So I have a situation that happened tonight that leaves me uncomfortable. Here’s what happened;
I went to a basketball game with the city recreation center. She had a team that was put together with a bunch of the girls from the cross country team. They are not exactly amazing basketball players, but they do alright. This is a league that is made up of players that are not on the high school basketball teams. Her team is coached by one of the girls 22 year old brothers.
The team we were playing against was made up of girls that appear to be much more into basketball than our girls. When we got to the school they were running through “plays” on the extra court. They had a warm up drills that looked like they’d run them before. I wasn’t too worried about winning the game. I think our team is just there to try hard and have a good time.
Here’s how the game went down
Both teams played pretty aggressively. The opposing team was picking up defense right at half court, and if a girl picked up her dribble they immediately jumped to a 2 man trap. That defense was pretty effective at resulting in steals or jump balls against our team. Even so our team worked hard, and played good defense. At the end of the first half the score was 7 to 6 with their team leading. The game didn’t feel as close as the score was showing though.
Early on in the second half the other team managed to get a couple of break away layups, and some pretty good shots, so they started running up their score. Our team wasn’t even getting very many shots off. Halfway through the second half the score was 19 to 6. I started getting a little frustrated with the other teams coach. He was continuing to encourage his team to use the same aggressive defense at half court etc. even with the huge lead. I could understand if he wanted to work on offensive plays. To me he could have still taught correct defense as well. I just don’t think he needed to be pushing them to be so aggressive. Even with 2 minutes left in the game on one possession their team got like 5 fouls in a row. They were still trying to get the ball with everything they had.
Starting to get ridiculous
When there we 7 minutes to go, and the score was now like 26 to 6 I finally yelled across the gym to the coach and suggested that he better start pressing, the game was a little too close. I think he may have gotten his leagues crossed. I really wanted to go and have a calm discussion with after the game to encourage him to use a different strategy next time, but I wasn’t sure I could stay calm, so I chose not to say anything.
Maybe I’m wrong, and a team should play their very hardest all game no matter what. Last year our daughter had a couple of really good players on their team. Any time they got a solid lead their coach would tell them to wait to pick up the defense, and then even pull them out of the game to give the other girls playing time, and to tell them to let the other team get some shots off.
I’m not sure the score quadruple the points of the other team makes sense in any league. I don’t think it’s much fun for either team, but maybe I’m seeing things wrong. For me this is much more of a development style league, where the girls get the chance to learn how to play basketball, but it’s difficult to learn much if you can’t get a shot off. I also don’t think it’s the best sportsmanship.
Am I looking at this wrong? Should a team keep pushing right to the buzzer and score as many points as they can? Does a team taking such a beating help build character, or teach some important life lesson? Am I making too big of a deal out of the whole thing? I probably shouldn’t yell sarcastic statements across the gym at the other coach, so maybe I was the one in the wrong? I’m annoyed at the whole experience. Does that kind of game encourage good behavior, and make those girls want to keep playing the game that I love?
