[Trinidad]

GreenMan, on 2015-January-18, 11:50, said:

The idea that humiliating your opponent is the moral choice is bizarre.

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

[dicklont]

Youth sports is not only about winning, but also about learning and developping as a player.

The winning team could have tried several options to make it more like a training game.
Leaving one player on the bench and play with four, chance to a tactic you don't normally play, force players to pass or score left handed.
I wouldn't know what to do, but the self imposed handicap should be something you can learn from.

[Mbodell]

GreenMan, on 2015-January-18, 11:50, said:

This is the sort of thing you say after you run up the score for your own enjoyment. "It would have been more disrespectful if I hadn't kept beating you after you were on the ground unconscious. You could have woken up!"

The idea that humiliating your opponent is the moral choice is bizarre.

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?

[mike777]

I note as far as we know the only one who suffered damage was the winning coach. It looks like he lost pay.

I wont object to some reprimand but losing pay seemed too much.

[Fluffy]

Talking about unfair tactics... Let's talk about soccer.

Everybody uses unfair tactics for losing time when the score is good, like not throwing the ball when it is not in play, or fake injuries, etc.

I though you could go to the next level and get a circle of 5-8 players around the ball forming an unpenetrable wall, I can't see any answer to that without commiting fouls.

[diana_eva]

Trinidad, on 2015-January-18, 14:58, said:

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]

Mbodell, on 2015-January-18, 16:58, said:

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!

Quote

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]

sfi, on 2015-January-18, 17:21, said:

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]

GreenMan, on 2015-January-18, 17:21, said:

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]

Mbodell, on 2015-January-18, 16:58, said:

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]

barmar, on 2015-January-19, 09:45, said:

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]

Bbradley62, on 2015-January-19, 10:15, said:

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]

barmar, on 2015-January-19, 10:22, said:

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]

barmar, on 2015-January-19, 09:45, said:

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.bridgeba...-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...-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.