Anarchy99
Footballguy
My's son's HS basketball team had its first game of the season against one of the best teams in the state. My son's team is middle of the road, so no one expected much of a game, especially playing on the road. Ultimately, our head coach threw in the towel by calling a time out with two minutes left in the game and benched all the starters down by 12 points. He replaced them with essentially C Team players . . . kids that normally would rarely get to play, a couple of developmental JV kids, and a freshman. For most of them, it was their first time playing in a varsity game.
The opponent had their B Team in before the timeout . . . the coach had taken his starters out a minute or so earlier and put in his second unit. When he saw the players we were sending out, he pulled everyone off the court and re-inserted his starting five. Normally in garbage time, backups and scrubs play, the team that's ahead dribbles around and takes tons of time off the clock, and kids that hardly get to play take the few shots that are attempted. Conversely, the team that is losing doesn't foul, the clock winds down, and everyone goes home.
In this game, the opposition elected to utilize a full court press at the end of the game. And when the inevitable slew of turnovers came, they either made layups or shot three pointers. Our kids didn't foul anyone, there were no hard fouls, and our kids looked grossly over matched. After they rattled off 8 quick points, our coach called timeout and started barking at the other coach asking him what he was doing. The response was basically that they knew they were going to win and were nice by not pressing during the rest of the game. And at this point they wanted to practice their press.
After another quick 8 points, our coach called timeout again, barked at the other head coach even louder, and instructed the team to pass to the wrong team intentionally and not even attempt to play defense. The other team took a bunch of shots before making one, someone on their team "stole" the intentional bad inbound pass and that kid held the ball for the last few seconds. The final deficit ended up being around 30 points.
To which I reply . . . what was the point of all that? To look better in the rankings? To inflate your players' stats to get your best guys more All State votes at the end of the season? I am at a loss on this one. In the pros, the saying is if you don't want them to run up the score play better defense. In this case, the game was decided, no real attempt was made to stop them, and the intent on our side was to get some players a taste of HS basketball. Where does this fall on the poor sportsmanship scale?
The opponent had their B Team in before the timeout . . . the coach had taken his starters out a minute or so earlier and put in his second unit. When he saw the players we were sending out, he pulled everyone off the court and re-inserted his starting five. Normally in garbage time, backups and scrubs play, the team that's ahead dribbles around and takes tons of time off the clock, and kids that hardly get to play take the few shots that are attempted. Conversely, the team that is losing doesn't foul, the clock winds down, and everyone goes home.
In this game, the opposition elected to utilize a full court press at the end of the game. And when the inevitable slew of turnovers came, they either made layups or shot three pointers. Our kids didn't foul anyone, there were no hard fouls, and our kids looked grossly over matched. After they rattled off 8 quick points, our coach called timeout and started barking at the other coach asking him what he was doing. The response was basically that they knew they were going to win and were nice by not pressing during the rest of the game. And at this point they wanted to practice their press.
After another quick 8 points, our coach called timeout again, barked at the other head coach even louder, and instructed the team to pass to the wrong team intentionally and not even attempt to play defense. The other team took a bunch of shots before making one, someone on their team "stole" the intentional bad inbound pass and that kid held the ball for the last few seconds. The final deficit ended up being around 30 points.
To which I reply . . . what was the point of all that? To look better in the rankings? To inflate your players' stats to get your best guys more All State votes at the end of the season? I am at a loss on this one. In the pros, the saying is if you don't want them to run up the score play better defense. In this case, the game was decided, no real attempt was made to stop them, and the intent on our side was to get some players a taste of HS basketball. Where does this fall on the poor sportsmanship scale?
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