Girls basketball team in Minnesota loses 65-0

Winner, winner......

 

If Team A consistently beats Team B by horrible scores, year-in and year-out, despite constant efforts to improve, Team B needs to quit scheduling them -- get out of the league or quit scheduling nonconference games with that team.

That's a matter for the coaches, ADs and principals to figure out during the offseason.

On any given day, if Team A and Team B walk out on the court (or field, or ice), you gotta play with the players who show up that day. If Team A starts romping by a huge score, then what?

Coach A needs:

1) To play his starting players long enough to stay in condition, work on specific plays, etc etc. (yeah, even have a little fun too).

2) To play all his backup players if they do not normally get substantial time. Problems can arise here if Team A normally uses a full-rotation system in which all players get significant PT regardless of the score.

3) Allow players who do not normally get a chance to score or handle the ball to do so, within reason.

4) Not to use unusual tactics in order to inflate the score -- high-intensity pressing buzzer to buzzer, intentionally fouling to get the ball back, etc etc.

5) Order his players not to engage in any unsportsmanlike (taunting or screwing around) or rough behavior, and immediately bench anyone who does.

Coach B needs to:

1) Tell his players to continue to play hard buzzer to buzzer.

2) Play defense as well as they can, but avoid excessive fouling or rough behavior.

3) Order his players to utterly ignore the playing tactics or substitution policies of the opponent. If the opponent leaves their stars in the 4th quarter and continues to shoot 3's, it's none of your damn business. We got enough problems coaching our own team, we're not going to worry about what the other team does.

4) Not engage in unusual tactics (fouling, time-outs, throwing to the sideline in football) to extend the game. If you do, you're still playing full-throttle; the opponent gets to do it too.

5) Never, ever, ever, ever piss, moan or whine. If you don't like getting beat by a huge score, play better.

6) If in your opinion your opponent is engaging in flagrantly unsportsmanlike or physically dangerous behavior, forfeit the game, pull your team off the floor and go home.


After all that, to use the weather-beaten cliche in regards to the final score: It is what it is.

 

Here's something I've been thinking about for this whole thread:

The score was 40-0 at halftime, and 65-0 to end the game if I read correctly. If Minnesota HS basketball is like it is here in Pa., they play 32 minute games. That means that the winning team averaged about a bucket a minute. That doesn't sound like running up the score to me.

And I agree with the sentiments that have been shared that sometimes shit happens, so deal with it and move on. Once we get out of Little League-caliber type sports that have mandatory play rules, the focus should be on improving your team for the sole purpose of winning. Should it be win at all costs? No. But like Herm Edwards said, you play to win the game.

Our society has become so coddled, and our feelings have become so fragile that we can't even have blowouts in sports anymore? I hate to tell you people this, but sometimes Team A is just better than Team B, nothing more, nothing less. It's a part of being in any type of competition whether it's sports, tiddly-winks, spelling bees, FFA contests, band, chorus, marching band competitions or whatever. Should we all of a sudden not have first or third chair trumpeters just because it's a public viewing of who is better than who? No.

For Tebow's sake, play the game to win. If you win, great, celebrate. If you lose, great, learn from it. John Wooden said all you need to know about competition of any kind: sports doesn't build an athlete's character, it reveals an athletes character.

 

Starman, now that you've put it that way, your position on this really isn't too different than mine.
I've long had this argument with some of my co-workers who feel that a team that is winning by a large margin should do whatever it takes to keep the score down. If that means turning the ball over on purpose, missing shots on purpose, punting on first down, striking out on purpose or anything like that, then that's what they should do. To me, doing that sort of thing is even more insulting than running up the score.
As long as coach A is doing what you say he should be doing, if the final score is 100-0 or whatever, so be it.

 

Bring a chicken dinner RHCP's way, too.

25 2nd half points. Clearly, they weren't running up the score.

Which leads me to ask, what did the other team shoot from the field for the game, i.e. 0 for what? If the other team only scored 65 and only 25 in the 2nd half, the losing team certainly had plenty of chances to score, assuming they are using a shot clock. To not get a single field goal is horrifically unbelievable.

This isn't about running up a score and horribly poor sportsmanship. It's about woeful ineptitude and people who are horribly poor at a sport.

 

I am always amazed at how much passion there is on these blowout threads.

In my opinion, the winning team should empty his bench early and play those kids for at least the entire second half (but most winning coaches do not do that).

In my experience, rarely do the losing coach/players complain about these blowouts. The fallout almost always is fanned by seeing the score in the paper -- not by someone on the losing side complaining.

So to talk tough and say that the losing team should quit crying and get better is beside the point.

They probably weren't crying or complaining. In fact, they probably don't care a whole hell of a lot about basketball.

 

Absolutely -- given how shitty the losing team was, the winning team should have won by way more than 65.....

 

Per Wiki, the winning team played their JV squad most the second half.

On December 10, 2009, the Wrenshall High School girls basketball team was shut out 65-0 by Moose Lake-Willow River High School. Coach Andrew Miller of Moose Lake said he played his junior varsity players for nearly all the second half after leading 40-0 at halftime.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrenshall,_Minnesota

 

Wonder what "nearly all" means to a coach?

10 minutes, tops, I bet.

 

WRENSHALL, Minn. (AP) -- A Minnesota high school girls basketball team was shut out 65-0 this week.Wrenshall coach Michelle Blanchard said the "shots just weren't going in" Thursday for her young, inexperienced team that is 0-5 this season.Moose Lake-Willow River beat Wrenshall easily and coach Andrew Miller said he played his junior varsity players for nearly all the second half after leading 40-0 at halftime.He says the Wrenshall players worked hard, but missed 11 layups among their chances to score.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/highschool/12/13/shut.out.ap/#ixzz0ZhbnRlCcGet a free NFL Team Jacket and Tee with SI Subscription

Blowouts in this conference are not uncommon:

http://www.mshsl.org/mshsl/standings.asp?actnum=403

Edit: Can't get the right conference in link. Go to the Polar conference if you want to see results.

 

Today (Monday, Dec. 14) was the start of Week 3 of the girls' high school basketball season in KY and we've had five blowouts bigger than this Minnesota one:

June Buchanan 93 vs. Red Bird 26
North Laurel 114 at Cordia 18 (tournament, first round)
Southern 90 at Valley 17
Hopkinsville 87 at Fort Campbell 19
Southwestern 97 vs. Cordia 18

Southern's been beat by 26 or more twice in 4 games.
Hopkinsville got beat by 39 in its season opener.
Cordia is 0-7. Closest game was 58-26 (the team that scored 58 got beat 55-25 in its last game).
North Laurel is 6-0 and has had only 1 game closer than 21 points.
Fort Campbell, a school whose football team won its third straight Class 2-A state title, is 0-5 and has been beaten by 11, 50, 68, 62 and 48.
Southwestern (4-1) has scored 72 or more in 4-of-5 games. Was held to 48 in its lone loss.
Red Bird is 1-2.
June Buchanan is 3-0 and beat Cordia by 61.
Valley is 0-4 and has been beaten by 51, 26, 73 and 60.

The Minnesota game has gotten ink/publicity not because of the score, but moreso because the losing team failed to score.

No one mentions a 6-0, 6-0 beating in tennis, a 15-0 tech fall in wrestling, 10-0 baseball/softball/soccer games or kids getting lapped in the mile and two-mile in track.

A volleyball team - which won 20 matches that year - in my area got beat 25-2, 25-1 in the state tournament by a team ranked in the top-100 in the country. No one complained about them getting beat that bad. Instead, the girls talked about how good the opponent was (opponent had two eventual D-I girls coming off its bench).

Bottom line in basketball, if the losing team fails to score, some people will assume the winner was running up the score. When the winning team scores just 25 in the second half, it is not the case.