Comments on: Two hundred and one?

By: wildcat1144

wildcat1144 — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 19:02:15 +0000

Deadspin.com keeps this story alive with this post: “How in the world could these guys ever lose?”

http://www.deadspin.com/sports/college-basketball/how-in-the-world-could-these-guys-ever-lose-219704.php

By: gmann

gmann — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 15:19:16 +0000

Here’s a link to a well written article in the Philadelphia Inquirer on the game. Jensen does a nice job providing insight on how both of these teams ended up in this game.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/sports/16164814.htm

By: wilburt

wilburt — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 02:47:36 +0000

Congrats to Lincoln on an outstanding job!

By: zak ivkovic

zak ivkovic — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 23:40:26 +0000

So much for the Year of Sportsmanship in D3. The key is the score at halftime – you should never score more in the second half than you did in the first after you have some 60 point lead. That is where Lincoln is guilty and without merit to anyone arguing their case. Regardless of who plays in the second half, you can do so many things to keep it reasonable and win with class.

By: mt2006

mt2006 — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 20:59:15 +0000

I actually think back about it, and with the team only dressing 6 players, I would have told my kids to foul the players, if they didn’t want to get run up on like that they could have fouled, not intentionally, but in the context of the game. This way the team would have fouled out, and would not quit or just leave the floor. It states a sense of pride that they will not stand for this kind of beating, but are not quitters. That would have been a cool thing to see, and then the team wouldn’t have made ESPN, but if they did, it would have been because of the foul out story, as well as the point situation.

By: mt2006

mt2006 — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 19:43:40 +0000

I just looked at the box score, if you look at the 2nd half, the three leading scorers for Lincoln logged the most minutes in the second half, which included their All American, who played 14 Minutes I believe.

If I was the other coach, I woulda probably pulled my team from the floor. This guy not only is up 100 points, but he left the three best players on the floor that night on for significant minutes in the second half. If that isn’t a downright pitiful thing to do I don’t know what is. Most of the above posts call for them to keep pressing, and its ok to route a team. That route usually consists of 25 points or so or even 40. THis team won by 120!! That isn’t even thinkable in basketball sense, thats because it should never get to that point. What happened out there is a disgrace to the game, and someone should hold this coach accountable for the integrity of the game.

By: Hoops Fan

Hoops Fan — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 18:23:08 +0000

I just examined the box score from the game again and put a few numbers up on the Bumblin’ B’s board.

In reality, the last five guys on Lincoln’s bench averaged only 6 minutes in this game, most of those from one guy who got to start because the opponent was obviously subpar.

In fact, 4 out of the top six players on the team exceeded their average minutes per game in this one (including Wylie).

I will defend the rights of the last five players on the bench to score and press at will, but for that to be applicable in this case, those guys needed to be in the game. That didn’t happen.

By: diehardfan

diehardfan — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 18:18:59 +0000

Does this count as posting? Hmm… I don’t know. Oh well.

I’m going to preface this statement by saying: Don’t get me wrong, I think good sportsmanship is really important. I think that good coaches teach good sportsmanship to their players and it shapes into how that player acts toward other human beings as they live the rest of their lives.

On the other hand, we are using some pretty darn weighty adjectives for something as trivial in the grand scheme of things as a basketball score. I guess it’s just me, but I just think some of the words people have been using to describe Lincoln here and on the posting board should be reserved for people who get angry about basketball scores, but don’t do anything to stop poverty, genocide, famine, epidemics.

Seriously though, I wish some people would calm down a little. This lack of sportsmanship doesn’t bother me any more than the drunk student sections that yell obscenities at the players in front of children while the school’s administration stands there watching (actually this bothers me a whooole lot more than the Lincoln thing). And then there’s the players who make cocky motions at the crowd after a dunk, or the players who play dirty and get players on the opposite team injured, or the coaches who curse and berate their players to get them to perform better. The list goes on and on. Let’s not pretend that we are morally superior here. All of our teams have done something that has been in bad taste in the past, I’m sure. Just because this one made a highlight on ESPN and a few blogs, does NOT mean that it’s any worse, it just means it’s easier to hype.

Lincoln is a great DIII institution and this league will be missing a little bit when they are gone next year. Random act of unsportsmanlike conduct and all.

In the meanwhile, let’s use our gigantic DIII brains to get upset about the tens of thousands of people in this nation of prosperity who lack access to safe drinking water, or for the one child that dies every five seconds from hunger around the world, or the billion people living below the poverty line around the world.

Thanks. And now back to lurking…

By: Titan Q

Titan Q — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 17:20:57 +0000

To me, this is real easy to evaluate. Lincoln had their All-American, Sami Wylie, in the game at the end. Just read through that running play-by-play in the boxscore. Wylie scored points 200 and 201, giving his team a 120 POINT LEAD!!! And Wylie was in there chucking up all kinds of shots just before that.

Last weekend I watched Illinois Wesleyan dismantle NAIA Judson. The Titans got up 33 with about 10:00 to go and IWU All-American Zach Freeman had a legimate chance at the school’s single-game rebounding record. Freeman had 16…IWU’s record is 24. Freeman didn’t play the final 9:37 of the game — only bench players were in at that point. That is just what you do.

I am all for the BENCH PLAYERS playing hard in blowouts, but when you have an All-American in a game chucking up shots when you are up 100, that is despicable.

By: dcollinge

dcollinge — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 15:23:57 +0000

I don’t know anything about Lincoln, or about the game, but if the Lions play a press defense and a quick-shooting offense all of the time, then it doesn’t make sense (to me) to ask them to play a different style once the game was out of hand. It benefits nobody for them to do so, and it’s as logical as asking them to play soccer. If I’d've been the coach, I’d have asked my players to take it easy, but play the same offensive and defensive sets as normal, and I’d probably look at the remainder of the game as a practice, trying some plays or player combinations that we had worked on in practice but hadn’t been able to utilize in game action.

Substitute Grinnell for Lincoln in this scenario. Would you have asked them to eat the shot clock on every possession, just to allow OSU-Marion to save face? Would the Grinnell players be adept at that style? Would playing that way help or harm them down the road? Would the Marion players and coaches have appreciated the gesture?

Suppose the opposite of this game, that instead of one team scoring at will, you had the other team being shut out by a team with a far superior defense. Would you ask your players to just stand still on defense to let the other team score? Would you ask them to play a zone if they play nothing but man in all other games?

There are no easy answers in a game like this.