Girls basketball team in Minnesota loses 65-0

Correct me if I am wrong, but these kids were all the same age, right?


Again, if you dislike losing, get better.

 

Ok, I'll try again.

Age has nothing to do with it. You realise that among kids of the same age, some kids are demonstrably more skilled, right? And most of it has to do with inherent athletic abilities, not effort.

That's why there are twelve year old kids playing house league sports and others playing at the AAA level.

Putting the two of them together and thinking that it'll be competitive is asinine. Even more asinine is the idea that if the house league kids "try harder", they'll reach elite athlete status.

Please.

 

A couple of years ago in Iowa I covered a girls basketball high school playoff game that was 76-4. It wasn't a real playoff game per se, as all teams made playoffs. Wouldn't want to hurt anyone's feelings, of course. :
I also covered wrestling districts that night, so by the time I got to the basketball game it was 52-3 early in the third. The local winning team was playing girls I hadn't seen all season. Coach told me later (and others confirmed it) all the starters were out by the end of the first period. The visiting school had less than 100 students total, seven players total on the bench and just about a 1-to-1 ratio of fans to players. I believe the school was shut down end of the year due to lack of money.
That was one of the shorter gamers I've written. At least there was the next round of playoffs to talk about, would have hated covering the other team.

 

Yeah, I get it.
I also "get" that the parallel you attempted to draw was with 12-year-olds.
There needs to be a threshold somewhere, at some age, where the games shift from being fun to where the primary reason (or at least a large reason) as to why you compete is winning.
To me, once you've reached high school, it is about winning.

That said, the flip side is losing.
And, once the primary focus is winning, if you are not successful at winning you have two choices:
1. Get better.
2. Quit.

The onus shouldn't be on the kids who successfully achieved to dumb it down.

Perhaps I am just wired different, perhaps I am just looking at this differently than others.
But it is the same reason, when I play golf with my buddies, we don't give each other shots -- you shoot an 73 and I shoot an 81, I lose....it might be that way forever and I might never in my life beat them, but I am never going to ask for strokes to "even it up."
If I want to beat my friends, I need to understand I need to get better.

 

I can use the parallel with 15 year olds if you want. It doesn't change my argument.

Pitting one high school team against another where the competitive advantage is so out of whack where you have a score like this one isn't about "winning". It's a travesty of the spirit of high school sports.

And I never mentioned anything about dumbing it down. The two teams had no business playing each other.

Competition is only valid when each team has a remote chance of winning. Kids know that intuitively. Beating the crap out of your opponent isn't fun or rewarding for either team.

If you have ten kids playing a game of pick-up hockey (pick another sport if you want) and one team beats the other 10-2 in the first game, what usually happens is the kids reshuffle the teams to make it more competitive.

And the reason you give strokes in golf is for the same reason. If you have a ten handicapper playing against a two, the sport decided that you make it more competitive by giving strokes to the lesser player.

The fact that you don't give or accept strokes is antithetical to the spirit of the game. Golf, which has been around a lot longer than this notion of winning at all costs, understands it.

 

The golf handicapping system began in the early 20th century...and the sport was founded in, what, the 15th century?
All those guys who played in that time span were wrong or, as you put it, "antiethical."

My sole point is this: I played on teams that were good, very good. I have played on teams that were bad, really bad.
When I was on a bad team, never once did anything enter my brain other than I needed to get better...ever.
Never did I think there should be a mercy rule.
Never did I think the other team should quit pitching the ball so fast, hitting so hard or shooting the basketball with such accuracy.
There's something to be said for taking it upon yourself to narrow that gap you spoke of.

 

JR, this wasn't a tiny school playing big suburban high. The winning school had double the enrollment -- 200 instead of 100. The losing school went to the playoffs a few years ago. It's just stuck in a cycle where it has no one who can play at a high school level. Heck, this wasn't even their worst loss. Not even their second-worst.

This doesn't sound like that infamous 100-0 game where the coach may or may not have been pressing into the fourth quarter.

 

Wrenshall and MLWR are both in the Polar Conference. It's very common for teams in this area, even if they're different classes (Wrenshall is 7A, MLWR is 7AA) to be in the same conference, otherwise the travel costs for these teams would be astronomical. It's quite common for these kids to have two to three hour trips for games.

I guarantee you, the Wrenshall girls are NOT going to be permanently damaged from this loss - Minnesota girls, especially from the northern half of the state are much, MUCH tougher than that.

 

This is ridiculous. There are always going to be bad teams. Awful teams. Terrible teams.

We have a soccer team around here that is a threat to win a district title every year. Right down the road, we have a team that wins two games, tops.

When they play, team A piles it on during the first half and runs passing drills for the second. It's not that freaking hard. In the public school leagues, you get what you get. Kids just want to play ball. They're not playing for scholarships, they're playing for something to put on their applications. Hey, they might play to stay in shape.

That doesn't mean it's okay to beat the shit out of those teams. There's no reason to be a dick.

 

Damn, I need to move to Minnesota.

 

I apologize if I offended anybody.

In Toronto we have different levels for high school sports.

The HS my kids played for (enrollment about 1000 kids) played at the AAA level and played against other teams on the same level. The smaller schools (say, 500 or fewer kids) played at the A or AA level depending on their previous season's records

There's no way that my kids' high school would have ever played against a A team---and the kids wouldn't have wanted to. There wouldn't have been any fun in it.

My original point still stands: if a AAA team beats a A team in football by 50-0, no one wins.

Going on and on about "getting better" is beside the point.

 

In the part of Ontario where I am, there are 13 high schools, ranging from class A to AAAA. They all play against each other in district play, including playoffs, but split into their various classes for separate Ontario playoffs.

I've seen some ugly scores turned in, like 104-3 and the like. I never heard that anyone on the losing sides suffered any lasting detrimental effects.

Bottom line - if teams/players don't like suffering through ass-kickings like that, they can either get better or they can play intramural sports.