Bumblin' B's

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Q,


First, Wilburt isn't a Lincoln man.  He's a Fisk supporter.

Second, I was referring to Gerogetown.  Why would they schedule Marion?

Lastly, I also looked at Marion's schedule.  They seem to be pretty competitive in that Ohio state school sattelite campus league they're in.  Maybe the coach wanted to get trashed in a couple of games so these guys can see how far they have to go?


I do agree with you.  It was who was taking the shots at the end of the game, not the shots being taken that were the error.  I've said it a bunch of times.  I'm for anything a coach wants to do at the end of a blowout so long as its the last five guys on the bench who are doing it.

[patcummings]

I think I know why this topic won't die.

I firmly believe Lincoln is being unfairly singled-out, perhaps even discriminated against, because of their 201 points.  If I am from Lincoln, I'd think it too.  Especially when I see other examples out there since then, and no one really talking about those.

Sami Wylie played 24 minutes - he chucked threes late.  As I've previously mentioned, Tennessee's all-American played 20 minutes in their statistically similar win.

Lincoln gets singled out because they scored 201 points.  That's attention-grabbing.  Georgetown Ky.'s win is crazy.  But 135 points or so is not the headline, it's the 111 point margin of victory, but most people won't even catch it because 135 points doesn't stick out when Grinnell and Emory & Henry and others toss a bunch out there.

DOES IT MATTER what 24 minutes Sami Wylie played?  This guy is 28 with 4 kids.  He's getting a degree and playing basketball.  The way OSU-Marion approached this game, with reckless abandon as can be inferred from their various comments, I am really not bothered by the result.

I believe there are people dissing Lincoln because they don't play the way everyone else thinks they should.  Upon discussing this with a friend who played D3, he said to me..."It would bother me more if the team we were playing stopped playing.  That would be the ultimate slap in the face.  The least a team could do is respect us to play the game to the end as if it were the beginning.  If that is with 5 guys who don't ever play, and they play their hearts out, so be it.  If that was with the starters, so be it.  But don't quit on me because you know my team isn't as good as yours.  If I am there to play the game, and I'm playing, I'd expect you to do it as well."

I thought it was a well-founded assessment.

[Pat Coleman]

DOES IT MATTER what 24 minutes Sami Wylie played? 

YES. IT DOES.

First, of all, 24 minutes is probably high for a team in this kind of game. But secondly, playing the entire final 9 minutes of the game is just heinous. And playing in the way the stats prove he did is also heinous.

That is why it won't die. People somehow feel it's acceptable to have a starter, an All-American candidate in the game at the end when up by 100 points. Somewhere sane people should know where the line is and that it was crossed here.

[sac]

Georgetown only had to score 63 more points to reach Lincoln's level.


Think about that.

If we've learned anything its that the Ohio State University-extension campus league is not good.........not good at all.

[Mr. Ypsi]

I swore to myself that I would NOT rejoin this fiasco, but Pat, right on!

If Lincoln scored 201 with their 5-7 'worst' players going the entire second half, so be it (I'd still be at least mildly critical of not slowing it down a bit and calling off the full-court press).  But their players with the least minutes going in BARELY played - if not now, when?

While I think Coach Yuille was guilty of a GROSS violation of sportsmanship, I also think he was guilty of a GROSS error in coaching (unless it was intentional).  If those guys at the end of the bench can't get into even this game (when, I presume, they TRY as hard as anyone), why the heck should they ever want to play for you again?!  Were you deliberately trying to 'run-off' half your team?

It would not surprise me if there was a mass exodus of 'end-of-the-bench' players from Lincoln at the end of the year (if not sooner).

[Pat Coleman]

Why would Redlands score 201 on Caltech when it hasn't before? They've had plenty of chances.

[patcummings]

Georgetown only had to score 63 more points to reach Lincoln's level.


Think about that.

If we've learned anything its that the Ohio State University-extension campus league is not good.........not good at all.

Yeah, but Georgetown kept Marion to just 27 points while scoring 83% of the points in the game.  Lincoln allowed 78 points to Marion in the win, the Lions scored 72% of the points in the their win.  

Did not anyone learn about the powers of quantification in their respective D3 institutions?  

[Titan Q]

I think I know why this topic won't die.

I firmly believe Lincoln is being unfairly singled-out, perhaps even discriminated against, because of their 201 points.  If I am from Lincoln, I'd think it too.  Especially when I see other examples out there since then, and no one really talking about those.

Sami Wylie played 24 minutes - he chucked threes late.  As I've previously mentioned, Tennessee's all-American played 20 minutes in their statistically similar win.

Lincoln gets singled out because they scored 201 points.  That's attention-grabbing.  Georgetown Ky.'s win is crazy.  But 135 points or so is not the headline, it's the 111 point margin of victory, but most people won't even catch it because 135 points doesn't stick out when Grinnell and Emory & Henry and others toss a bunch out there.

DOES IT MATTER what 24 minutes Sami Wylie played?  This guy is 28 with 4 kids.  He's getting a degree and playing basketball.  The way OSU-Marion approached this game, with reckless abandon as can be inferred from their various comments, I am really not bothered by the result.

I believe there are people dissing Lincoln because they don't play the way everyone else thinks they should.  Upon discussing this with a friend who played D3, he said to me..."It would bother me more if the team we were playing stopped playing.  That would be the ultimate slap in the face.  The least a team could do is respect us to play the game to the end as if it were the beginning.  If that is with 5 guys who don't ever play, and they play their hearts out, so be it.  If that was with the starters, so be it.  But don't quit on me because you know my team isn't as good as yours.  If I am there to play the game, and I'm playing, I'd expect you to do it as well."

I thought it was a well-founded assessment.

I can only speak for myself, but the reason I've been critical of Lincoln has nothing to do with the 201 points...or the margin of victory.  My beef simply comes down to the fact that they had their best player in at the end of a game they were up a ridiculous margin.  As far as I know, the Lady Vols didn't do that in their recent blowout win, and it does not appear to me that Georgetown (KY) did it vs OSU-Marion.

It's really sportsmanship 101 and the one unwritten rule that almost every coach abides by -- you just don't play your best players late in a game when you are up a crazy amount. 

[patcummings]

DOES IT MATTER what 24 minutes Sami Wylie played? 

YES. IT DOES.

First, of all, 24 minutes is probably high for a team in this kind of game. But secondly, playing the entire final 9 minutes of the game is just heinous. And playing in the way the stats prove he did is also heinous.

That is why it won't die. People somehow feel it's acceptable to have a starter, an All-American candidate in the game at the end when up by 100 points. Somewhere sane people should know where the line is and that it was crossed here.

Those "people" include me.  So - I'm insane, I suppose.

Wylie plays 15 of the first 31 minutes of the game.  Then the last 9.  The blowout was not entirely Wylie's.  If he scores 0 points, Lincoln still wins by more than 60.  At that point, how much does it matter whether he's scoring or not?  60 points is more palatable than 100+?  OSU-M is clearly an inexperienced basketball team, barely competitive against the majority of organized post-secondary institutions.  Their wins have come on quite a different level than D2 and D3.  Their game against Wittenberg's JV team later this year will be one to watch.

For the "Sportsmanship 101" argument...I ask this.  Is there not some sign of sportsmanship that Yuille did NOT play Wylie for 16 of the first 31 minutes?  If no one gets my argument, so be it - maybe I just think differently and I won't keep trying to explain my opinion.

There will always be dramatically overmatched basketball teams playing games where they will get sloshed.  Everyone knows it going in.  This was one of them.  It was going to be this way no matter what.  UDC proved it the night before.  Georgetown proved it again.

[Mr. Ypsi]

patcummings,

I posted earlier wondering if this was a COACHING error - do you think this was a deliberate decision by Coach Yuille to drive off his bench?  If the lower-minute guys couldn't get playing time in THIS game, they obviously never will.  I'd be surprised if he doesn't lose MOST of his bench to transfers - was that his plan?

WHEN the stars are in in a blow-out is OBVIOUSLY relevant - how can you not grasp that?!  If the bottom 5 guys make it to 201 points, it is what it is (though I might still mildly criticize that they didn't slow it down or take off the press), if an All-American scores 36 of the final 56 points, it is reprehensible.  [And in my (totally irrelevant) opinion, his school record doesn't count.]

[Pat Coleman]

Those "people" include me.  So - I'm insane, I suppose.

I'm aware of your insanity on this topic. You've made it quite clear.

[Pat Coleman]

60 points is more palatable than 100+? 

I think so.

For the "Sportsmanship 101" argument...I ask this.  Is there not some sign of sportsmanship that Yuille did NOT play Wylie for 16 of the first 31 minutes?

Only if the game is 31 minutes long. The final nine minutes destroys anything Lincoln might have done in the first 31.

[patcummings]

Ok...here's more to my school of thought.

If I was the coach, I would not have played Wylie, or most of the starters, as they were played.

How can I not grasp when the starters are in as relevant?  They would have had the same impact no matter when it was in the game.  Without being the coach of Lincoln, I can't tell you why Yuille played Wylie for 24 minutes, but no matter what 24 minutes he played, his impact would have been the same.  Play him for the entire first half, none of the second half, and I wonder if people would ask the same questions with just four minutes less play.

I'm just not bothered by what has taken place here.  Say I'm "unsportsmanlike" if you will...but when all the factors are taken into account, especially Marion's side of the equation (saying they weren't going to play the night before, showing up 10-15 minutes before scheduled tip, etc)...I just am not insensed as many other are.  

[Mr. Ypsi]

patcummings,

Leaving aside the sportsmanship, what about Lincoln's bench?  If the end-of-the-bench guys didn't play much in this one, they obviously never will.  Was this Coach Yuille's message to nearly half his team: tata guy's, don't let the door hit you on the way out!

For HIS TEAM'S sake, as well as sportsmanship, the entire second half should have been played by his 5-7 'worst' players.  That he didn't do that suggests to me that he is trying to 'drive-off' quite a few players.

[Gregory Sager]

Oh, and another thing. No matter how you defend, explain, justify or excuse what Lincoln did, it was classless and unsporting for them to run up 201 points on OSU-M. That's why Lincoln is getting heat.

Not true. Lincoln's getting heat because the Lions' All-American, Sami Wylie, was on the floor at the end of the game, chucking trey attempts at a breakneck pace. Look at the arguments being made against Lincoln by Q, Pat Coleman, and Mr. Ypsi. They're all saying the same thing: It's not the total points scored by Lincoln that's objectionable, it's Wylie's presence on the floor at the end of the game and what he was doing in a transparent attempt to set some records that is worthy of condemnation.

And I agree with them. It's not the 201 points that make Lincoln look bad in my eyes, because even if you play the end of your bench for almost the entire game against an intramural-level opponent and do as much as you can to take the air out of the basketball and hold down the score without openly insulting the opposition in doing so -- steps that Wheaton took in its win against Principia the other night -- you're still going to rack up a humongous number on the scoreboard. That's just the way basketball is; because of the shot clock, and because you can't very well tell your scrubs at the end of the bench not to play hard, sheer momentum is going to propel even the most merciful of opponents to a massive score if the opponent is bad enough.

The Wylie thing, though? That's just plain inexcusable on Coach Yuille's part.

As I said a few days ago, I fully realize that a box score doesn't tell the whole story. I'd dearly love to see Coach Yuille's explanation as to why he didn't play the end of his bench most of the game, and why Wylie was in at the end throwing up bombs as if his life depended upon it. So far I haven't seen him address those concerns anywhere in the press. As much as I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt, without an explanation he's damned by the evidence.