Sacramento 91, Hiram Johnson 0?
- Thread starter ClayK
- Start date
Yeah if the team is that over matched the least you could do is score two points for them by mistake.
Sac completely backed off in the second half and ran through plays and milked the shot clock, even getting a couple of shot clock violations. The press was called off after the 4:00 mark of the 1st quarter, and the team played defense within the perimeter the whole second half. Sac had 1 blocked shot the whole game, and no starters played in the 4th quarter and finished with 30 second half points total.
Johnson missed a ton of close shots, layups and 3s. The time they did score on a 3 pointer, the Johnson coach called a timeout a second before the shot went up. Wasn't much else Sac could've done to allow HJ to score, aside from standing along the baseline with their hands behind their backs. It easily could've been over 120 points.
Johnson missed a ton of close shots, layups and 3s. The time they did score on a 3 pointer, the Johnson coach called a timeout a second before the shot went up. Wasn't much else Sac could've done to allow HJ to score, aside from standing along the baseline with their hands behind their backs. It easily could've been over 120 points.
Precisely the point: The imbalance and lack of depth of talent in the women's game are staggering.
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Sadly, I would have stood on the baseline in the 3rd quarter and let them score a couple baskets just so it would not be banter on a message board. Strange but in football if the score 63-0 in the 4th quarter the defense would do everything in their power to keep the shutout regardless of the competitive imbalance because shutouts are praised in football.
There is absolutely no excuse for the league to have sac high play this game. Make the tough call and wipe these games off the schedule and avoid these travesties.
There is absolutely no excuse for the league to have sac high play this game. Make the tough call and wipe these games off the schedule and avoid these travesties.
We just played M-A and were shut out the 2nd half..this without the Kailahi sisters, who are RUMORED to have moved. While M-A continued to press and rotated starters throughout, we say, good for them! It showed our players what it takes to get to that next level. To a player, they felt blessed to have the opportunity to play a dominate team that showed enough respect for them to play hard the entire game.
Agree!. Also, these type of games have an adverse effect on the winning team's MaxPreps ranking. Strength of schedule is a big factor in MaxPreps rankings, and if the Sac-San Joaquin section will use MaxPreps rankings entirely on their playoff seedings, playing in a weak league has an adverse effect on rankings and seedings for a strong team.
There's really nothing anyone can do ...
My suggestion: Since coaches know what teams and games are going to be like this at the start of the season, simply cancel the games and credit the team like Sacramento with the league win (so as not to skew the standings) and a team like Hiram Johnson with the league loss. Each team can now schedule games against more appropriate opponents.
And let's make the competitive anomaly easier to have happen, and simpler to administer. The St. Joseph Notre Dame girls' team should not have to play Bay Counties' League-East opponents, and vice versa, and this was crystal clear to anyone who was paying any attention when they were moved into the league.
Let SJND get an automatic berth into D5 as a league champ, and let everyone off the hook. Athenian is the second best team in the league, with a 10-5 record and good coaching, and the final was 64-18 -- and it could have been 90-10. What happens when SJND plays the worst team in the league? And more to the point, why is SJND even playing the worst team in the league?
These routs are an administrative issue, not a coach's issue, and should be dealt with at that level, not by humiliating a bunch of teen-age girls for 32 minutes.
My suggestion: Since coaches know what teams and games are going to be like this at the start of the season, simply cancel the games and credit the team like Sacramento with the league win (so as not to skew the standings) and a team like Hiram Johnson with the league loss. Each team can now schedule games against more appropriate opponents.
And let's make the competitive anomaly easier to have happen, and simpler to administer. The St. Joseph Notre Dame girls' team should not have to play Bay Counties' League-East opponents, and vice versa, and this was crystal clear to anyone who was paying any attention when they were moved into the league.
Let SJND get an automatic berth into D5 as a league champ, and let everyone off the hook. Athenian is the second best team in the league, with a 10-5 record and good coaching, and the final was 64-18 -- and it could have been 90-10. What happens when SJND plays the worst team in the league? And more to the point, why is SJND even playing the worst team in the league?
These routs are an administrative issue, not a coach's issue, and should be dealt with at that level, not by humiliating a bunch of teen-age girls for 32 minutes.
While I think pressing the entire game in some instances (maybe not yours) is uncalled for, my unnecessary comment was about the scheduling.
There are certainly times when players need to play hard throughout and if the score ends up lopsided it ends up lopsided. They, and the coach for that fact, shouldn't have to TRY to not do anything wrong, like sac tried. Going off the viewpoint of the one person on here that seemed to be there or know what happened, it seems like sac did the best they could.
I agree with your counter point but you can't fault the intentions of the coach for allowing the other team to score. I would bet that the Sac High coach is taking heat today, tomorrow and in the short term. He or she will say all the right things because odds are there was not any malice or intent to skunk the opponent. It looks bad because the other team did not score.
I would also bet if this was to happen again the coach would let them score by any means possible and when the score reads 91-5, just like another loss they had this year that flew under the radar and this is where you want to live when it comes to blowout, under the radar
As a coach that has been on both sides of blowouts 110-11 (loss) 91-4 (win) are the ones that I can readily remember, their is absolutely nothing you can do. For those that say, oh stand on the baseline and let them score, foul them so they can shoot free throws, I've heard have your post play point and your point play post. Do you understand that is more embarrassing than just playing the game the way it's intended. Has the other coach said anything about it being unsportsmanlike? No, you know why because the people that are directly involved, meaning coaches and players don't view it in the same way that the peanut gallery does. Those who have coached know that if the Sac coach was being unsportsmanlike that score could have been 200-0. I coached a game where we were getting ready for playoffs and our last two league games were against the bottom two teams in our league. I brought up two JV kids to play Varsity for the remainder of the year and playoffs as a reward for their effort. The first game one of the JV kids led in scoring in a game we win by 60. His mom was in tears she was so proud of him. The second game the other JV kid led in scoring and went 6-6 from three. You should have seen the dad walking around with his chest out. Both kids were frosh and should they not have their moment? My question is for the other coach, how have you been practicing since November and you weren't able to scheme and put up a point? Not one? I'm sure you had the ball out of bounds under your basket, you couldn't get anything. Going into the game I'm sure the loss was inevitable but to not be able to score in 32 minutes, what have you been doing all season. So if we are going to throw blame around give it to those who deserve it.
On the money post ... it's not possible to have good players become bad without making a travesty of the game; and bad players usually fall into that category because they lack talent, training or both, and there's nothing that can be done about that during a game.
League alignments are really the issue here, and that's not something coaches have any power over.
League alignments are really the issue here, and that's not something coaches have any power over.
Yeah when teams are that far apart there should be a forfeit and the weaker team's varsity should play the stronger teams freshman or jv and the bench players at that, if that would allow for a tougher game. Because too often kids with less skill level and less coordination end up hurting themselves or someone else when the skill levels are so far apart.
I don't agree with the folks who get upset when better teams go out and just play ball an often run the score up because you are supposed to play the game to score and win. But zero points should at least be 2 points IMO.The opponents just need to get better, get out of the game, or not play the game in the first place, if such a blow out is likely to happen.
But I agree the blow out score many times could be far worse than the bad score on the board. So we never know unless we are at the game how it was played out.
From what I'm seeing, its perfectly fine for a team to lose by 80-90 points so long as they score. Some people feel that Sac should've allowed Johnson to score, even if Sac scored the bucket for them, which is wrong on many levels. Thats not competition, thats charity! I would be insulted if someone "allowed" me to score...I'd rather take my lumps, work my ass off, improve, face them again and see where we stand. But No Hand Outs!!
You can't forfeit a varsity league game. Nothing the administration can do about the game. Should they tell them you can't play them because they are better than you. It's sports. It's happened before and it will happen again. People and this political correctness, don't hurt anyones feelings is ridiculous. It's life. If kids can't handle that, then they are going to have a difficult time living the rest of their life. I've taught my son and two daughters that you can either keep getting your butt kicked or you can work your butt off to get better. Don't come to me or your mother to fight your battles or to make things easy. They've done pretty good for themselves.
In our league (PAL) players are allowed to move up and down game by game. We can bring a girl down from varsity for one game, then move her up for another. Only two stipulations are seniors can not play JV and you can't play two games in one day.
I believe that rule applies to all CIF. A kid can play JV on Mon, Var on Wed, JV on Fri. I think it's not good for chemistry. If it's for injuries or you have kids out that are sick then the rules help out. If you're doing it because another school isn't good then you're hurting your team in the long run.
I don't know if kbrizzle was at the game, but I heard through a reliable source who talked to the Johnson coach said Sac full court pressed the entire first half & did a half court trap the second half. Maybe Sac wanted to beat Johnson worse than McClatchy did. Who knows.
Not true. I sat at half court first row. No second hand information, but live viewer. Full court press called off halfway through first quarter. Again if Sac wanted to run up the score, that could've happened but after nearly 30 points in first 4 minutes, whats the point.
If high school sports serve an educational end, then the question would be what is learned by losing 95-5 or 91-0? What do the players from Hiram Johnson learn from this process?
At the club level, teams control who they play by the tournaments they enter, so there are fewer of these pointless blowouts. At the high school level, there are some administrative restraints, but really, how hard is it to just award wins and avoid these unnecessary humiliations? Yes, as Coach 102532 points out, kids can learn what they need to do to succeed, but how many times do they have to repeat the lesson? Once or twice would be sufficient, I think, and then administrators should step in and cancel the games ...
At the club level, teams control who they play by the tournaments they enter, so there are fewer of these pointless blowouts. At the high school level, there are some administrative restraints, but really, how hard is it to just award wins and avoid these unnecessary humiliations? Yes, as Coach 102532 points out, kids can learn what they need to do to succeed, but how many times do they have to repeat the lesson? Once or twice would be sufficient, I think, and then administrators should step in and cancel the games ...
Clay,
Think about what you just said. You want administration to cancel games. Really? 95-5 and 91-0. So this isn't an isolated situation, it looks as if Hiram Johnson is very good or maybe the sum of the parts isn't very good. Whatever the case might be the girls basketball program isn't very good right now. We all know these things run in cycles. Try and tell these kids you can't play then because you aren't as good as them. Try and tell the parents that their daughters game is canceled because they aren't as good. What's the next step, getting rid of the girls basketball program at Hiram Johnson. It's a 32 minute high school girls basketball game. We don't need a congressional hearing to figure this stuff out. They play in a league where some of the teams are head and shoulders ahead of them this year. So what. Was this the case last year? I can't believe that you, a coach, would advocate canceling games. If that is your thought process I would never want my daughter to play for you.
Think about what you just said. You want administration to cancel games. Really? 95-5 and 91-0. So this isn't an isolated situation, it looks as if Hiram Johnson is very good or maybe the sum of the parts isn't very good. Whatever the case might be the girls basketball program isn't very good right now. We all know these things run in cycles. Try and tell these kids you can't play then because you aren't as good as them. Try and tell the parents that their daughters game is canceled because they aren't as good. What's the next step, getting rid of the girls basketball program at Hiram Johnson. It's a 32 minute high school girls basketball game. We don't need a congressional hearing to figure this stuff out. They play in a league where some of the teams are head and shoulders ahead of them this year. So what. Was this the case last year? I can't believe that you, a coach, would advocate canceling games. If that is your thought process I would never want my daughter to play for you.
Yes, I do think the games should be cancelled. I have been in a situation where my team was looking down the barrel of five straight league games that could and did wind up as 50-point losses. This was predictable from day one of the season, and did nothing for my girls or my program.
We eventually were very competitive in the league and though we never won a league title, we did have a 20-win season, and I don't think those 50-point losses contributed much to our growth. A couple would have been fine, but what would have better would have been five competitive games -- or five games we lost by 20.
I also coached a game in which my team was down 47-0. The other team was laughing at us, and the refs were laughing at us. I don't think this does much for anyone, even the girl who finally scored for us.
At the other end of the spectrum, we were head in a game 73-9 at half. We managed to avoid scoring 100 by going running clock the second half, but what was the point? That team was crushed by more than one team in our league, and had zero chance of winning.
Again, what was the point? And that program remains dismal, as girls have opted to play other sports rather than get involved in similar kinds of situations.
We eventually were very competitive in the league and though we never won a league title, we did have a 20-win season, and I don't think those 50-point losses contributed much to our growth. A couple would have been fine, but what would have better would have been five competitive games -- or five games we lost by 20.
I also coached a game in which my team was down 47-0. The other team was laughing at us, and the refs were laughing at us. I don't think this does much for anyone, even the girl who finally scored for us.
At the other end of the spectrum, we were head in a game 73-9 at half. We managed to avoid scoring 100 by going running clock the second half, but what was the point? That team was crushed by more than one team in our league, and had zero chance of winning.
Again, what was the point? And that program remains dismal, as girls have opted to play other sports rather than get involved in similar kinds of situations.
Obviously if a team is losing to a team 95-0 (and that was them taking it easy with you) there is not much need for that particular game to take place. If you want to play the game just for the sake of xy getting to play Z then perhaps the superior team should not play it's varsity team and instead play the weaker team with its freshman or jv team, and the backup players at that, if the weaker team is so weak they struggle even against the freshman team. That would be in my opinion perhaps the best thing to do. But I get the point that there will be blow out loses that everyone will experience at one time or another. The question is how many should a poorly skilled team need to take? There should be some way to make the games a bit more bearable to watch and endure IMO. Not sure there would be 100% agreement no matter what was done in circumstances like this.
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Crushed. Really, those kids were on snap and instagram later that day and it had slipped their mind. So what if the other team and refs were laughing at you. Who cares. Maybe it was you the coach who was embarrassed and had your who shook. Kids are far more resilient than you think. Those 50 point losses didn't define those kids and the sun came up in the morning. If losing by 50 is the worst thing to happen to those kids, then they have a pretty good life. I would like to know what the players and other coaches at Miramonte think about your canceling games. So if Miramonte had a stretch of 5 games where the outcome was going to be blowouts would you say lets cancel so we don't lose each game by 50? I don't know Sopak or the other coaches but by seeing how intense he is during games, I'm sure he would have some colorful language for you.
I was listening to the disagreement all week. This is my taughts on this ranking plays alot to why some teams have to blowout teams by 40 to 50 points. I dontt believe in an 100 points blowouts. Some teams blowout teams in their league so they can become independent. Good examples both SMS and Brookside blew out teams so they can get out the league that teams are stuck play teams that arent that good at all.
BLOWOUTS are used as an instrument to get out of some of these leagues. Some blowouts are bad when over do it!!!!!!
BLOWOUTS are used as an instrument to get out of some of these leagues. Some blowouts are bad when over do it!!!!!!
So your point is that kids forget all about it -- if so, then what is the value of interscholastic sports if kids forget it an hour later? As coaches, we believe that what we do has lasting value, and life lessons, but if no one remembers and no one cares, then why do we do it?
I don't think you're taking that position, and I would agree that one 50-point loss, or even three or four during a 26-game season, isn't going to have much impact. But getting embarrassed on a regular basis makes it hard to try, hard to grasp some of the lessons of sport, and accomplishes nothing positive.
We would not put a child who hasn't mastered algebra into trigonometry, or a child who was just barely learning to play an instrument into the school's competitive band, and I don't see why this is so different.
First and foremost is the welfare of the student, and I don't think large doses of humiliation are good for anyone's welfare.
What the hell are you talking about? What I said was kids forget about those losses, it doesn't define them. You're an educated person and you know exactly what I mean. Maybe I need to dumb it down for you. Here goes, do you think the girls from Hiram Johnson are sulking right now about losing 91-0 or do you think they are being teenage girls right now. So when I say kids are resilient and they forget, that's what I mean. As far as your analogies they are way off. Of course we wouldn't put a child who hasn't passed alegrab into trigonometry or a kid who is learning to play an instrument into a schools competitive band. That's not what we are doing. Did we ask a JV team to play a Varsity team? No. Did we ask a Frosh team to play a Varsity team? No. Are we saying Varsity team go play a JC team, then play NAIA, then you are going to play UConn? No. High School varsity vs high school varsity. So if a kid gets F's all semester on tests, quizzes, and papers, do we tell them don't worry about taking the class so that they don't get embarrassed or do we figure out a different way to teach that kid so they don't continue to get F's? Maybe those F's turn into D's or C's.
No answer about canceling the Miramonte games if they were all going to be blowouts? Or did you realize you painted yourself in the corner on that one?
No answer about canceling the Miramonte games if they were all going to be blowouts? Or did you realize you painted yourself in the corner on that one?
gotta go with Coach 102532 on this one. caveat--I haven't coached overmatched teams like Clay has. my daughter and I, out shooting around, watched Bentley play some games at Tice Valley when Clay first started there (both of us knew, liked, and respected Clay), and they were having a lot of difficulty scoring. so he's seen it from the inside, both during the game and the next day.
nevertheless I have coached OYA girls' teams where the skill level was pretty low, and we got waxed regularly. I wouldn't say it was fun, but the kids took it in stride. frankly, they knew they weren't very good, but they wanted to play anyway. they liked to win, but that was the cherry on top, not the cake. by playing ball, they were defying culture's idea of what a "girl" does. they were pushing their own envelope, and didn't always do well. they earned my respect--in some ways I respected the least gifted and skilled among them most of all.
the highlight of my coaching career was when one kid scored her only basket of the year. she was ecstatic! a teammate had stolen the ball, the other team quit on the play, and the teammate stopped at the basket, turned around and handed the ball to her (she had dutifully run the floor). kids learn about more than winning, or even scoring.
OK, it's not all hearts and flowers on the losing end. but no need for the violin music for the losers. they manage to go on being kids. anyway.
nevertheless I have coached OYA girls' teams where the skill level was pretty low, and we got waxed regularly. I wouldn't say it was fun, but the kids took it in stride. frankly, they knew they weren't very good, but they wanted to play anyway. they liked to win, but that was the cherry on top, not the cake. by playing ball, they were defying culture's idea of what a "girl" does. they were pushing their own envelope, and didn't always do well. they earned my respect--in some ways I respected the least gifted and skilled among them most of all.
the highlight of my coaching career was when one kid scored her only basket of the year. she was ecstatic! a teammate had stolen the ball, the other team quit on the play, and the teammate stopped at the basket, turned around and handed the ball to her (she had dutifully run the floor). kids learn about more than winning, or even scoring.
OK, it's not all hearts and flowers on the losing end. but no need for the violin music for the losers. they manage to go on being kids. anyway.
My point was the league admin knows of these train wrecks well ahead of time and they are annual beatdowns. Both the winning team and the losing team do not want to play so just tweak the league. So, if Sac played Johnson 1x as opposed to 2x and they both picked up and extra non league game that they could schedule against a like kind and quality team do you think they would both agree or not?
Instead of 14 games, playing everyone 2x they play everyone 1x and have a top four play off for the two additional games and a bottom four consolation for the remaining teams additional two games. This ensures the best team still wins the league (decided on the court), cuts the blowouts in half and frees up five additional games for all the teams to play. How hard is that?
Instead of 14 games, playing everyone 2x they play everyone 1x and have a top four play off for the two additional games and a bottom four consolation for the remaining teams additional two games. This ensures the best team still wins the league (decided on the court), cuts the blowouts in half and frees up five additional games for all the teams to play. How hard is that?
I think this is where we disagree. You can call Hiram Johnson a varsity team, but they're not. They might not even be a quality JV team.
And thanks for dumbing it down for me. Much appreciated ...
