100-0 basketball game -- wrong or not?
 

Is running up the score to 100 to 0 wrong, is the matchup wrong to begin with, or is it just an unusual circumstance pointing out a weakness in the game?

I would have made this a poll, but I don't know how to do that.

Story follows...

http://www.timesonline.com/articles/...b342763613.txt

Area coaches decry 100-0 score
By Bill Allmann, Times Sports Correspondent
Published: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 12:01 AM EST

How do you beat a basketball team 100-0?

You don’t, area coaches say.

“That score is unbelievable,” said Western Beaver coach Joe Podolak, the dean of area coaches. “You’d like to think a coach would call off the dogs and try not to score 100. It seems like something else happened along the way.”

The 100-0 game in question came to light last week when The Covenant (Texas) School shut out Dallas Academy in a girls’ high school game.

In the aftermath, the administration of Covenant apologized. The school’s head coach, Micah Grimes, disagreed with the apology and was fired. There has been no clarification as to whether Grimes was fired because of the score or the disagreement with the administration but, regardless, the story has attracted a lot of attention.

“I heard a little about it,” said former Blackhawk coach John Miller, who coached the Cougars to four state championships. “I would’ve thought it was avoidable. If it was me, I’d have cleared my bench, dropped into a 2-3 zone, and told them every player on the floor had to touch the ball twice before they could shoot.

“It’s hard to tell players not to score, but you’d have to think these teams had to know how they’d match up before they even played.”

The score was 59-0 at halftime and with the game played between two small private schools, there was no media present and Dallas Academy did not film the game to provide more details.

There are conflicting reports as to how long Covenant used a full-court press in the game (some reports as short as three minutes) but Dallas Academy coach Andrew Lott estimated his team managed only seven shots.

“In college, there’s a shot clock so you can’t slow it completely but in high school there’s no excuse,” said Mark Javens, former Community College of Beaver County and Hopewell High School coach.

Covenant School had only eight players, so at least two starters always had to be in the game.

“That was a coaching error of some type no matter what,” said Cornell boys coach Bill Sacco, who has coached both boys and girls teams in his 30-year career. “I’ve been on both sides and there are things you can do. You know you’ve reached a point where the other team can’t come back and you curb whatever you’re doing.”

Beaver boys coach Brandon Ambrose said that type of score wouldn’t happen in the area.

“I’ve been on the short end of scores more than the other side, but coaches around here don’t run the score up,” he said. “You always have to be careful that the shoe could be on the other foot someday.”

poor sportsmanship, especially in high school where sports are not used just to play a game, but to learn life lessons and respect for others.

I'm glad the coach was fired.

To bad they can't do what happened to us when I was in high school. We played a small Catholic school in Houston my senior year and beat them 132-28. The scrubs including me played almost the full game. The next year, the coach at the Catholic knew some missionaries in Africa and was able to arrange for 5 foreign exchange students to play for the Catholic school who also happened to play on the junior national teams in their homeland. Their frontline was 7 foot, 6'11'' and 6'8''. Needless to say, my alma mater got beat by over 100. All 5 of these player went on to play division 1 basketball.

from what I read... this coach had his girls shooting 3's, even in the 4th quarter, and running the full court press throughout the game. Was basically: steal, lay-up, steal, lay-up, steal, 3 pointer.

Its hard to score 100 points in four, 8 minute quarters. Horrible sportsmanship by the coach... deserved to be fired and was. You are not supposed to teach your high school kids to kick someone when they are down.

In my opinion, the problem is in the scheduling. It had to have been obvious before the game that there was a huge disparity in talent between the two teams so they shouldn't have even been matched up in the first place. If they matchup looked a little more even going in and certain circumstances (injuries, suspensions, etc) conspired to make it a mismatch, perhaps the best alternatives would have been to either call a forfeit before the game or concede at halftime. But you can't totally blame the coach of the winning team without knowing the way the game played out. As was noted, he only had eight players so at least two starters had to be on the court all game. Also, I'd like to know how all of their other games have gone this season. Do they play a bunch of tight games all year where he doesn't get a chance to use his bench much? How much do his reserves get to play and show what they can do? They probably work hard all year in practice and it's not fair to tell them they now get to play but all they can do is hold the ball and pass it around. Do you tell them not to take any open shots or to try to miss on purpose? Do you tell them not to play defense and to let the other team get some points? All of these things are even more unsportsmanlike in my opinion. Of course you don't want to be playing a pressing defense or looking to score on fast breaks at every opportunity. But you've also still got to play the game. Was this a game that could have been 50-0 and they kept pushing to make it 100-0 or was it a game that could have been 200-0 and they worked hard to keep it only 100-0?

all excellent points! sounds like the game should never have been played. to me it's more insulting to the bad team to have YOUR team clown around, then it is to crush them.

unfortunately, they don't have a "mercy rule" in basketball.

And what exactly did this guy do? I read the article and I don't know how the game went. Unless you know what it was that he did, you don't know what he didn't try to do. As I asked, was it a game that could have been only 50-0 and he instead pushed to make it 100-0 or it was a game that could have been 200-0 and he did all he could to keep it at "only" 100-0?

If he had a serious lead and still had a fullcourt press, then I think he did something wrong?

thats is just totally incorrect in this case. The team that lost is a school for kids with learning disabilities. What the winning coach did was just wrong.


As for King's points about maybe 100-0 was taking it easy on them is complete BS. Its high school, they play short quarters. This team was shooting 3's and running the full court press after they were already up 59-0 at halftime.

It was a disgrace to high school athletics.

nobody should be taking the winning coach's side in this matter.

If he wasnt in the wrong, this wouldnt be a national story and the coach would still have his job.

The article said there were varying reports of the game and that one of them said they were only in a full court press for THREE minutes. Where do you get information saying otherwise?

from this thread.....all things considered.....with a 59 pt. lead?...no a good decision by the coach!

Again, I ask where do you see anywhere that it says he was pressing them with that lead? If he was, I'd totally agree that it was classless. But I haven't read that. I haven't read anything about how the game was played and whether he was trying to score as much as possible or whether he was trying to pull back. Until I find out he was trying to score and embarrass the other team, I don't think it's fair to make judgements about how much class he has.

We see things like this in college football often. It would happen in the old Big-8 all the time with Oklahoma and Nebraska doing this to their outclassed competition. What do you do? You take out all of your starters and start playing your fourth and fifth string. You stop throwing any passes. You run the ball on every play. But what can you do when the opposing team can't tackle you? How fair is it to tell fourth and fifth stringers that bust their butts in practice all year that when they finally get their chance to get on the field, they can't even play. You want them to take the handoff and fall down so they can stop from scoring? Sometimes, there's only so much you can do with a talent disparity like that.

I think the other coach should be fired. Having a team that scores 0 points? The guys not a coach. Even if they were way under skilled, he should have gone to the othe coach and sad something like, look my kids are retards, do easy. I wonder what he did say and do.

The winning coach was over the top. But would be still be fired at 76-0?, 59-0?

this is ridiculous. The other coach is coaching kids with disabilities. The Dallas Academy is a school for kids with learning disabilities, etc.

As far as the bolded, the winning coach should have been wise enough to figure that out.

I cant believe some of the posts on here. this is HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS for gosh sakes. Kings example to football was insane.

EXACTLY... this is the whole point of the firing and everything.

Open your eyes people. That coach is a scumbag.

If someone can sue a school after acting like he did.. well this country is a damn shame.

But considering SUE HAPPY AMERICA, it wouldnt surprise me.

Ok, so the score is 59-0 at halftime. First of all, that's bad enough. Why was this game even scheduled in the first place is my question? Second, I would wonder if either coach went to the other and said "hey, let's call this off." Now, once the game went into the second half, all of you that are against the winning coach, how would you have handled it? Do you put in your three bench players and tell them to just stand there and hold the ball at halfcourt? Since there is no shot clock, technically, he can just have his players stand there and just hold the ball for the whole quarter. Is that what you would have had your players do?

If I was the coach.. I would have tried to get a mercy rule to end that game after half.

I would make my kids run suicides in the morning til the fainted if they took a 3 pointer or an easy layup in the 2nd half. I'd make them complete 20 successful bounce passes before they would be allowed to shoot.

This isnt the pro's or college. Its about teenage girls playing against a group of teenage girls with disabilities. Its about being a good person & thinking about others feelings.

I think all the responsibility lies on the coach. ESPECIALLY after he wrote a letter to the paper saying he wasnt sorry for anything (after the school had issued an apology). Good riddence.

High School sports are not just about winning and losing. I think he broke lots of morality codes and integrity codes.

And considering that the school fired him (not because of the game) but because he wrote a letter to the newspaper saying he wasnt sorry about anything... after the school had tried to forfeit and gave apologies.

He wont win a darn thing in my opinion.

Ok, like with Timm, I'm not reading the same things you are. The article does not say that he was fired because of the letter he wrote. It says it's unclear if it's because of the score of the game or because he says he's not sorry. Either way, I don't see where they have any just cause for firing him. As a basketball coach, he could win 200-0 if he so feels like it and he can't be fired for it. And if he knows the he was really trying to keep the score down and that it could have been worse had he wanted it to be, he has no reason to apologize for his behavior as he did nothing wrong. It also doesn't say the school tried to forfeit the game at all. If anyone should be fired, it should be the coach of the other team for scheduling his disadvantaged girls against an opponent that was capable of beating them that bad. Whether the beating was 100-0, 50-0, 75-6......this was a game that shouldn't have been scheduled in the first place.

I don't know if any of you remember the story of that kid in NY (I think it was NY) last year that had the developmental problems and the coach finally put him in during the last game of his last season? That might not be exactly accurate but it was something like that. This kid was finally put into a game and ended up scoring something like 20 points in the last five minutes of the game. Should his coach have told him, after finally putting him in a game, to just hold the ball and not shoot? Don't try to score or do anything to embarrass the other team? Is that what this coach should have done? Told his team to not play any defense and just let the other team score and then when we have the ball, don't do anything at all. Just inbound it and stand there. Don't shoot because there's no shot clock so we don't have to. Maybe to be a little bit nicer to them, throw a bad pass or two so they can steal it and then let them score. What do you do?

King, read this article. This is where I am getting my statements from. You will totally change your opinion. Also, it was the Dallas Academy team that only had 8 players.

http://sports.espn.go.com/highschool...ory?id=3852460


edit: also I told you what I would do if I was the coach in Post 26

Great quote in the ESPN article by the head of the winning school

"A victory without honor is a great loss"

:tro:

you didnt miss it... it wasnt brought up in the thread before I mentioned it.

http://www.rutlandherald.com/article...30/1007/SPORTS

here ya go.

Now, this story tells a different story. If this story is accurate, then I think firing him is justified and that the act was classless.

I'm glad to see that Dallas Academy has cancelled the rematch and the rest of their games for this season. They haven't won a game in four years. This was never going to end well.

This was the first article I read about this subject.... now you know why I formed all the opinions I did & why it upset me so much...

I also trust ESPN as a source (eventhough PacMan may disagree), and considering all of the controversy created by this I bet the ESPN article was right on point.

then the 2 teams had NO business playing each other!

shooting 3's was better than lay-up drill. 3's lowers the shooting percentage.

i don't know what kind of high school you went to but the league we play in was as cut-throat as it got. 8 teams in the league and 5 teams would make the playoffs at 2 different classes in 2 states. we only lost 10 games in 4 years and 2 of those losses were the state semi's.

from what i've read there are differing accounts of the game, to call it a disgrace.

It just seems that there are many guilty parties here.

1. The head coach of the losing team. For having them in a division or a leauge that they are not capable of competing in (I could be wrong here, I'm not sure of their record but just attempting 7 shots all game tell me they have no one to dribble the ball).

2. Leauge director or commish. For either letting the team play in the division. Not briefing other teams coaches about the nature of the team with the special needs. Maybe adapt some sort of mercy rules so game like this don't get out of hand again.

3. Obviously the other teams coach, for not calling the dogs off. At some point just have your guys stand in a stationary position andlet them score a few points.

4. Referees: when it's starting to get out of hand, call some fouls (even if they are phantom) to keep the other team from pressing. Also to get the other team to the line and maybe get a few points on the board.

It's easy just to blame the coach (he is the biggest culprit), but there are other people here that let these kids down too.

There are huge disparities in this state among private schools. This team probably had very few teams that it could play, the leagues are just not that big.
Example: Dallas Bishop Lynch, also a private parochial school, routinely recruits college caliber players for its girls team. They have won the state title in TAAPS 19 out of the past 20 years. They kill the same Catholic school located in San Antonio in the title game every other year it seems. This team also recruits. The interesting thing is the public schools are usually better.

So I guess it was probably a very difficult situation.

BTW. They showed this team practicing after this destruction on the hardwood. My daughter's high school team would have slaughtered this 100-0winner. My daughter's team finished 3rd to last (9 teams) in their 5A (largest schools usually 2800 kids and up) division. So my question is what the heck was wrong with that other team? Was it a school for the blind or some school for kids that are disabled...? I have not found anything out about this...

OOps. Just read it was a special needs team.
That explains it.
Good Christ... forget the above.

when i went to school, our football team was an absolute laughing stock. we lost double digits to nothing who knows how many times. it's not fun, but we found humor in it. especially if we ever found a way to get any points on the board-we considered that a victory in itself. now, i'm competitive as hell. to lose to a better player, i can handle that. i think it would tick me off a lot more if i lost and knew the other team was sandbagging. now, that probably doesn't apply in this instance... the big question would be why schedule such disparate teams? the second question would be why is there no mercy rule, or why didn't they just forfeit before the second half? also, from what i read a few days ago, the crowd was behind the team scoring-i think they wanted their team to get to triple digits. and then the coach gets fired for doing what the parents and fans seemingly wanted? perhaps more than the coach should get some attention from the powers that be there.

don't they have divisions for sports? we go from 6-a to 1-a in arkansas, surely they can find a better fit for that team?