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bronco2828 wrote:How many goals ahead are enough?

Blowout prompts locals’ opinions
A high school coach in Texas was fired this week in the wake of his team winning a girls basketball game 100-0. The ax fell not because of the score, but because the coach failed to see anything wrong with beating another team 100-0.

A high school coach in Texas was fired this week in the wake of his team winning a girls basketball game 100-0. The ax fell not because of the score, but because the coach failed to see anything wrong with beating another team 100-0.

“Sometimes you have to use a little common sense,” Moorhead High School boys basketball coach Chuck Gulsvig said. “I’m not sure that happened in this case.”

The 100-doughnut blowout in Dallas ignited a national media uproar, most of which buried the since-fired coach as a clueless clod. That might be true. But it also should’ve spotlighted another, tougher-to-answer problem:

What’s the proper protocol when a high school game gets out of hand?

If a 100-point difference is unacceptable, then what is acceptable? Is 75 points OK? Or is it 50 points? Or 49?

While it’s easy to crucify a coach whose team wins by a big margin, it’s not so easy to decide what is right and what is wrong.

“In one case a 65-40 game is unmerciful, but in another case a 65-40 game is merciful,” said Dave Carlsrud of the North Dakota High School Activities Association. “When you’re talking about ethics and integrity, it’s difficult to legislate.”

A handful of people involved in North Dakota and Minnesota high school athletics who were asked Tuesday about proper etiquette in blowouts referred to the same, unofficial guideline: common sense.

Surprisingly, the topic rarely (if ever) comes up in college classes, clinics and other resources coaches use to learn their trade. Bodies like the NDHSAA and the Minnesota State High School League usually only get involved after the fact – a team will win by an eye-popping margin and the associations will investigate after getting a phone call from an unhappy coach.

“We’ve called coaches and athletic directors from the schools that won and asked them to come down to meet with us, to tell us what happened,” MSHSL executive director Dave Stead said. “Just to ask them, ‘What in the heck were you thinking about? What were you trying to accomplish?’ The answer is the same every time: ‘We just got caught up in the moment.’ Well, I think they need to pay more attention to what’s happening in the game and not get so caught up in the moment. It’s ridiculous to have those things happen.”

There have been a couple of local games recently that made headlines for their one-sided outcome.

Both were in hockey. The Moorhead boys team beat Monticello 27-0 in a playoff game in 2004 and Fargo South’s boys defeated Breckenridge-Wahpeton 25-0 in 2005. People who attended the games generally agreed the winning teams did not run up the score, but there was some chatter around town about sportsmanship.

“It’s tough,” said South girls basketball coach Craig Flaagan, whose team has had its share of big victories this season. “Do you tell your kids to not try? It’s hard to tell kids that. We have a 30-second shot clock in North Dakota, so you can’t sit on the ball for a long time. You have to shoot it. Do you tell them to miss on purpose? You can’t do that. I’ve been on both sides of these situations, and it isn’t easy.”

Flaagan’s team beat Valley City 101-27 earlier this month in a game that matched perhaps the best and worst Class A girls basketball teams in the state.

“We didn’t pour it on. We pressed the first three or four minutes and after that we played half-court defense. I played my bench in the second half,” Flaagan said. “It’s hard. Maybe we need a mercy rule, where if the margin reaches a certain point then the clock doesn’t stop. I wouldn’t mind seeing that rule.”

North Dakota has a mercy rule in football. Minnesota has similar rules in several sports including football, basketball and hockey. In Minnesota, if a basketball team is ahead by 35 points with 9 minutes to play the clock doesn’t stop except for timeouts.

Mercy rules, though, won’t stop basketball teams from pressing or football teams from throwing passes late in the game with big leads. Only common sense will prevent those things from happening.

At times, it’s a commodity in short supply.

bronco2828 wrote:How many goals ahead are enough?

HardF1 wrote:I don't think teams that are ahead by 6 or 7 goals should not try to score anymore. That is the point of playing the game, to get the most goals. I do believe that teams should take off their 1st line and or just roll 4 lines. If coaches know it is going to be a blow out they should call up some kids from J.V. to play.

Scoring more goals is fine just don't have your top guys out every other shift in the 3rd period.

Goldy Gopher wrote:http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/news/story?id=3577150

Lucia4President wrote:

HardF1 wrote:I don't think teams that are ahead by 6 or 7 goals should not try to score anymore. That is the point of playing the game, to get the most goals. I do believe that teams should take off their 1st line and or just roll 4 lines. If coaches know it is going to be a blow out they should call up some kids from J.V. to play.

Scoring more goals is fine just don't have your top guys out every other shift in the 3rd period.

I agree. There is no need to have your top players out there when you are up 6 or more in the 3rd. Being up that much gives younger kids a great opportunity to get some varsity experience.

hornetsnest wrote:

Lucia4President wrote:

HardF1 wrote:I don't think teams that are ahead by 6 or 7 goals should not try to score anymore. That is the point of playing the game, to get the most goals. I do believe that teams should take off their 1st line and or just roll 4 lines. If coaches know it is going to be a blow out they should call up some kids from J.V. to play.

Scoring more goals is fine just don't have your top guys out every other shift in the 3rd period.

I agree. There is no need to have your top players out there when you are up 6 or more in the 3rd. Being up that much gives younger kids a great opportunity to get some varsity experience.

These games are unfortunate but exist, running time in the third when up by 6 takes care of this to a certain degree, but I would hope coaches would use this time to give more ice time to their third and fourth lines for development, morale and maybe allow their first line an rest. Also not a bad time to insert a back-up goalie who may not be in a regular rotation of some sort.

The down side to this type of games is they often get ugly especially if the other team taken the beating senses the other team is pouring it on.
Sometimes even despite these attempts, the run-ups continue.

I have read posts regarding Hanowski breaking the scoring record and wonder what happens when LF is in games up 8-0 and Ben is still out there on a regular shift. Tough call.

Fire and Ice wrote:The team that should have apologized is the one that lost by 25. Moorhead didn't schedule Monticello the HSL did.

Fire and Ice wrote:It was a section quarterfinal game. So I would say Moorhead had nothing to do with it; the HSL did.

karl(east) wrote:

Fire and Ice wrote:It was a section quarterfinal game. So I would say Moorhead had nothing to do with it; the HSL did.

The section coaches pretty much decide who plays who in the playoffs at the seeding meeting.

And I don't think you can really argue against them being put in the same section. Both have AA-sized enrollments. It's unfortunate it worked out the way it did, but there's really no one to cast any blame upon.

defense wrote:

karl(east) wrote:

Fire and Ice wrote:It was a section quarterfinal game. So I would say Moorhead had nothing to do with it; the HSL did.

The section coaches pretty much decide who plays who in the playoffs at the seeding meeting.

And I don't think you can really argue against them being put in the same section. Both have AA-sized enrollments. It's unfortunate it worked out the way it did, but there's really no one to cast any blame upon.

This is a VERY difficult thing no question. Lets go back to Moorhead v Monticello: Moorhead at the time was having one their best years EVER, undefeated I think, and figured they were headed to their first state championship(as did many, many hockey fans in the state). Monticello has never been good, was the worst in the section, got seeded that way and knew the consequence of being that team. Very tough to not let this one be a blowout. I do however think that knowing what we all knew at the time and proven through the game result something could've been done to stop the game from making the CNN news ticker. (yes it actually did). Remember RESPECT before we start to through Moorhead excuses. The ones of the day were "we had to keep the boys going", it actually would make the other feel worse to lay back." All the boys got a point( I have little problem with that solution). Obviously before the game was ever played this was the outcome, to both teams(even if they wouldn't show it). Common courtesy (something lacking in our society) would've been completely OK with Monticello, trust me....
I could be wrong but I think that in Little Falls' win over Greenway that Hano got like 4 or 5 goals, and not the first 4 or 5 (14-0 win for LF).... and that was something I elluded to in another thread. Great player, go for it all, but is it necassary to have him scoring the 7th or 8th or 10th goals???