Basketball coatch suspended after unsporting win

[diana_eva]

Of course. But the question is what is more humiliating:

• Getting beaten 250-2 (against the first string opponents)
• Getting beaten 162-2 (with the second string in the second half, instructed to take it easy)
• Getting beaten 128-12 (in the second half against 3 back up players, instead of 5)

Of these 3, I would definitely prefer to get beaten 250-2.

 

Rik

 

 

I doubt this was about winning, losing or refusing to downplay to weaker opps. If the game was supposed to encourage young players to compete and there were some guidelines along the lines of "make it so that players will not give up on this game after one match", then it kinda makes sense to penalize a very strong team for humiliating a much weaker team. That being said, penalizing one coach who apparently made some efforts to keep the damage to a minimum while not telling his players "stand still and stop shooting the basket" seems unfair. If they don't agree with how this coach handled the situation, they should come up with better procedure for such cases rather than expect one individual to figure it out by himself.

[sfi]

Two relevant examples:

 

At university, our soccer team was down 10-0 at one point in a match. One of the opposition players started playing for our side and even scored a goal. We knew they were better than us - there would not have been any respect in continuing to play at full pace. They still won 20-1 and he was joint leading scorer for our side that season.

 

An international team who will remain nameless played in the PABF bridge championships some years ago. It was their first international tournament ever, and it was clear they were thoroughly outclassed - to the point where their scores were eventually removed from the calculations to determine who would make the next round. One of the Australian pros playing against them was offering them advice at the table to try and improve their game and experience at the tournament. I didn't hear anyone say this showed a lack of respect, and their players would have improved more from that than from losing another match 100+ - nil.

 

 

At some point you just need to stop trying to beat the opposition. If the coach didn't realise this until halftime in the original post, he really wasn't paying attention.

[GreenMan]

There is a difference between show boating and just playing a normal (winning) game.

 

Some in this thread seem to disagree. The weak must suffer!

 

Say you are playing a long IMP team match and are getting killed by a far superior team (I.e., day one of the spinderbilt a bottom seed against a top seed). After 3 quarters you are down by 250 IMPs. You don't concede because either the rules don't allow it or you paid your money and want to play or whatever. Would you rather your opponents still played their normal game and end up beating you by 330 IMP or would you rather they switched to passing every hand and then visibly shuffling their hand and choosing a card at random to lead and end up beating you by 260 IMPs? Which is more humiliating?

 

The random element of card dealing makes this analogy worthless. We constantly hear how even the worst bridge team might beat the best if the cards fall right, but an assertion that the same might be true of basketball is not worth taking seriously.

 

I've been in a similar situation in a league softball game. Our team was so heavily overmatched that the other side offered to give us six outs per inning instead of three. We did not feel humiliated in the least. The game was not competitive in any way, shape or form, so we arrived at an arrangement that allowed us to keep playing (since the point of the league was to play).

 

I must say the sight of a bunch of grown men projecting their imagined shame on a group of teenage girls is somewhat surreal.

[mike777]

Two relevant examples:

 

At university, our soccer team was down 10-0 at one point in a match. One of the opposition players started playing for our side and even scored a goal. We knew they were better than us - there would not have been any respect in continuing to play at full pace. They still won 20-1 and he was joint leading scorer for our side that season.

 

An international team who will remain nameless played in the PABF bridge championships some years ago. It was their first international tournament ever, and it was clear they were thoroughly outclassed - to the point where their scores were eventually removed from the calculations to determine who would make the next round. One of the Australian pros playing against them was offering them advice at the table to try and improve their game and experience at the tournament. I didn't hear anyone say this showed a lack of respect, and their players would have improved more from that than from losing another match 100+ - nil.

 

 

At some point you just need to stop trying to beat the opposition. If the coach didn't realise this until halftime in the original post, he really wasn't paying attention.

 

NOT RELAVENT

 

YOU COMPARE ADULTS TO CHILD

 

IN THIS CASE we have only evidence that the winning coach was damaged

[Trinidad]

Some in this thread seem to disagree. The weak must suffer!

That is simply not true. You just fail to see that it is more humiliating to get beaten by the second string team, with one hand tied to their back than it is to be properly blitzed by the first string team. You are making a connection between suffering and the score in the game, that simply isn't there.

 

The point is that the suffering does not come from losing in itself. If you suffer when you lose a game, you shouldn't be playing, unless you're a masochist, since -let's face it- if there are only two competitors you are expected to lose half of the time. (And if you play bridge in a 100 pair session, you expect to lose 99% of the time.)

 

If you can play the best you can, learn something in the process, have pleasant opponents who e.g. pull you up when you fall or put their hand on your shoulder after the game, you can lose by 250-0 and still have had a pleasant experience.

 

In any game I have played, chess, soccer, volleyball, tennis, and bridge, or whatever, I have lost games with an enormous pleasure and I have won games that were genuinely unfullfilling (other than the -not very, but at least somewhat fullfilling- idea that I gave those #%@@#% opponents a good beating).

 

As an example from bridge, I have a very fond memory of a hand where a bridge professional (playing with a client) took a full top against us with a very well timed (and extremely lucky) psyche. After the round, he took us apart and said: "Sorry guys, but I knew that if I would play normal bridge against you, I would certainly lose, since you guys know what you are doing, and my partner is clueless."

 

That single bottom was much more fullfilling than all the tops we have had against players where we left the table immediately after the last card was played, since the opponents were only yelling at each other.

 

In short: winning or losing, and even blitzing or getting blitzed, has very little to do with humiliation or suffering, or the enjoyment of the game. It is the attitude and behavior of the players that creates the sportsmanship, not the score. The suspension of this coach revolved around the margin of victory, which is utter nonsense, since there is nothing unsportsmanlike in a win or in a win by a landslide.

 

What I actually found the most upsetting in this story is the coach's remark after the game: "I didn't expect them to be that bad." That is a sign of a wrong attitude. But if this coach would have said something like: "It was a fun afternoon. My players have learned a few things, and I think the opponents also learned a few things. You could see that they picked up a few tricks from our gals. We felt very welcome when we came here, and, best of all, I got the recipe for these great apple spice cookies. We would love to come here again next season to make both our teams better... and to get new recipes." then that would have been the perfect sportsmanship, no matter what the score of the game had been.

 

Rik

[barmar]

There is a difference between show boating and just playing a normal (winning) game.

 

Say you are playing a long IMP team match and are getting killed by a far superior team (I.e., day one of the spinderbilt a bottom seed against a top seed). After 3 quarters you are down by 250 IMPs. You don't concede because either the rules don't allow it or you paid your money and want to play or whatever. Would you rather your opponents still played their normal game and end up beating you by 330 IMP or would you rather they switched to passing every hand and then visibly shuffling their hand and choosing a card at random to lead and end up beating you by 260 IMPs? Which is more humiliating?

But the point is that they weren't playing their normal game. During the first half, they were overusing the full-court press, which puts extra stress on the opponents.

 

To try a bridge analogy, this would be like the far superior team psyching (or seriously overbidding) on almost every hand. This is normally a tactic they pull in a late segment when they're behind and need lots of swings. Many players say they never psych against weak players: first, they don't need to, because they can beat them just playing normally; second, it seems unsportsmanlike and annoys the opponents, and might even discourage them from continuing to play.

 

Several people have posted asking what rule the coach broke. "Unsportsmanlike conduct" leaves plenty of room for interpretation, so it's kind of a catch-all they can pull out when there's no really specific rule to refer to.

[Bbradley62]

But the point is that they weren't playing their normal game. During the first half, they were overusing the full-court press, which puts extra stress on the opponents.

I'd be willing to bet that the full-court press is "their normal game".

[barmar]

I'd be willing to bet that the full-court press is "their normal game".

I'm not a basketball fan (or a sports fan in general). Is that really likely?

[Bbradley62]

I'm not a basketball fan (or a sports fan in general). Is that really likely?

For a girls' basketball team with state tournament aspirations, yes. It would not be likely for teams that play at the level of the losing team in this story.

[mycroft]

There was a story a few years ago about a new coach who studied the game instead of learning from before, and realized that the full-court press was the way for his newer, less experienced players (mostly immigrants from non-basketball countries) to try to get some balance.

 

They got very very good at it. The opponents didn't play against much of it (because nobody really does), and they ended up dominating - but "this wasn't the way you played basketball", and effectively his team was bullied out of doing that.

 

I wonder if this is the same team :-)

 

When the World Junior hockey championships arrive every year, there's a couple of fodder teams. It used to be worse. I realize these are 18, 19 year olds (and elite-in-country level rather than random high school) rather than 15, 16-year olds, but there was always the conversation about "is it fair to force the Tajikistan Women's team to play Canada day one, where the tie-breakers mean they have to run up the score, and lose 17-1?" Well, if the other choice is "you don't *get* to play Canada (and Sweden, and Russia, and the US), so you won't have that experience, so you'll always be that bad", then I think the answer is *absolutely*. These teams almost always have a seriously good goaltender, and she goes back saying "I played the best in the world, faced 85 shots, and only let in 15!" Story for a lifetime.

 

There is a time and a place for mercy rule. But I really really believe that it shouldn't be mandatory, but available to the losing side. If I'm down 9-1 after 5 innings, and it's a 9-inning game, and my team and I would rather have the experience, let us lose 18-1. Am I going to be more humiliated having the mercy rule trigger or losing by 15? Now, I realize that some coaches would never allow it even with all their team crying on the sideline, and that's why it's mandatory; but I still think it's silly.

 

I have a signed scoresheet from Levin-Weinstein. I failed to make my cut of "lose by only 2 IMPS/board". Don't *care*.

[blackshoe]

But the point is that they weren't playing their normal game. During the first half, they were overusing the full-court press, which puts extra stress on the opponents.

 

To try a bridge analogy, this would be like the far superior team psyching (or seriously overbidding) on almost every hand. This is normally a tactic they pull in a late segment when they're behind and need lots of swings. Many players say they never psych against weak players: first, they don't need to, because they can beat them just playing normally; second, it seems unsportsmanlike and annoys the opponents, and might even discourage them from continuing to play.

 

Several people have posted asking what rule the coach broke. "Unsportsmanlike conduct" leaves plenty of room for interpretation, so it's kind of a catch-all they can pull out when there's no really specific rule to refer to.

Psyching on almost every hand is explicitly illegal. Is "overusing the full court press" in the same category? No.

 

In a game, a rule that basically reads "and anything else you do that we don't like is illegal too" is just wrong.

[gwnn]

The thread on full-court pressing is:

http://www1.bridgebase.com/forums/topic/31962-how-david-beats-goliath/

 

No, it's not the same team, but I also thought of the thread when I read it.

 

I remember being pissed off at my teammates when they were making fun of our opponents and trying out various unlikely ball tricks against a weak team for their enjoyment. I think we won 12-3 or something on a small field but could easily have won 20-0 if we needed to. I would expect nothing less than their absolute best from my opponents at all times (of course, I understand that the coach might want to put in some reserves to protect the best players, and that the first team players might have difficulties concentrating when 6-0 up, say) when I'm outmatched. That just seems to me to be mutual respect and respect of the game as well. I don't understand any other approach to the game. Well I understand it kind of but cannot really sympathise.

 

Another similar story was:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2471785/Football-player-files-bullying-complaint-school-91-0-loss.html

 

But as far as I know the good football team did not face any consequences for being much better at football than the other team.

[ArtK78]

There are really no analogies between tournament bridge and scholastic basketball. In bridge, players are expected to play to their best advantage on every hand. Furthermore, in almost all contests, the players do not know the score at any given point in time. They may have a score through the end of the preceding segment, but not the current score. So the idea of "running up the score" doesn't really apply to bridge contests.

 

And yet, when I play in the local club with my regular partner, we sometimes do not play our light opening system, as it would disconcert some of the regular club players. Some of them are already upset that the "experts" have invaded their game.

 

In scholastic sports, sometimes the skill level of the two teams competing are vastly different. One can only win the game - there is nothing important about winning by a huge margin. So, it is considered to be unsporting to run up the score. Why embarrass your opponent?

 

This would not be true if the rules of the competition - league rules or the rules of a tournament in which the teams are competing - provide for some benefit relating to the margin of victory. In that case, all of the participants knew what they were getting into when they agreed to be bound by the rules, so the fact that a vastly superior team beats an inferior team by a wide margin should not be disparaged. In the absence of such a rule, one can only win a game - there is no need to run up the score. It doesn't make the winners any more than winners, and it serves no purpose other than to embarrass the losers.

 

I am really surprised at how many posters don't seem to get this basic concept.

[gwnn]

I understand that basic concept but disagree with it. I suck at ping pong but still like playing it when I get the chance. My win/loss percentage is probably in the single digits. I don't mind losing but I usually do get pissed off when my opponents are clearly letting me win or letting me back in the game by playing with their left hand or eyes closed (thankfully neither of those happened yet but you get my point) or anything like that. Of course I understand that beating someone 11-0 or 11-1 all the time is also not fun, so we usually just agree not to play. I know other people disagree with this but I don't think I'm alone in my version either.

 

This thread reminded me of a an amateur women's vs junior football (soccer) game where I filled in for the women's team as a goalie (I'm a guy - the opponents acquiesced before the game). The match ended in a 21-0 loss (I was not the man of the match), but I know that I was impressed by the opponents who were keeping serious all the way to the end. They were shouting at each other when they felt their teammates didn't pass, really were in pain when they failed to score their fifth goal, etc etc. After the match no one from our side said one word against the opponents, why would they? It's just normal to do your best if you can.

[billw55]

Yes, you want to compete, but the final score is clearly excessive. The halftime score is too. Even by the end of the first quarter, it was totally obvious where the game was going. The winning coach should have put reserves in even earlier, with clear instruction to use the entire shot clock on every possession. Doing this, it would not be possible to score 104 points in a half, or even 57 as in the second half.

 

That said, the athletic administration for the losing team has to carry some responsibility for scheduling such a game. Several of them, apparently.

 

Running up the score is a common problem in American amateur sports. Even in the recent college football national championship game, OSU punched in for a touchdown in the final minute, already ahead 35-20. Why not just take knees as normal?

 

My son plays soccer, both high school and private club. Competitive mismatches are common. With a big lead, coaches always put their team on two-touch or even one-touch, or into a possession drill, etc. They don't pour on more goals. There is even a mercy rule to reduce the time remaining if the lead is big enough.

 

This isn't pro sports and these aren't adults. Ease off.

[cherdano]

Running up the score is a common problem in American amateur sports.

It's not a problem in European amateur sports. Not because there are no mismatches, but because there is no etiquette against against doing so :)

 

Seriously, I never heard the phrase "running up the score" before I lived in the US. To this day, I wouldn't know how to translate it to German.

[gwnn]

If I count correctly, there is (for=for playing to their best ability and "humiliating"):

 

NA unclear: mike777, barmar, mycroft (3 - mike777 seemed to be more concerned with the exact regulations while barmar and mycroft concentrated on the all-field press)

NA for: kenberg, Mbodell, blackshoe (3)

NA against: GreenMan, Bbradley62, ArtK78, billw55 (4)

EU unclear: Fluffy, cherdano (Fluffy talking about unorthodox tactics in football, cherdano as per his own account)

EU for: helene_t, Trinidad, gwnn (4 - I put cherdano in here since he said he'd never heard of the problem before coming to the US so I assume he still doesn't consider it one, maybe wrong)

EU against: PhilKing, dicklont, diana_eva (3)

non-NA/EU: sfi (against, but cannot put him in either category without offending everyone)

 

so: NA is only 4:3 against "running up the score" and EU is tied at 3:3.

 

Actually I was surprised that it was this close since I had the same exact impression cherdano had, that it was a US/Europe thing.

 

edit: moved cherdano to unclear.

Edited January 19, 2015 by gwnn

[cherdano]

I don't actually know whether I am for or against it.

 

I would be pretty insulted if my opponent would suddenly start playing one-touch football because the score is 10-0 at the half, much more than if they just kept playing.

But then again, I have pretty bad prejudices against US sports coaches. (I know it's unfair, but I can't help it!) According to my prejudice, they think they care about teaching their team to win and to build character and leadership and blah-blah, and in fact just care about satisfying their own ego. If I let my prejudices take over, I imagine the winning coach at the sideline, cheering for his team all the way, while yelling at them every time their full court press leaked just a little bit and let the other team come close to crossing half court.

So in my prejudiced mind, this coach fully earned his suspension.

 

(To anyone here who may have coached youth sports in the US: Sorry! I know it's completely baseless. But then again, big time college coaches are the example of US youth sports coaches we see in public, and they deserve all the mocking they get, and much more. Ok, just one joke for every dollar they earn at the expense of the actual players. Sorry again.)

[cherdano]

so: NA is only 4:3 against "running up the score" and EU is for by the same score.

 

Actually I was surprised that it was this close since I had the same exact impression cherdano had, that it was a US/Europe thing.

But then again, this is a social consensus among the sports community in the US. No offense to Ken, but I am not sure he would consider himself part of that :P Similarly, if someone suggests the alternative for the coach would have been to play with four players, that suggest they are not intimately familiar with basketball; and so maybe they haven't been exposed to that peer pressure within US sports either.

[kenberg]

But then again, this is a social consensus among the sports community in the US. No offense to Ken, but I am not sure he would consider himself part of that :P Similarly, if someone suggests the alternative for the coach would have been to play with four players, that suggest they are not intimately familiar with basketball; and so maybe they haven't been exposed to that peer pressure within US sports either.

 

Certainly no offense taken. I generally stay off of the sports threads since indeed I am not part of iut. But here I think I don't have to be. I mentioned our softball team when I was a grad student, I mentioned my granddaughters experience with soccer. These experiences seem relevant. There was also the time I agreed to box with a guy I met in the gym. As I was struggling to get up, he was telling me of his successes in Golden Gloves. He might have mentioned this earlier. And I mentioned concessions at bridge.

 

I see it as what to do when a match is so one-sided it really should never have taken place. I'm pretty sure that my granddaughter never experienced such a complete blow-out from either side. I think the organizers have some responsibility here. i suppose anyone can have a bad year, I do live near teh Redskins. But it sounds to me like on one side you have a very determined coach and very determined girls, on the other side you have a lackadaisical approach. I had experience with this also. IN my freshman year in high school I was on the (freshman) track team. We supposedly had a coach. He showed up for practice sometimes. This was not inspiring. It is crazy to put two teams on the floor who are so totally mis-matched. It is fun for no one. I suppose the coach might have done something, but I really I do not think that the problem was solvable and I think that the organizers need to take some responsibility for this.

 

I have always enjoyed playing informal sports at a modest level. I just don't much enjoy watching people getting and giving concussions for money.

[Mbodell]

But then again, this is a social consensus among the sports community in the US. No offense to Ken, but I am not sure he would consider himself part of that :P Similarly, if someone suggests the alternative for the coach would have been to play with four players, that suggest they are not intimately familiar with basketball; and so maybe they haven't been exposed to that peer pressure within US sports either.

 

I suggested 4 players was one mitigation, and I am quite familiar with basketball. I may not be very athletic right now, but I did play high school basketball, youth league basketball, and club level basketball. The idea of 4 players came to me mostly thinking of the classic basketball movie Hoosiers. In that movie the coach benches a star player in the game who is not willing to square up and start a multiple pass offense, and instead successfully scores on his own. The coach at the time has only 6 players, so with the benched player is down to 5. The five are run tired and one of them fouls out. As he's leaving the court everyone expects the star to come in but the coach is steadfast and goes with just the 4 players on the court. The result there is a team loss, but a loss that teaches. Again that is an Oscar winning movie about high school basketball, so perhaps not a terrible model if you think it is the score difference that matters, and not the behavior of the winning team, to how "humiliating" something is.

 

And about the people who were asking about if full court pressing was like psyching. No. It is more like playing a pressure style (maybe EHAA or Fantunes or agressive preempts or thin part score X). There are college programs that are built on the press. The referenced Gladwell article on the Silicon Valley team that pressed mentions Rick Pitino who is one of the top 10 college basketball coaches in the US. Another frequent top US team is the Florida Gators coached by Billy Donovan who also run a lot of full court press (Donovan was a college player coached by Pitino before becoming a coach). The full court press has some draw backs like it is hard on the team running it in terms of effort and endurance. You have to be very physically fit or have a very deep bench or both. Also, if the team beats the press they frequently have a brief advantageous situation with an uncontested transition layup or 3 on 2 or the like. But it is very hard for players, even at the top college level, to consistently beat the press when the team pressing is well trained. There are a number of other teams that utilize the press occasionally, more of as a temporary surprise, or trying to comeback late in the game. The former is often successful, the latter is only sometimes effective (usually because it isn't a surprise and the team running it isn't well practiced in it).

 

It is quite possible that the team that was playing always runs the press, and more over needs to practice running the press at game time. Doing so for half the game is not unreasonable to me.

[Bbradley62]

And about the people who were asking about if full court pressing was like psyching. No. It is more like playing a pressure style (maybe EHAA or Fantunes or agressive preempts or thin part score X). There are college programs that are built on the press. The referenced Gladwell article on the Silicon Valley team that pressed mentions Rick Pitino who is one of the top 10 college basketball coaches in the US. Another frequent top US team is the Florida Gators coached by Billy Donovan who also run a lot of full court press (Donovan was a college player coached by Pitino before becoming a coach). The full court press has some draw backs like it is hard on the team running it in terms of effort and endurance. You have to be very physically fit or have a very deep bench or both. Also, if the team beats the press they frequently have a brief advantageous situation with an uncontested transition layup or 3 on 2 or the like. But it is very hard for players, even at the top college level, to consistently beat the press when the team pressing is well trained. There are a number of other teams that utilize the press occasionally, more of as a temporary surprise, or trying to comeback late in the game. The former is often successful, the latter is only sometimes effective (usually because it isn't a surprise and the team running it isn't well practiced in it).

 

It is quite possible that the team that was playing always runs the press, and more over needs to practice running the press at game time. Doing so for half the game is not unreasonable to me.

I was even thinking that running a full-court press was similar to playing Precision in a weak ACBL club game. The pair that is doing so is very possibly practicing for playing at a higher-level event, but many club regulars are not use to seeing it and don't like it and probably don't know what to do about it.

[blackshoe]

I was even thinking that running a full-court press was similar to playing Precision in a weak ACBL club game. The pair that is doing so is very possibly practicing for playing at a higher-level event, but many club regulars are not use to seeing it and don't like it and probably don't know what to do about it.

Other than bitch and moan to club management, you mean? B-)

[billw55]

Full court press is not all that rare. It is a standard tactic that all teams practice, as they may need it if behind late in the game. Many teams will employ it for short stretches. Few use it all the time, partly due to stamina issues, and partly due to tendency to accumulate too many fouls.

[Fluffy]

I understand that basic concept but disagree with it. I suck at ping pong but still like playing it when I get the chance. My win/loss percentage is probably in the single digits. I don't mind losing but I usually do get pissed off when my opponents are clearly letting me win or letting me back in the game by playing with their left hand or eyes closed (thankfully neither of those happened yet but you get my point) or anything like that. Of course I understand that beating someone 11-0 or 11-1 all the time is also not fun, so we usually just agree not to play. I know other people disagree with this but I don't think I'm alone in my version either.

 

This thread reminded me of a an amateur women's vs junior football (soccer) game where I filled in for the women's team as a goalie (I'm a guy - the opponents acquiesced before the game). The match ended in a 21-0 loss (I was not the man of the match),

 

So who was MotM then? :P