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After reflection on this issue, I have come around to the viewpoint that the rule is un-necessary. We have been on both ends of blow-outs recently. Each shed a little light on this subject.
In one, we played in a five-team pool in which all games between all teams were close except one - our second game. So all teams were evenly matched and everybody finished with at least one loss. But for a number of reasons (match-ups, style of play, our own mental preparedness for the game), we did not handle one game well and ended up way down. I called a final TO halfway through the second half to get us re-situated one last time and tried to make something positive out of it, depite being down about 35-40 at the time. We went on a 20-6 run that really prepared us for our next two games. And we didn't need to be bailed out by a running clock, we needed to play this team and sort things out. The next morning, we beat a team by 7 - and this team had won by 8 against the tema that blew us off the court. Go figure - that hoops sometimes.
The other situation, we played a team that wasn't at all prepared for the level they had entered. They were a new AAU team, our 5-team pool was composed of 4 strong teams and this new team. I had a minimal roster (8 players) for this tournament because it was the beginning of spring break. I have 14 players, 10 can really play, and this tourney I had my bottom 3 bench players present and only 2 starters. We were up 20-3 with no press and showing no signs of letting up. This team began to find ways to score and went into halftime down 33-15. So the margin stayed large, but they were running with us for a while. 2nd half we extend the lead immediately, and the ref tells the table to let the clock run except on FTs. I was always going to have a talented team out there, but I was giving my bench unprecedented playing time and resting my starters (although I had to put them in from time to time with only 8 players present). It really hurt both teams, because this team was learning as they played, and my bench got shorted some valuable playing time.
I agree with the article. Baseball needs a mercy rule because there is no end point if you can't get a team out. Sports where injury is a high risk when there is a mismatch need to have mercy rules. But sports with a clock and no significant additional injury risk should just play it out. You don't save that much time in the end, and you take away time from the players on the bench that benefit from blowouts.
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