Any time a tournament has record-based seeding, fans want their teams to draw some opponents more than others. Usually this means getting the top seed, and playing the presumably worse team. Sometimes, however, we as fans feel like the seeds don't reflect the quality of the teams and advocate "tanking" to get a more favorable matchup. Usually, this is something fans joke about while the competitors insist they want to win every game.
Usually.
In Tennessee, two HS girls basketball teams were playing some sort of placement game. Both would make the state tournament, with the winner being in the upper bracket. Also in the upper half? Powerhouse Blackman High School. Both teams tried to throw the game to avoid Blackman, including intentional backcourt violations and missed free throws. Eventually, the refs stopped the game, and demanded the teams to play straight. The school administrators came down to reprimand the coaches as well. When one of the teams put their starters back in, they ran away with the game.
In the aftermath, both teams wound up getting booted from the tournament and each school was fined $1500.
What do you guys think of this (act & punishment)? Personally I feel like high school should just be about competition, teamwork, and sportsmanship. There's no money on the line for these kids, just teach them to compete in the face of adversity and do their best. Leave tanking to the professionals.
Here's a full story, with videos!: http://deadspin.com/girls-hs-basketball-teams-booted-from-postseason-for...
And finally, to save everyone the trouble,
Comments
Side note: the top GIS result for "play to win the game gif" is a TKP thread.
Personally, I agree with the punishment. I get that teams want to win, but you have to beat them to win anyway. I'd rather have a "why not us" mentality. Go up against the big dog. If you beat them, you deserve it. If you lose, were you really going to beat them later? In the words of Ricky Bobby, "If you aren't first, you're last."
Also, the first thing I thought of when I saw the word "ethics" was...
I don't think $1500 is enough for the schools, that's kind of pathetic.
I thought that at first too, but I don't know what part of Tennessee this was in. The schools could be pretty poor
Are these public or private schools? if its public where would the 1,500 come from? tax dollars? teachers paychecks? i dont know about most states but i think i speak for the majority when i say the school systems in most places are pretty poor. Even some of the private schools i would say most of the tiution goes to saleries, supplies, keep the bills paid? maybe im wrong. i went to private school here in florida and was on scholarship for basketball so my tuition was minimal compared to some other students. we had one of the best basketball programs in the country for a couple years and everything basketball was paid for. bout the schools conditions were poor at best the gym was a ragedy barn (we played our actual home games at jacksonville university gym) i know 1500 isnt alot of money but i dont know what would have to be cut to pay that fine and at whos expense. i dont think a fine is the best way to go in this instance. i think suspendid from tournament play for a couple years is alot better. you dont want to win the game. fine you wont play in it anymore.
If the "school" is fined $1,500, I would imagine it means that their athletics program is fined specifically. That money would come out of the operating budget for the athletics programs that pays for grounds maintenance, equipment, and payment for the coaches. If the school has a booster program, it would likely be paid from their donation account. Otherwise, that money is likely paid for by the coaches salaries and any officials that are involved. It probably wouldn't come out of the fund that pays for the teachers, books, and academic related items.
Agree with everything here. I also hope that the fine gets put into the general education budget of the district/county so that it can be of use.
It should come from the coaches checks. They made the call and have control of the team when they are on the court.
Leg for you. exactly what i was thinking. It's reprehensible that a coach would tell their team to tank on purpose. It goes against every principle that sports AND sportsmanship is about.
Yeah, you don't want to really drop the hammer and put schools in a financial bind with things that actually matter, like teachers' salaries and such.
The fines were probably fine. It will hurt the schools and therefore the athletic teams. But they will probably hold fund raisers to pay for them. Carwashes, bake sales, etc.
The real punishment was kicking both teams out of the tournament and it was justified. Cu-do's to the tournament directors for making a rough decision.
I'm a big fan of the punishment. I think getting booted from the tournament is a great way to send the message that you either play the game like it's supposed to be played or you don't play at all. The financial bit is enough to send the message without doing any significant collateral damage (hopefully it's deducted from something trivial like travel to a tournament next year or something like that). Those coaches and administrators deserve a nice case of genital herpes for getting those girls to try and throw the game. In addition to the league punishment, higher-ups should take a long hard look at whether or not those individuals deserve to keep their jobs.
I don't think it should be that hard to fire a coach who told his team to throw a game.
Also, my understanding was that the administrators were upset with the coaches, not supporting.
Edit: I'm gonna update the post to make this more clear
Ah, gotcha. Herpes only for the coaches then.
I really to embed the herpes muppet from Chappelle's show, but I don't want to search for it
This is disgusting. I have NEVER played a game to lose. Glad they got booted and fined.
Coaches should be looked at as well. What the hell kind of coach tells their team to
throw the game??
Disagree.
I don't like the fine because of what everyone else above me was saying - I don't think schools generally have enough money for a financial penalty.
I also don't think booting them from the tournament was the right thing to do, with a caveat. I don't think this scenario warranted it because the strategy they employed had a distinct goal: Let's not play the best team early in the tournament. This is fine by me.
However, we're walking a tightrope here. They wanted to get their desired seed in the tournament, but they were throwing the game. Since I know why they did it, I'm OK with it. Now, had they done it because someone had money on the game, then nonononono not cool.
I don't like how both schools were kicked out, though. From the article, it sounds like one of the coaches was overruled by an administrator, then the coach put his starters in and ran away with it. That team should have been able to go on. They started in the wrong but eventually did the right thing, even though they had to be forced into it.
But let's not kid ourselves, here. Both teams had already been booted from their local tournament and this was a consolation game. The impact of this game was pretty much limited to seeding the larger tournament.
The article also notes that the girls were attempting to shoot on their own hoops. If both teams just did this the whole game, then the tenor of the game would have been just like a regular game except the team that played better defense at the opponent's rim would have won!
It's the same game!
But with a goal of losing!
So just play it backwards!
It would have been 110% competitive this way!
NOW THAT would have been something to see!
That's what I'm talking about!!
This actually brings up a lot of rules questions:
- If you score in the opponent's basket, wouldn't you retain possession of the ball?
- You would have to score within 10 seconds of inbounding
- If the team is able to secure a "defensive" rebound, they cannot take it to the other basket since it'll be a back-court violation (I guess they could shoot from the half court line?)
To answer your questions, yes, you would retain possession. Teams have accidentally scored on themselves numerous times through bad rebounding and tip-ins. Yes, you have to score within 10 seconds and correct, if you secure the "defensive" rebound, you could not take it back to your basket without a back-court violation or a long shot.
Heh, what I meant was that it brings up some interesting strategy in order to try and not win and play within the rules.
Edit: I see that Horse had already mentioned this episode below
I look at it this way. Would a football game be entertaining if all a team did was take a knee every play, run for safeties, or hand the ball to the other team? Would it not completely undermine the spirit of the game? It's just sending the completely wrong message to the kids.
I don't disagree with you, but lemme play devil's advocate for a sec:
I think the football game WOULD be entertaining AND it COULD be in the spirit of competition if both teams were trying to force the other team to win. Ever seen South Park - The Losing Edge? All the teams were always trying to lose because baseball sucks and is boring. But what did one team do? They got REALLY GOOD at forcing the other team to win.
Who cares if the goal is flipped around backwards? There's still competition, it's just in a collaborative effort to not win. You just play to lose the game. And the other team has to stop you.
I dunno about that. I think that one or two nights' worth of tickets and concession sales would cover a grand and a half, provided people came to see the game.
Edit: this was intended to be in reply to Horse's comment
I'm somewhat reminded of the game winning touchdown from Super Bowl 46:
That would be awesome, although backcourt violations would make it tough if you got a "defensive" rebound. Maybe the refs could grant extra time outs so the teams could take a post-rebound time out to open up the whole floor for an inbounds pass.
This is the kind of scenario where I think the refs should have the ability to look out for the best interest of the game and ignore the backcourt violation problem in order to foster competitiveness. Pretty sure straight up changing the rules in the middle of the game wouldn't be allowed, but if the refs could, this game could have been epic.
How is this any different than Uva's last 2 football head coach hires?
How about now? Time for football????
eh whatever, they got what they deserved
While I have no problem with the decisions involved here, unfortunately in our society, evident for all to see are perfect examples of entire franchises trying to lose games to benefit. You only have to look as far as the Philadelphia 76ers among a handful of other bad NBA teams right now. Their leadership has taken it to another level by giving away experienced players and essentially putting a D League quality roster on the floor for NBA games. The sad part is that the Knicks may have succeeded to accomplish this goal even better than the 76ers this season.
Their trades this season have been ridiculous, essentially giving Cleveland Imam Shumpert and J.R. Smith. Those two combined are now giving the Cavaliers an impressive 20 ppg, 5.9 rpg, 5 apg, and 3.1 spg. Not bad for a trade that took three expiring contracts of low level players off your hands and possibly lands you the Thunders 1st round pick next year as well. Needless to say, the Knicks purposely took a bath on the trade to work towards a better team a couple years from now because on top of only getting the expiring contracts back, they waived all three of those players within 24 hours of their officially being Knicks.
The worst part about these kind of actions is that the NBA is responsible for ensuring that trades are balanced and fair before approving them, and this kind of trade gets a rubber stamp from their front office.
New York and Philly are a respective 9 and 7 games behind the next worst team in their conference and 34 and 32 games behind their conference leader. That doesnt happen by accident.
All true, i agree....but high school teams and their players are not making bazillions of dollars, and they cannot trade their players. At the high school level it should be about the integrity of the game and sportsmanship itself. Unfortunately it's all too soon that the college & pro dynamic bursts that bubble.
At least the Sixers have a plan in what they're doing. The Knicks got this bad on accident, which is really saying something about how inept their ownership is that they're managing to out-suck a team that is purposely building itself to suck.
That being said, within the next few years, the Sixers could very well be one hell of a strong team. They're stockpiling building blocks for the future and really only need half of them to pan out to be dangerous. In fact, I actually kind of prefer the way in which they're doing things by absolutely burning everything to the ground and starting over from scratch by building through the draft. If you suck for long enough, the chances of ending up a legitimate contender are pretty high. Its how the Pittsburgh Penguins built themselves with the Crosby, Malkin, Fleury, and Staal. Its how the Tampa Bay Rays built the team that went to the 2008 World Series. Its how the Washington Capitals built themselves with Ovi and others. Its how the Washington Nationals built themselves with Strasburg and Harper. Its how every NBA team that is relevant got to that point by being able to draft an elite talent early.
Chide them all you want, but what they're doing is actually smart. I would much rather burn it to the ground and go through a legit rebuild than to be stuck in a rut of .500 seasons while not really being able to help the situation cause you're consistently stuck drafting in the middle of the 1st round. You rarely see teams take the step towards greatness without an elite piece.