To eject or not...

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by crosscountry55

Freshman playoffs. That’s a thing?

I thought the same thing.

I started thinking about the purpose of freshmen basketball, learning, participation, education, skill development, etc., and then I reversed course and decided, "Why not?".

Most freshmen teams try to win their games during the regular season, why not add a playoff game (league, or multiple high school city) for competitive fun and bragging rights?

I was the twelfth best player on a twelve man freshmen team that was undefeated (no playoff). As far as we were concerned we were the regular season champion (no official title, no trophy, no newspaper article). Yeah, we all knew that it was "only" a freshmen team, but we were still proud of our accomplishment, even me, who only scored a handful of points that season.

The middle school team that I coached was often invited to a postseason tournament in another part of the state. Why did we go? Why did the administration allow us to go (entry fee, buses)? New teams. New sites. New challenges. To see how good we actually were outside of our regular season league games. It was exciting. Got players used to "lose and go home, win and keep playing". We did win the tournament once, and for some players it was the only scholastic postseason "championship" of their athletic careers, and some remember it quite fondly to this day.