100-0 basketball game -- wrong or not?

[joeydb]

Is running up the score to 100 to 0 wrong, is the matchup wrong to begin with, or is it just an unusual circumstance pointing out a weakness in the game?

I would have made this a poll, but I don't know how to do that.

Story follows...

http://www.timesonline.com/articles/...b342763613.txt

Area coaches decry 100-0 score
By Bill Allmann, Times Sports Correspondent
Published: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 12:01 AM EST

How do you beat a basketball team 100-0?

You don’t, area coaches say.

“That score is unbelievable,” said Western Beaver coach Joe Podolak, the dean of area coaches. “You’d like to think a coach would call off the dogs and try not to score 100. It seems like something else happened along the way.”

The 100-0 game in question came to light last week when The Covenant (Texas) School shut out Dallas Academy in a girls’ high school game.

In the aftermath, the administration of Covenant apologized. The school’s head coach, Micah Grimes, disagreed with the apology and was fired. There has been no clarification as to whether Grimes was fired because of the score or the disagreement with the administration but, regardless, the story has attracted a lot of attention.

“I heard a little about it,” said former Blackhawk coach John Miller, who coached the Cougars to four state championships. “I would’ve thought it was avoidable. If it was me, I’d have cleared my bench, dropped into a 2-3 zone, and told them every player on the floor had to touch the ball twice before they could shoot.

“It’s hard to tell players not to score, but you’d have to think these teams had to know how they’d match up before they even played.”

The score was 59-0 at halftime and with the game played between two small private schools, there was no media present and Dallas Academy did not film the game to provide more details.

There are conflicting reports as to how long Covenant used a full-court press in the game (some reports as short as three minutes) but Dallas Academy coach Andrew Lott estimated his team managed only seven shots.

“In college, there’s a shot clock so you can’t slow it completely but in high school there’s no excuse,” said Mark Javens, former Community College of Beaver County and Hopewell High School coach.

Covenant School had only eight players, so at least two starters always had to be in the game.

“That was a coaching error of some type no matter what,” said Cornell boys coach Bill Sacco, who has coached both boys and girls teams in his 30-year career. “I’ve been on both sides and there are things you can do. You know you’ve reached a point where the other team can’t come back and you curb whatever you’re doing.”

Beaver boys coach Brandon Ambrose said that type of score wouldn’t happen in the area.

“I’ve been on the short end of scores more than the other side, but coaches around here don’t run the score up,” he said. “You always have to be careful that the shoe could be on the other foot someday.”