Points = fouls!
 

Worked a 6th grade boys "competitive" rec game last night. Home team finished the game with 40 points and exactly 40 team fouls - 22 in the first half and 18 in the second! Only two of those were intentional. Their coach kept telling them to keep their hands off their opponents but they just didn't listen. Four of them fouled out, one in the first half! They lost the game 58-40. I heard one of the parents say that three of the boys on that team (two of whom fouled out) never played basketball before this season and this was their third game. With all the free throws, the game took over an hour and 45 minutes. We cut half time down to three minutes. No one complained about it.

Oh yeah - after the game the home HC came over to us and thanked us for calling a good game. Go figure.

40 fouls on one team? How long did that game take? :eek:

I'm going to guess..... ummmm, ummmm... 1 hour 45 minutes. Am I right.. am I right? What did I win?! ;) :D

WRONG!!! :p

Mark said "the game took over an hour and 45 minutes"

Exactly!

OK maybe I missed that part...:o

BTDT as a coach. I was the 7th and 8th grade coach at a painfully small private school a few years back. They fired the head coach of the team just before the season and the high school coach asked me to take the middle school program over. To my delight, I found a team of 9 players on the 8th grade squad, 3 of whom had never played before. The 7th grade team was a mix of 7th and 6th graders, the majority of whom had never played. Swell.

The season started out well, and we were a few games in when one of the larger schools in the league had a game at our gym. Our AD was informed (via phone - no idea why this conversation happened) by the assignor just before the game that there had been some "incidents" with the other team that season, and he had assigned his "top" guys to the game with instructions to call the game "very tight".

I was then treated to a game that had 81 fouls called. 40 on us, 41 on the opposing team (including 3 Ts). Their coach was long gone by halftime. My team shot 50 foul shots. I was begging my kids to just.not.touch.anyone.

By OT, I just wanted the game to end. I believe it took 2 hours and 15 minutes for that game. It wouldn't have been quite as long, but the opposing HC wouldn't leave initially after the 2nd T. He finally went upstairs to the locker room, and was eventually ejected from the building when they caught him coaching from the balcony.

I have a feeling I may have just forfeited the game after I caught him coaching from the balcony.

Sounds like my pre-game for 7th grade games! Never works. Go figure!

I am guessing the "incidents" mentioned in the phone conversation somehow involved this clown. I believe a forfeit was threatened, and he left at that point.
Sadly, if my team could have shot better than 25/50 from the foul line, we would have never went to OT.

Probably the only reason the game didn't take two hours was that (as I said) we had a three minute halftime and only about a minute between quarters. Also, the two teams requested and were granted :p only a total of three timeouts, all 30s. Plus, my partner and I really hustled on the free throws and putting the ball into play on throw-ins. If subs weren't totally "ready" at the table to come in, then they waited until the next dead ball. That also speeds the game up.

Fortunately, we had a real "expert Dad" running the clock.

BTW - remember the thread about strange mechanics from a while back? We had a double foul and my partner used the full timeout mechanic. That's exactly the opposite of what was mentioned in that thread. I kind of chuckled when I saw it.

Another funny thing - both teams had a "00". Don't see that too often. And...before the game, one kid asked me if his wristband was "jewelry". It was a regular basketball wristband. I told him "no", but he'd have to take off his earrings. He wasn't wearing any, but he reached up to both ears when I said it. It took him a moment, but he got the joke.

Also BTW - just got a call about adding another game this coming Saturday. That gives me eight that day. Break out the meds.

Dang.

No worries, I obviously missed the "over" part. lol :p

Fair enough, and I'll defer to the guys there. I'm just thinking if he was causing a stir the first time, that's when the warning of a forfeit would have come. Finding him on the balcony later would have violated that and the game would have been over.

Again, though, I'm probably picturing it differently than it really went down, so I'll defer.

I think you have the right picture, and honestly, he created enough of a disturbance with refusing to leave the gym initially that I was surprised the game wasn't forfeited.
It was a competitive game and it was in the 4th, and my guess was these guys didn't want to let the actions of a loose cannon take anything away from the boys. This was a while back (longer than I initially thought - 2002), but I think some action was taken by the school against this coach. I am fairly certain he was not back the next year.
(Of course, I wasn't back either. Note to self: when coaching at a private Christian school, never, ever sit the minister's kid on the bench. Same for the principal's kid. Only coaching job I was ever fired from, and it was after taking the team to the semis of a 16-team league for the first time in school history.):)

LOL
Frankly, I can't imagine putting up with that from a HS varsity coach. MS, I'd call the forfeit and not lose any sleep.

If an ejected coach tells you that he's not leaving, you never, ever argue with him. You immediately tell the timer to put up 60 seconds on the clock and start running it down. At the same time you tell the coach if he isn't on his way out the door when the clock runs out, the game will be forfeited. And that's the last conversation you have with that coach.

If the coach is still there when the clock runs out, you forfeit the game. Use the score in the book if the non-forfeiting team is ahead. If not, put it down as 2-0. Write all of the details on the back of the score sheet. And then write a complete and detailed report when you get home and send it to whomever the power-that-be is.

Been there, done that.