Texas Girl's Basketball Blow-Out Was Unwarranted
Stuart Nachbar
January 30, 2009
I tried to find the box score for the Covenant School-Dallas Academy girl's basketball game that was played more than two weeks ago. Covenant School won the game 100-0 over a team that had not won a game in four years. I live in New Jersey, so I obviously couldn't go to the game, but I wanted to read the story of the game through the box score. Except that I couldn't find it on the Dallas-Fort Worth high school sports site; the box score has been removed (see: http://www.hsgametime.com/dfw/schoolinfo.htm?propertyId=1&infoType=boxScore&schoolId=1113&sportId=7&eventId=173099)
The Dallas Morning News has already reported that Covenant's administration has decided to forfeit the game and apologized to the Dallas Academy administration for running up the score. Dallas Academy was not interested in accepting the forfeit, but the school has decided to end league play within their conference (including another game with Covenant) for the rest of the season. Covenant also tried to make amends by firing their coach after he publicly denounced his school's administration for their apology and decision to forfeit.
I am working on a novel around girl's high school basketball, so I was fascinated by this story. I have already read of three incidents in girl's high school basketball where a single player lit up an opposing team for 100 points. The first was Cheryl Miller, an Olympian who played and coached at Southern Cal and is now a TV broadcaster, the second was Lisa Leslie, also an Olympian and Southern Cal star and today an all-star with the WNBA Los Angeles Sparks, the third was Epiphanny Prince, now a junior starter and an All-America candidate at Rutgers. I have seen Prince play in person many times, so I looked up the information on her 113 point game for Brooklyn's Murray Burgtraum High.
Prince's game was interesting in that she scored 113 of her team's 137 points, played the entire game, while her teammates constantly passed her the ball. Her coach told USA Today that he played 16 players and that Prince was on the court with four reserves--by the end of the game. (See that story at http://www.usatoday.com/sports/preps/basketball/2006-02-02-prince_x.htm.) That seems awfully stupid on the coach's part; if you're running away with the game you can afford to give your best player most of the night off. Why take the chance she could get hurt? Prince was averaging 32 points a game going into that contest. It was not like she would have gained anything but bad publicity for her and her team if she scored much more.
There are some lessons to take away from the past.
First, if your stars are on-fire and there's no way the other team can catch up, you give them a rest at half-time. If I lost to a team by 100 points, the most embarrassing way to lose would be for one player to beat me.
Second, let everyone play. The bench players who get the fewest minutes during the season play the entire second half. The only way they will get better is to play against an opponent they do not know as well as their own teammates. There's no reason why the hot hand must receive all of the passes in a rout.
And third, when a high school game has no shot clock, a team can pass all they need from inside the three-point line. There's no reason to take outside shots from behind the three-point line when your team is up 59-0.
Maybe time has come for a shot clock in all high school games across the country. There are not many players as dominant as Epiphanny Prince or Lisa Leslie in girl's high school basketball, but there are enough scorers in both the boys and girls games who need to be taught to play against the clock. They might as well learn now. They will be expected to play against a clock in college.
Stuart Nachbar blogs on thought and fiction in education and politics at www.EducatedQuest.com
The Dallas Morning News has already reported that Covenant's administration has decided to forfeit the game and apologized to the Dallas Academy administration for running up the score. Dallas Academy was not interested in accepting the forfeit, but the school has decided to end league play within their conference (including another game with Covenant) for the rest of the season. Covenant also tried to make amends by firing their coach after he publicly denounced his school's administration for their apology and decision to forfeit.
I am working on a novel around girl's high school basketball, so I was fascinated by this story. I have already read of three incidents in girl's high school basketball where a single player lit up an opposing team for 100 points. The first was Cheryl Miller, an Olympian who played and coached at Southern Cal and is now a TV broadcaster, the second was Lisa Leslie, also an Olympian and Southern Cal star and today an all-star with the WNBA Los Angeles Sparks, the third was Epiphanny Prince, now a junior starter and an All-America candidate at Rutgers. I have seen Prince play in person many times, so I looked up the information on her 113 point game for Brooklyn's Murray Burgtraum High.
Prince's game was interesting in that she scored 113 of her team's 137 points, played the entire game, while her teammates constantly passed her the ball. Her coach told USA Today that he played 16 players and that Prince was on the court with four reserves--by the end of the game. (See that story at http://www.usatoday.com/sports/preps/basketball/2006-02-02-prince_x.htm.) That seems awfully stupid on the coach's part; if you're running away with the game you can afford to give your best player most of the night off. Why take the chance she could get hurt? Prince was averaging 32 points a game going into that contest. It was not like she would have gained anything but bad publicity for her and her team if she scored much more.
There are some lessons to take away from the past.
First, if your stars are on-fire and there's no way the other team can catch up, you give them a rest at half-time. If I lost to a team by 100 points, the most embarrassing way to lose would be for one player to beat me.
Second, let everyone play. The bench players who get the fewest minutes during the season play the entire second half. The only way they will get better is to play against an opponent they do not know as well as their own teammates. There's no reason why the hot hand must receive all of the passes in a rout.
And third, when a high school game has no shot clock, a team can pass all they need from inside the three-point line. There's no reason to take outside shots from behind the three-point line when your team is up 59-0.
Maybe time has come for a shot clock in all high school games across the country. There are not many players as dominant as Epiphanny Prince or Lisa Leslie in girl's high school basketball, but there are enough scorers in both the boys and girls games who need to be taught to play against the clock. They might as well learn now. They will be expected to play against a clock in college.
Stuart Nachbar blogs on thought and fiction in education and politics at www.EducatedQuest.com
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