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I've always been against mercy rules, but after a game a couple of weeks ago, I'm now convinced we need it in HS basketball. Not that I didn't have enough experience with this before, but we had a game out of hand by early in the second quarter, and both teams, but the losing team in particular, continued to play very rough. Neither team was any good, but one was very bad. Any way, we ended up ejecting one player and finally ejecting the coach -- my first ever. And this was two CHRISTIAN schools!
We did everything we could to keep this game under control, but an experienced evaluator might have felt we lost a little control. This game sent home the message that you can't always let up (foul call wise) on the losing team just to get the game over with. The other team starts getting pissed and potentially retaliates.
I'm not in favor of a reversion. At 40, clock runs, time outs are 30 seconds (except for injury) only, and the game could end during a free throw. The problem with a reversion is the winning team will let up a little (which is what the intent of the rule is) and a reversion penalizes them instead of just getting the game over with. If they lose a 40 point lead with a running clock, that's their problem, but if we revert, I think we keep changing the standards for that one game. At any rate, basketball is the only sport I favor a mercy rule in. Football has a built in mercy rule (offense can run out the clock), and only 4 innings of baseball defeats the purpose of playing the game, in my view.
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