Team walks off court and goes home

[Mark Padgett]

Boys JV rec game tonight. Home scores first 18 points of the game and leads 24-3 at the end of Q1. Halftime score is 36-5. Partner has given visiting coach a T for trying to take out his frustration on us. Third quarter starts and home coach has his kids pull up on breakaways, make a bunch of passes before shots, etc. but still leads 48-8 after three. Home scores first six points of Q4 and has a spot throw-in at about midcourt. They inbound and A2 just dribbles to the basket and makes an uncontested layup. None of the visitors challenged him, in fact none of them near the basket even put their arms up. Visiting coach requests and is granted a timeout.

We hear him tell his players in the huddle that if they don't want to play, they don't have to play. He gathers up his stuff and he and the team just walk out. He doesn't say anything to anyone. My partner and I just stare at each other and shrug. There were about 20 visiting parents in the bleachers and they seemed stunned, also, but they pretty much followed the team out. After all, they had to drive the kids home.

I told the scorer to write down the game situation in the book, with the score and time left in the game just to document it.

About 10 years ago, I had a team do this under similar circumstances but it still shocked me tonight.

BTW - Second game was also JV rec but a much better game. Visitors won by 10. Oh yeah - home coach got a T from me. That's partly the reason I thought it was a better game.

[mutantducky]

kind of sad. losing like that means you don't know how to play and probably aren't being coached right either. We all see players who don't know a lick about basketball but they are out there trying. Won't be surprised if that team quits the season.

[refiator]

It's really sad. I had this in a VG game a few years ago. I wonder what the HC is thinking..... They try at times to make the refs look bad but come across as idiots in the process.

[Stat-Man]

I'm not sure what state this as in, but if a coach pulls the team off the floor here, I believe the MHSAA will make the AD and/or coach appear to explain why they don't deserve additional punishment (i.e. suspension, etc.).

I actually saw this happen in a semi-pro women's regional championship game. Visiting team doesn't like the ofifciating calls, so partly through the second half after the home coach gets two Ts and an early dismissal, he tells his team to leave with him, and they did. I couldn't believe it.

Sad part was that before his meltdown, his team had cut their deficit down to about 8-10 points and had plenty of time to make a comeback attempt.

[bbcoach7]

Even though the coach may have erroneously vented some of his frustration at officials, sounds to me that he was dissapointed in the lack of effort his team was giving, and in distgust declared (2nd hand paraphrasing here), "fine, if you don't want to play the game, then lets quit wasting everyone's time and go home." He makes a good point about effort in the face of adversity, but to just up and quit? No, that's never a "life lesson" that an adult role model and teacher should be modeling to kids. He's a loser, and he's teaching a losing attitude to young people.

His action is indefensible and he should be disciplined by his school in my opinion. I feel that motivation, or morale, is a function or by-product of leadership. How many times do we see teams taking a score board beating, yet continue to play hard and maintain an admirable disposition and attitude in spite of a lopsided score? Happens all the time.

I believe it's true that more can be learned from a loss than from winning. And the lessons are not restricted to basketball. JMHO

[chartrusepengui]

We had a situation here about 3 years ago where one of the teams didn't show up for their first tournament game. Officials (friends from our association) waited 90 minutes before declaring a forfeit 2-0 to other team) State told them they should not have declared a forfeit. They responded with, "how the he!! long are we supposed to wait?" and "what were we supposed to do?" Never really got a proper response - other than they should have notified the state. They had tried, but of course - no one was there to answer the phone. It was not the first time this team didn't show up for a game and NEVER called state, school or anyone.

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by chartrusepengui

Officials (friends from our association) waited 90 minutes before declaring a forfeit 2-0 to other team) State told them they should not have declared a forfeit.

I agree with the state. The officials should have suspended the game, notified the state and let the state decide whether the game should be forfeited or not. The state may have wanted to replay it.

Suspending a game is indeterminate. Forfeits are forever.

[Mark Padgett]

Originally Posted by bbcoach7

His action is indefensible and he should be disciplined by his school in my opinion.

There's no schools involved. As I stated, this was rec.

[bbcoach7]

Originally Posted by Mark Padgett

There's no schools involved. As I stated, this was rec.

Can't touch the fool

[TimTaylor]

Originally Posted by Stat-Man

I'm not sure what state this as in, but if a coach pulls the team off the floor here, I believe the MHSAA will make the AD and/or coach appear to explain why they don't deserve additional punishment (i.e. suspension, etc.).

If this were a HS team the same would apply here.....Mark's situation was a rec league game, so it depends on the specific policies of that league.

Blowouts occasionally happen - not much you can do about them. Several years ago I had a 97-6 GV game.....yesterday we had a 76-23 MS tournament game......

[Mark Padgett]

It's kind of a convoluted situation. There are three separate kids rec leagues in my area at the same "level". Most of the games they play are against teams in their own organization. However, last year, they started playing some "interlock" games, i.e. they play some of their games against teams from the other two organizations. The home team provides the officials. In this game, the home team was from my local kids rec league (of which I am a Board member) and the visiting team - the one that walked out - was from one of the neighboring organizations. All we can do is report what happened to the directors of their league, which is what we did. What, if anything, happens to that coach is up to them, not us.

BTW - the kids love going to one of the next towns over to play what they refer to as "an away game". The drive can take anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes, so it's not like they're going to the east coast.

Also BTW - the three groups use slightly different rules modifications, so we have a set of agreed-upon "interlock rules" for those games. It can get somewhat confusing so we review them with the coaches before the games. As I said, the differences are minor, so it's not hard for the officials to understand the changes, but the coaches sometimes forget.

For you local guys, you know I'm in Tigard and the other two cities are Tualatin and Sherwood.