So, what do you think? Shameful display? What should they do?
DALLAS – A Texas high school girls basketball team on the winning end of a 100-0 game has a case of blowout remorse.
Now officials from The Covenant School say they are trying to do the right thing by seeking a forfeit and apologizing for the margin of victory.
Maybe they shouldn’t play any games and declare them all ties, then everyone is a winner.
.
Pathetic. I thought everyone was supposed to try their best, no matter what the score is.
Pathetic. I thought everyone was supposed to try their best, no matter what the score is.
No. The goal is to win the game while exhibiting good sportsmanship. Running up the score…especially 100-0! against a tiny school for kids with learning disabilities, is not good sportsmanship.
A freakin’ full court press when they are up by 90 points??? I’m curisous if they put any of their bench in, or if they had their starters in at the end of the game.
Chip, you’re better than that. You don’t need to make SpOly jokes.
As for the full court press, when up 90-0 … that’s ridiculous.
One is suppossed to their best, and the defense does have an obligation to stop the offense, but there is also sportsmanship and the integrity of the game.
My big question is “why schedule a team that you can beat by 100 points?”
There was on mistake for sure, and possibly another, made during this game. When the margin is 30 you call off the press. No question. I would also say that the second half should be all bench warmers. The two cases of running up a score are keeping a press on, and keeping starters in.
Now, if the bench warmers score a ton of points, well, then, you have to play defense as well. Those kids should not be forced to not try and score because the starters are so much better. For some kids those may be the only points they ever score, or they may be trying to get the coach’s attention for playing time in later games or next season.
But what does forfeiting the game now teach kids? What are they going to do when they apply for a job and another candidate is so much better? That person is not going to give up the job “because it’s the right thing.” A university is not going to rescind an acceptance for a straight A student because “it’s the right thing to do” to let in a C student instead. Life sucks sometimes, and you teach kids how to deal with those situations with situations such as this where, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter. Yes, to kids, it can be a big deal, and it should be. A game like this to someone that age could be the equivalent of not getting a job for a 25 year old. They need to learn to deal with it.
Having said that, sounds like the kids on the team that lost have a pretty good attitude.
My big question is “why schedule a team that you can beat by 100 points?”
I get the sense they are in the same league, and thus are part of the schedule. I don’t think they had a choice.
I caught this story on SportsCenter this morning while running on the treadmill and if I read it correct, Mark Cuban (owner of the Dallas Mavericks) has invited all of the girls on the losing team to come to a Mavericks game and watch the game from his luxury suite. Classy move by Cuban, I like it.
My big question is “why schedule a team that you can beat by 100 points?”
I think (although it is not entirely clear) that they are in the same conference. So, they would be on the schedule every year.
Obviously, I wasn’t there, so, I did not see it. However, I have been on the attacking end of an all out ass-beating. Sometimes you get completely caught up in the moment and get excited about things like hitting 100 points. You lose sight of the fact that there is someone else on the loosing end.
However, the adult coaches should not have lost sight of that. I have no issue with continuing to play and continuing to score. I really do not have any issue with shooting 3’s either. It is part of the game. However, I think the full-court press was a bit much. To me, that is where they crossed the line.
I would hope the bench was cleared, but, I did not see that in the article.
That is an absolute embarrassment for the team that won. How unsportsmanlike! They continued to press and shoot 3 pointers until they got to 100 points with just 4 minutes to go in the game. Pathetic!
I coach under-12 girls basketball at my daughters’ school. We have been on both sides of uneven games. When we get up by 15 or more points, then the girls are instructed that they are no longer to do any fast breaks (good chance to work on our half-court game) and they must make 5 passes before taking a shot (good chance to work on passing and the extension of our offense if the first couple of options don’t work).
The good news is how the other team in this game handled the situation. Here’s a quote from the article that I love:
"At a shootaround Thursday, several Dallas Academy players said they were frustrated during the game but felt it was a learning opportunity. They also said they are excited about some of the attention they are receiving from the loss, including an invitation from Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban to see an NBA game from his suite. ‘Even if you are losing, you might as well keep playing,’ said Shelby Hyatt, a freshman on the team. ‘Keep trying, and it’s going to be OK.’ "
When the margin is 30 you call off the press.
Given other factors, the margin could even be much less to call off the press. If, say, you’re playing a team that hasn’t scored a basket all game, I think you call off the press immediately. Coaches/teams can tell when their opponent is clearly outmatched. If, however, the only reason why you are winning is because of the press, then you can keep it on for longer.
However, given this spoecific circumstance, it should have been obvious by the time the score was 15 or so to nothing, that the losing team was not going to be able to do much, and it could have been a “subs play the whole game” type of thing, and the press comes off immediately.
If I, as a player, were ever subjected to this type of thing there would have been “accidental” elbows throw all over the place, especially when being trapped in a full court press when my team is losing 30-0. Luckily the team has a better attitude towards arrogance/humliation and/or tolerance than I do.
I don’t want to get irrate over the situation, because I have been on good teams that have been forced to play bad teams, and there are times when “bunting or swinging at every pitch, just to make outs so you can go home” (or letting a team score, or to stop trying altogether) is more insulting that just playing the game at a reduced pace. But, the full court press is a deal-breaker. If I were the school’s administrator, I would be justified, as well as, compelled to call the coach into the office for a chat, given that now the actions of the team/game are now the school’s reputation.
Anyway, lunch over … back to work.
“But what does forfeiting the game now teach kids?”
That winning without honor isn’t winning at all.
"What are they going to do when they apply for a job and another candidate is so much better? That person is not going to give up the job “because it’s the right thing.” A university is not going to rescind an acceptance for a straight A student because “it’s the right thing to do” to let in a C student instead. "
None of those are comparable situations, and no one is trying to teach the losing team that you have to deal with failure. they’re trying to teach the winning team how to win gracefully.
So good sportsmanship is to stop trying when you know you are going to win?
So why play that game at all. I am sure everyone knew going in who was going to win. The good team could have just stayed home and scrimmaged against itself it wasn’t going to be able to at least ‘practice’ against the other team. Maybe they wanted to work on their full court press.
Why didn’t the losing team forfeit during the game?
We were in Florida for a basketball tournament in high school. A small, Ontario french high school going up against a school from just outside New Orleans. They were flat out better than us, no question. But they kept pressing. They were up big, and I mean big. I think final was something like 140-49. Just a thrashing.
The only good thing I have to say about my high school coach is the decision he made that made their coach absolutely blow his top. They were up 40 at this point, at least, and so when they would score, and come in with the press, we would actually inbound the ball right to them. The first time, the guy actually travelled he couldn’t believe he got the ball. After about the third time their coach was cussing up a storm at our coach. He basically said you want to score so bad, why should we waste the energy playing defense. It was actually funny, and frankly, a better way to send a message than for the other school to forfeit.
We went to watch the finals(we had gone into the consolation bracket), and kids from two different teams had seen what happened and came up and told us how much they loved seeing that. We embarrased them and finally they called off the press. I don’t fault the kids because their game was to play the press the whole game, and so that is what they practiced and knew. Against competition of their own level it is a real good strategy. It just looked real bad.
I’ve been on both sides many tmies as well, and this was the only time the coach in the driver’s seat didn’t call off the dogs.
Are you arguing just for the sake of arguing?
Or, are you seriously asking these questions?
Have we slid this far in how we treat our fellow competitors that you see nothing wrong here?
Seriously?
So good sportsmanship is to stop trying when you know you are going to win?
If you don’t know how to answer this question, then PLEASE don’t ever coach a youth team. You clearly don’t have the mentality for it.
“a victory without honor is a great loss.” What a great lesson.
My freshman year in college I was on a terrible team since most of the team from the previous year decided not to return. We had to beg people to come and play for us, often times securing a 5th player about an hour before we had to leave for a game. On one particular occasion we had an away game in which I managed to sprain my ankle in the first 5 minutes of the game. I was typically responsible for about 90% of the points we scored in each game. The rest of my team, all four of them, had to complete the game without me and right away you could hear their coach saying that they were going to try and score 100 points, obviously just because they could. It was painful to watch and the final score was something like 106-21. It was one of the few times in my career that my coach had us leave without shaking their hands. It’s one thing if you can’t help but beat a team by a large margin, but I just don’t see how anyone can feel good about running up the score against a helpless opponent.
Are you arguing just for the sake of arguing?
Or, are you seriously asking these questions?
Have we slid this far in how we treat our fellow competitors that you see nothing wrong here?
Seriously?
Its funny Brick, about 15 years ago I was doing martial arts. I was starting to get good, but not great. I came up againt one guy in a competetition who wasn’t really any good, so I took the opportunity to just unleash a beating on him. I didn’t hurt the guy, but I made him look foolish. I went back and bragged to my friends and was met with great disaproval. Fortunately I learned my lesson that day.
You try your best when you are outmatched, when you are evenly matched, or even when you are better but competetive. When you play a sport against an opponent who is just completely not in your league, then you display good sportsmanship and let them enjoy a relatively competetive game while securing your win. “Trying your best” isn’t necessary when it isn’t a real competition.
This was a high school game right? Probably varsity, not a bunch of 8 year olds.
If this was a track or cross country meet. Should the better runners slow down and not try to run PB’s so the slow kids aren’t embarrassed?