MBB: Midwest Conference

[madzillagd]

There is one argument to be made against Grinnell in this game and that is whether an unwritten mercy rule exists and what that should be... all other comments folks have made are ridiculous. 

Here are some of them I've seen in the last 12 hours...

Faith was overmatched:  If you want to blame anyone then blame Faith's Coach & AD that scheduled the game.  This game was not scheduled three decades ago before we knew about The System.  Faith knew exactly whom they were scheduling and how the game would be played.  If you have a problem with the matchup that is on the Faith's Coach/AD, not on Grinnell.

Tallest Faith player was 6'4:   Jack Taylor is 5'10.

Faith only had 10 players:  5 is the typical number of players on the court, but you don't even need 5 to play.  Every Faith starter had at least 1 sub.

This wasn't really The System:  Yes it was.  Part of The System is setting individual game goals that the team attempts to reach, keeps it fresh for the players and gives them something to focus on as a team.  How is this any different than a team that usually plays man coming out in a zone for a change?

Jack Taylor played 36 mins so it wasn't the system:   Where is it written that if you are running a certain system that you are not allowed to make adjustments?  How many minutes are you allowed per player if you run the Princeton offense?  How many minutes for the triangle?   

Gives D3 a bad name:   How?  Have you watched most of the D3 teams out there?  There is some really bad basketball that is played in D3 and there is some really good basketball that is played in D3.  Grinnell is on the better half, certainly not at the top but closer to the top than the bottom.  This site has a WINLESS pool every year - we started the year with 12 teams that we thought possibly might not win a game!!!   More teams in D3 and at the high school level should be running The System because it gets more kids involved and brings excitement to the game, there at least 100 teams in D3 that every year don't have even a remote shot at the playoffs yet they continue to play 'traditional' basketball.  Makes no sense. 

I could go on but I think you get my point. None of these arguments hold up when you apply them to other teams or even against themselves. 

The one true issue is the unwritten mercy rule...

I joked about it earlier in this topic but Grinnell did not have the biggest margin of victory last night.  That honor belonged to UW-Platteville who won 105-20 over Illinois Tech.  85 points.  In Platteville's first game they won by 53 points so this is not the first time this year they've run up the score.  The number of people that have ripped UW-P in the WIAC thread so far since that game was played:  0.   That's right.  A team won by 85 points last night and not a single person has taken them to task for it.  Why not? 

Here's the problem with the mercy rule (and I'm not arguing that it should or shouldn't exist), it's a subjective thing.  One man's 15 point win is another man's 35 point win.  There is no written rule that explains how many you are allowed to win by to not be considered a jerk of a coach.  That also applies to how long the starters play, how many points one player gets, whether somebody plays to get a triple-double, the list is endless where we can find ways to offend opponents and fans.  Just keep in mind - your mercy rule is not everyone's mercy rule.  You do not decide what is appropriate and what is not.

So going back to my point about UW-P last night, something to consider....here are the # of games in each point differential from last night's scoreboard...

80 = 1 (UW-P)
70 = 1 (Grinnell)
60 = 0
50 = 0
40 = 1
30 = 12
20 = 21

So where is the cutoff line on who is evil and who is not?  Are we saying the 3 coaches that won by 40 or more are?  The 15 that won by 30 or more?  How about the 36 that won by at least 20 because really, you don't NEED to win by 20, that's just rubbing it in.  The scoreboard has 140 scores from last night (if I counted correctly), 36 of those were games won by 20 or more.... that's 26% of the games.  What's worse for D3 basketball - the fact that Grinnell won and set a record or that 26% of the games played last night were not competitive? 

Just something to think about.  In my opinion you don't run up that big of a margin of victory, however I don't have as a big of issue with it because Faith knew exactly what they were getting into when they schedule the game. 

[jeffp]

Very thoughtful, madzillagd.

The Rest of you guys are soooo funny! Thanks for all the laughs! Don't modify, don't run the score, don't make a mockery, don't...don't....and on and on. You don't like it and we do. SO beat us! We will accept it and not accuse you of changing up just to win or break a record or whatever your undies are in a bunch about.

In fact, I just heard that the coaches have decided not to do anything like this again this year out of sympathy for those of you who would have to spend the next 3 plus months with your undies painfully bunched.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! SERIOUSLY!

[izzy stradlin]

I just watched the Grinnell game at the following link:

http://client.stretchinternet.com/client/grinnell.portal?mode=link&eventId=79617&broadcastType=video#

I've never seen anything like this.   Just watch the way Grinnell plays in the last 5 minutes.  It's completely classless.     

In the pregame, the announcers specifically stated the team was trying to get Jack Taylor the single game scoring record.  What's odd to me is Grinnell is such a well-respected academic institution.   Anyone associated with Grinnell College familiar with basketball who can see past their individual bias to their institution (probably hard to do) should be ashamed.  Arsenault should be reprimanded or removed. 

[jeffdc]

Wow, JeffP has a -3 in karma and he's been (back) on the site for a day. Good goin', JeffP!!!!

[AO]

  What's worse for D3 basketball - the fact that Grinnell won and set a record or that 26% of the games played last night were not competitive? 

Grinnell setting the scoring record, and it's not close.

I don't see the game itself as being classless, it's just how Jack and the school are representing themselves after the win.

When interviewed inform ESPN and others that Faith Baptist has 330 students and is not an NCAA or NAIA team.  Explain to them that the game was an exhibition for Faith Baptist.  Be up front that you were attempting to break the record.

[badgerwarhawk]

There is one argument to be made against Grinnell in this game and that is whether an unwritten mercy rule exists and what that should be... all other comments folks have made are ridiculous. 

Here are some of them I've seen in the last 12 hours...

Faith was overmatched:  If you want to blame anyone then blame Faith's Coach & AD that scheduled the game.  This game was not scheduled three decades ago before we knew about The System.  Faith knew exactly whom they were scheduling and how the game would be played.  If you have a problem with the matchup that is on the Faith's Coach/AD, not on Grinnell.

Tallest Faith player was 6'4:   Jack Taylor is 5'10.

Faith only had 10 players:  5 is the typical number of players on the court, but you don't even need 5 to play.  Every Faith starter had at least 1 sub.

This wasn't really The System:  Yes it was.  Part of The System is setting individual game goals that the team attempts to reach, keeps it fresh for the players and gives them something to focus on as a team.  How is this any different than a team that usually plays man coming out in a zone for a change?

Jack Taylor played 36 mins so it wasn't the system:   Where is it written that if you are running a certain system that you are not allowed to make adjustments?  How many minutes are you allowed per player if you run the Princeton offense?  How many minutes for the triangle?   

Gives D3 a bad name:   How?  Have you watched most of the D3 teams out there?  There is some really bad basketball that is played in D3 and there is some really good basketball that is played in D3.  Grinnell is on the better half, certainly not at the top but closer to the top than the bottom.  This site has a WINLESS pool every year - we started the year with 12 teams that we thought possibly might not win a game!!!   More teams in D3 and at the high school level should be running The System because it gets more kids involved and brings excitement to the game, there at least 100 teams in D3 that every year don't have even a remote shot at the playoffs yet they continue to play 'traditional' basketball.  Makes no sense. 

I could go on but I think you get my point. None of these arguments hold up when you apply them to other teams or even against themselves. 

The one true issue is the unwritten mercy rule...

I joked about it earlier in this topic but Grinnell did not have the biggest margin of victory last night.  That honor belonged to UW-Platteville who won 105-20 over Illinois Tech.  85 points.  In Platteville's first game they won by 53 points so this is not the first time this year they've run up the score.  The number of people that have ripped UW-P in the WIAC thread so far since that game was played:  0.   That's right.  A team won by 85 points last night and not a single person has taken them to task for it.  Why not? 

Here's the problem with the mercy rule (and I'm not arguing that it should or shouldn't exist), it's a subjective thing.  One man's 15 point win is another man's 35 point win.  There is no written rule that explains how many you are allowed to win by to not be considered a jerk of a coach.  That also applies to how long the starters play, how many points one player gets, whether somebody plays to get a triple-double, the list is endless where we can find ways to offend opponents and fans.  Just keep in mind - your mercy rule is not everyone's mercy rule.  You do not decide what is appropriate and what is not.

So going back to my point about UW-P last night, something to consider....here are the # of games in each point differential from last night's scoreboard...

80 = 1 (UW-P)
70 = 1 (Grinnell)
60 = 0
50 = 0
40 = 1
30 = 12
20 = 21

So where is the cutoff line on who is evil and who is not?  Are we saying the 3 coaches that won by 40 or more are?  The 15 that won by 30 or more?  How about the 36 that won by at least 20 because really, you don't NEED to win by 20, that's just rubbing it in.  The scoreboard has 140 scores from last night (if I counted correctly), 36 of those were games won by 20 or more.... that's 26% of the games.  What's worse for D3 basketball - the fact that Grinnell won and set a record or that 26% of the games played last night were not competitive? 

Just something to think about.  In my opinion you don't run up that big of a margin of victory, however I don't have as a big of issue with it because Faith knew exactly what they were getting into when they schedule the game. 

Keep rationalizing. 

[frodotwo]

There is one argument to be made against Grinnell in this game and that is whether an unwritten mercy rule exists and what that should be... all other comments folks have made are ridiculous. 

Here are some of them I've seen in the last 12 hours...

Faith was overmatched:  If you want to blame anyone then blame Faith's Coach & AD that scheduled the game.  This game was not scheduled three decades ago before we knew about The System.  Faith knew exactly whom they were scheduling and how the game would be played.  If you have a problem with the matchup that is on the Faith's Coach/AD, not on Grinnell.

Tallest Faith player was 6'4:   Jack Taylor is 5'10.

Faith only had 10 players:  5 is the typical number of players on the court, but you don't even need 5 to play.  Every Faith starter had at least 1 sub.

This wasn't really The System:  Yes it was.  Part of The System is setting individual game goals that the team attempts to reach, keeps it fresh for the players and gives them something to focus on as a team.  How is this any different than a team that usually plays man coming out in a zone for a change?

Jack Taylor played 36 mins so it wasn't the system:   Where is it written that if you are running a certain system that you are not allowed to make adjustments?  How many minutes are you allowed per player if you run the Princeton offense?  How many minutes for the triangle?   

Gives D3 a bad name:   How?  Have you watched most of the D3 teams out there?  There is some really bad basketball that is played in D3 and there is some really good basketball that is played in D3.  Grinnell is on the better half, certainly not at the top but closer to the top than the bottom.  This site has a WINLESS pool every year - we started the year with 12 teams that we thought possibly might not win a game!!!   More teams in D3 and at the high school level should be running The System because it gets more kids involved and brings excitement to the game, there at least 100 teams in D3 that every year don't have even a remote shot at the playoffs yet they continue to play 'traditional' basketball.  Makes no sense. 

I could go on but I think you get my point. None of these arguments hold up when you apply them to other teams or even against themselves. 

The one true issue is the unwritten mercy rule...

I joked about it earlier in this topic but Grinnell did not have the biggest margin of victory last night.  That honor belonged to UW-Platteville who won 105-20 over Illinois Tech.  85 points.  In Platteville's first game they won by 53 points so this is not the first time this year they've run up the score.  The number of people that have ripped UW-P in the WIAC thread so far since that game was played:  0.   That's right.  A team won by 85 points last night and not a single person has taken them to task for it.  Why not? 

Here's the problem with the mercy rule (and I'm not arguing that it should or shouldn't exist), it's a subjective thing.  One man's 15 point win is another man's 35 point win.  There is no written rule that explains how many you are allowed to win by to not be considered a jerk of a coach.  That also applies to how long the starters play, how many points one player gets, whether somebody plays to get a triple-double, the list is endless where we can find ways to offend opponents and fans.  Just keep in mind - your mercy rule is not everyone's mercy rule.  You do not decide what is appropriate and what is not.

So going back to my point about UW-P last night, something to consider....here are the # of games in each point differential from last night's scoreboard...

80 = 1 (UW-P)
70 = 1 (Grinnell)
60 = 0
50 = 0
40 = 1
30 = 12
20 = 21

So where is the cutoff line on who is evil and who is not?  Are we saying the 3 coaches that won by 40 or more are?  The 15 that won by 30 or more?  How about the 36 that won by at least 20 because really, you don't NEED to win by 20, that's just rubbing it in.  The scoreboard has 140 scores from last night (if I counted correctly), 36 of those were games won by 20 or more.... that's 26% of the games.  What's worse for D3 basketball - the fact that Grinnell won and set a record or that 26% of the games played last night were not competitive? 

Just something to think about.  In my opinion you don't run up that big of a margin of victory, however I don't have as a big of issue with it because Faith knew exactly what they were getting into when they schedule the game.

Here's the link to the Platteville box: http://www.uwplatt.edu/athletics/basketball/mens/livestats/xhome.htm

Their TEAM played all 17 players on the roster, 15 of them scored. No starter on their TEAM played more than 18 minutes, for the game the starters averaged less than 13 minutes played. The starters on this TEAM took 40% of the shots in the game No player on their TEAM took more than 9 shots. Their entire TEAM took 70 shots.

As for GrInnell, Jack Taylor can say I took 108 shots, almost 80% of my teams total. I took 71 3-pt shots, almost 90% of my teams total.  I played team defense, hustling the entire court to help my teammates.  GrInnell certainly helped prove the old adage about this being a team sport.  No I in TEAM ?

[larry_u]

This article takes everything I wanted to say and states it perfectly.  Enjoy the spotlight Grinnell, cause it ain't gonna last long:

http://deadspin.com/5962514/?utm_campaign=socialflow_deadspin_twitter&utm_source=deadspin_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

[martin]

This article takes everything I wanted to say and states it perfectly.  Enjoy the spotlight Grinnell, cause it ain't gonna last long:

http://deadspin.com/5962514/?utm_campaign=socialflow_deadspin_twitter&utm_source=deadspin_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

I was just about to post the same link.  The last and best line from that story:

Grinnell accomplished its mission. They can now go away.

[sigma one]

Look--and then I'll get off my moral high horse:  The FACT is that Grinnell deliberately embarrassed an opponent and did nothing good to teach its own players about winning with honor.  Comparisons with how badly your football team has sometimes lost, or with earlier defeats by your basketball team, just don't parse.  All the rest is just rationalization, and particularly the assertion that the opponent should not have scheduled Grinnell if they didn't want to be embarrassed, and that they should have double-teamed, etc.  There is a difference between losing, and losing big, winning and winning big, and last night's result.  They won't/can't say so, but I really wonder what the Grinnell players think about last night; they are smart guys attending one of the country's premier liberal arts colleges.  If they think that there was any semblence of sportsmanship and compassion shown, I'd be surprised (and disapppointed).  If they think, that last night was how competition should decided, then Grinnell has some work to do with these student-athletes.  This was not a coach/team using a "system" to their advantage to win the game.  Even with the "system" you'd think that at some point the coach would say, that's enough FOR NOW.  Hey, player, enough; you have your 100 (+).  We have the game more than won.   Hey, guys, let's show some class.    Not what happened.  Instead, let's rub their noses in it.  And as for the response, that's how we play, well . . .teachable moment!
     So if the coach and the college and some fans think what happened last night is acceptable, laudable, celebratory, then OK.         

[OxyBob]

Yet again, Division III is made to look like a joke on the big stage (ESPN, etc) due to the circus that is Grinnell basketball.

Somewhere Gary Smith and Dave Porter are smiling.

OxyBob

[madzillagd]

Here's the link to the Platteville box: http://www.uwplatt.edu/athletics/basketball/mens/livestats/xhome.htm

Their TEAM played all 17 players on the roster, 15 of them scored. No starter on their TEAM played more than 18 minutes, for the game the starters averaged less than 13 minutes played. The starters on this TEAM took 40% of the shots in the game No player on their TEAM took more than 9 shots. Their entire TEAM took 70 shots.

As for GrInnell, Jack Taylor can say I took 108 shots, almost 80% of my teams total. I took 71 3-pt shots, almost 90% of my teams total.  I played team defense, hustling the entire court to h elp my teammates.  GrInnell certainly helped prove the old adage about this being a team sport.  No I in TEAM ?

What am I supposed to be looking at? The fact that UW-P scored 49 in the first half and were up by 39 at halftime, yet still came out and scored 56 (MORE!!!) in the 2nd half?

Both teams were up by 39 points at halftime.  In the 2nd half UW-P outscored their opponent by 46, in the 2nd half Grinnell outscored their opponent by 36.

For the mathematically challenged, UW-P humiliated their opponent by an additional 10 points in the 2nd half of their game than Grinnell did. 

You're right, that's way better because it wasn't one kid running up the score it was lots of kids running up the score.


I don't have any connection to Grinnell and like I said previously I think it was excessive, I just take exception to the moral police that decide who to go after and who gets a pass. 

[madzillagd]

Yet again, Division III is made to look like a joke on the big stage (ESPN, etc) due to the circus that is Grinnell basketball.

Somewhere Gary Smith and Dave Porter are smiling.

OxyBob

The first thing I did last night when I saw this score pop up was email Gary.  He's up here in NorCal now, his daughter is married to my best friend.  He's been helping implement The System at high schools up here.    His response:  "Just another ho / hum system record by Grinnell." 

[jeffdc]

In the 'for what it's worth' dept.: I watched the Faith Baptist bench during the 2nd half of the game, and they were having a blast - excited by Taylor's incredible shots, excited by their own scores, excited that everyone on their team was playing - a lot. And it helped that the GC students were cheering when FB scored, too.

[jeffp]

One big disappointment for me was that we could never get Gary and Dave's teams together on the same court. Or Puget for that matter when they were playing a modified version of the system. SOME of us would have loved it!