6-0
22-6
This game on Friday night was the sloppiest play from the team so far in the year. Though we won by a margin our team FG % was 27%. Our best offensive did score 14 (a season low for him) but was shooting 32% from the field. Defense and rebounding won the game for us really as most of our points were off fast breaks and they did not score until well into the second half. We have 4 more games this week (including tonight) before we have a practice again on Friday so it will be interesting to see how the boys respond to that play.
There was a bit of drama in the game. Well into the second half, one of their boys went to the ground. I did not see exactly what happened to get him down there. The kid got up, very upset and basically started to have a meltdown. The ref asked me to take one of my boys out of the game for a bit for unsportsmanlike conduct, which I did. This is a good kid, as really the whole team is, and when I came out, I asked him "what did you do?" he said he laughed. Which, knowing this kid, 100% makes sense. So, I told, him "Ok, yea, don't do that when a kid falls down." as far as I knew that was it and the ref at a timeout explained that he was laughing and just wanted him to come out to diffuse the situation and that he could go back in.
At one point in the game, one of their players came by me and was cussing someone out... it kind of felt like it was at me but it could have just been under his breath at one of my players or the ref or his parents... I dunno. So, I ignored it. At the end of the game, my boys told me (unsolicited) that they were cussing them out and calling the boy that laughed a fat rear end etc. Which I said something along the line of "yea, when you are beating teams this badly, there is going to be a lot of frustration and you are going to get that stuff....don't let it get to you"
As I finished our end of game huddle the opposing coach pulled over asking to talk. He then said that my player that laughed had called the other player 'they/them' and that the other kid gets bullied at school etc. Now, I am thinking to myself, that does not track with the kid that I know. Laughing? Absolutely. Even maybe teasing? Yes. But saying things like that? No, it is hard to believe. But on top of it the 'they/them' seemed very odd to me. I am doubtful most of our boys, or any of them, even know what that means (my son didn't as he heard me talking about it and asked me what 'they/them' meant). I told the coach, "Ok, I will talk to my guys but I really do not think this was a one way street and my boys already told me that your guys were swearing at them the whole game and I even heard it.... which it may have even been directed at me, so you need to talk to your guys as well." he did not like that and kept pushing back on it. He said something like 'we are men, and we are going to cuss' which... first, these are boys and second, if your player did sweat at me, you just do not cuss out an opposing coach. Again, he kept pushing on it even though I told him several times that I would talk to my kids but that he needed to do the same. That was seemingly not good enough for him. The conversation kind of ended and as I walked over to my bench, I heard him say something about being mature. Again, ignored it.
I talked to a couple of our boys- they all said that they did not hear anything from our boy who laughed like what they were saying. I rewatched the game looking for any indication of smack talk and did not see anything. If anything, there really wasn't a lot of downtime that you could whisper something as we play high tempo. When the kid fell, it seems like he tripped over my son who was guarding someone else. He got up and went to the sideline and you can hear him say "he was calling me names" as he has his meltdown and then "he did it on purpose" (he being my player who laughed) which he didn't do anything at all as he wasn't even close to the kid when he fell. Almost immediately, the mother came over from the other side spectator bleachers to her kid. The kid gets on a phone talking to someone obviously complaining about what happened (still in meltdown mode). After the game, the whole family goes over to the coach and then he comes over to me for the conversation. I pretty much could tell from how the kids family was acting that this was not the end of it so I sent an email to our AD to give him a heads up and tell him what I saw/heard etc.
Indeed, the ref, who I believe actually runs the league too, called our AD yesterday because the mother had emailed the league. The ref said other than the laughing, he saw or heard nothing at all. The AD watched the game too and basically saw the same things as me. One of the HS kids running the table said that they heard the other kids cussing out my boys but didn't hear my boys say anything. None of our parents, at least half of them of whom I talked to, (on the other side of the court) heard or saw anything. One odd note was that after talking to the coach and going over to my bench and gathering my things, sort of talking to my assistant, I looked back over my shoulder and the kid was about 10 feet looking at me with.... maybe his older brother? and clearly saying something about me. Again, I ignored it. My best guess is that this kid is 100% struggling with emotional/mental issues (either one or both, I don't know). When he went down and my player laughed, he over reacted and had a meltdown but to excuse his behavior and try to get back at my player weaponized the whole bully angle. The AD doesn't think there is anything further that will come of it as there is no evidence that suggests what they are saying actually occurred and it ends up a he said she said thing. And any actual evidence and all eye witness accounts line up with what we think happened.
I looked on the schedule and yes, of course, it is one of the few teams we will play twice during regular season. Sigh.