Quote:
Originally posted by stan-MI
Just to give you an idea of the extent of the problem and the type of lopsided scores the mercy rule prevents, check out the Detroit PSL scores from two weeks last season, when the mercy rule was taken away:
http:www.freep.com/sports/prep/girls11_20020911.htm
http:www.freep.com/sports/prep/girls13_20020913.htm
http:www.freep.com/sports/prep/girls18_20020918.htm
http:www.freep.com/sports/prep/girls20_20020920.htm.
How would you like to be on the losing end of any of these:
98-34, 76-14, 99-58, 96-17, 80-8, 100-34, 74-28, 81-14, 85-25, 62-17, 96-20, 99-24 and 74-27.
These were league games, and the teams all had to meet again later in the season.
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1. These games stink - no doubt about it. Although you could probably drop the 99-58 game from your list as it barely meets your state criteria and the team did get quite a bit done to score that many points, even if they were blown out. In fact, any game where they got more than 20 then something decent was happening, just not much.
2. Isn't there another way to fix this? Are these losing teams always this bad, or the winners always this much better than these specific opponents? If so, then maybe these teams shouldn't be scheduled to play each other. If it changes who is who in these scores from year to year, or some years the teams are much closer than others, then we can conclude that teams learn from these games and improve. Then you just need to let them play through a blow out and learn.
3. If you feel you need a mercy rule, 40 points is probably a decent margin to choose. I can't think of anything I've ever done to come back from that far down or to blow that big a lead! I have recovered fro 17 down with 8 minutes to play, so you want to be sure the number is large enough. But you might also want to add in that the losing team has less than 20 points. If the team is able to score, they must be able to run some form of offense and are therefore benefitting from the game even if they can't win it. If they can't score and can't stop their opponents, probably little is being gained by anybody in this game.