison, and sometimes you lose by a lot. If you know that your school will regularly send your team to games where you’ll get stomped on, and that really bothers you, don’t play.
Playing a full court press, leaving starters in, and (situationally depending) shooting three’s make this smell pretty stinky. Adding in the final score of 100-0 and the assertion that the team was trying to reach that mark put it over the top.
To those defending the coach, I ask this hypothetical: Do you think it is okay for a team, if they see an opportunity, to strive to reach a specific goal of beating another team by the score of 100 to 0?
All arguments aside about the coaches actions, it seems likely that what got him fired was not just running up the score. The timing seems to be
he runs up the score
the school administrators post a statement on their website calling it “shameful and embarassing”
the coach sends an e-mail to the newspaper saying that he doesn’t agree with the apology
he gets fired.
He took his disagreement with the administrators public. I think that’s what got him fired.
I suspect if he hadn’t sent the e-mail, he’d still be the coach (at least up to the end of the season).