Sunday, February 11, 2018

Central Section puts Cal City boys hoops on probation after record-breaking blowout

http://www.bakersfield.com/sports/central-section-puts-cal-city-boys-hoops-on-probation-after/article_1eb65bd8-0dff-11e8-8930-4bc8f763fec8.html

I haven't been the biggest fan on the Central Section due to their competitive equity which has left McFarland competing in Division I during XC season despite their enrollment of fewer than 1000 students. 

However, I am quite pleased with the Central Section as you can see in the article above which details the suspension of a school that won a basketball game last week 165-38. The total for the winning team was a new California record. I have coached basketball for many years and for a coach to resort to defeating an opponent by that score is really reprehensible. The Central Section did the right thing this time and they are to be commended.

The comparison has been made to a XC team defeating a team 15-50 but to me, that is not a good comparison. Thoughts?

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mitty girls average margin of victory is 47 points this year. The press and have an uptempo the whole game regardless if starters or reserves are in the game. I was at a game and Mitty was up by 30-ish, a reserve made a turnover. The coach called timeout, teamed the player and sat her the rest of the quarter. Today an article was written because they only won by 20 and was only up 3 at half time. Is this any different?Some coaches are hard core. I am not sure what is unsportsmanlike tho? Should you miss shots on purpose? Not play the game you practice?

All this aside they should arrange a game with the Mitty girls & see if they can hang 100 on them.

Anonymous said...

Cross country is an individual sport within a team concept. You can’t ask a kid to run slower, especially if they are targeting a time for a PR or for a recruiting reason, just to spare the feelings of the slower kids on the other team. I would equate it more to a golf score where the player is pitting himself against a course and not necessarily the other guy/team. You would never ask a kid to shoot a 10 on a hole because he is up by 20 going into the 18th. There are plenty of basketball games in the season and beating a good team by 2 shows a lot more team and individual skill than beating a poor team by 100+.

Albert Caruana said...

No, you don't need to miss baskets or anything like that but you can pass the ball more, not fastbreak, not press, use your subs etc.

Anonymous said...

Team time is the relevance to a cross country blowout when there is no competitive balance between opponents. When teams compete and their average team time is minutes apart from each other, even if the losing team has one or two top individuals, the score doesn't reflect how non competitive the race is.
Which leads to the other end of the spectrum, resting athletes for weekday league meets to chase the competitive glory of a Saturday Invitationals or holding top kids out of early season races

Albert Caruana said...

I don't think there is anything wrong with keeping kids out of meets for the purpose of long term success for that season.

Anonymous said...

Rotating starters and playing the subs was always my strategy when the competition was drastically lopsided. It makes the game more interesting for EVERYONE involved. There's the added benefit of giving your aces a little rest.

Anonymous said...

You can't really compare cross country team results with something like this because in cross country, there is no element of an offense playing against a defense, where you are actively trying to make your opponent NOT do well. In a sport like cross country - everyone is trying to do their absolute best WITHOUT trying to prevent your opponent from doing well. In team sports like football, basketball, etc, your defense is trying to stifle their offense and vice versa. You have a lot of control on ways to play against your opponent when there is a mismatch. There are no such "control levers" in Cross Country.

Albert Caruana said...

That's a great way to explain that comparison. Actually, exceptional runners at the front could lead trailing runners to faster times.

Anonymous said...

@10:47PM - I have a hard time understanding anything inherently wrong with "resting athletes for weekday league meets to chase the competitive glory of a Saturday Invitationals or holding top kids out of early season races". The ultimate goal for many teams is post season success, not PRing at or winning weekday league meets.

Albert Caruana said...

All you have to do is make league meets count. Go ahead and rest your runners but you are going to have less of a chance to win a league championship.

Hank said...

But should week day league meets count towards a championship title? Each league is able to define how they want to decide their league champion, either with or without week day league meets. Back when I ran (69-72) my team didn't care if it was a dual meet or an invite, we wanted to WIN - so we hammered everything. But then, by the time I hit CCS, I was dog meet (our Top Dogs were fine because they were, well, Top Dogs [and CCS was as far as you went]). So let the league decide, it can change based on what the coaches think is important (which I hope they take their lead from their athletes, it should always be fun).

hank

Anonymous said...

I agree with all the sentiments about terrible sportsmanship. BUT, I think it's silly that the league would step in (note that the article says it was probation, not a suspension). Trying to legislate good sportsmanship just strikes me as overreaching. It's essentially saying, "We don't care if you played within the rules, we're suspending you for being a-holes." Now if the school's own principal or AD stepped in, I'd support that as totally appropriate and totally within their purview, not just support it but think they probably should.

Maybe this is a narrow point because I'm not condoning what the team did. I just don't think outside punishment is appropriate. And as somewhat of an old-timer, I can't help but think that this is part of our "every kid gets a ribbon" culture nowadays. The kids on the losing team are in high school and old enough to appreciate that the winners are jerks without having the jerks suspended for being jerks!

Albert Caruana said...

That's certainly a point of view. I for one am glad the section stepped in and did something about this result. I do understand that some people may think that they overstepped their bounds but since this was a state scoring record and very much in the public eye, the section had no choice but to act.

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