Indiana High School Basketball Blowout: Who is to Blame? - jmik58's Blog

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Indiana High School Basketball Blowout: Who is to Blame? Stuck

Posted on December 12, 2012 at 01:14 PM.

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It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game. That is, assuming you don't win by a score of 107-2.

An Indiana girl's high school basketball game resulted in just that as Bloomington South demoralized Arlington High School, prompting plenty of emotional responses.

Naturally, plenty of fans and parents were enraged, but Ebony Jackson, the coach of the losing team had a barb for the Bloomington South head coach Larry Winters, stating, "If that's how they want to carry themselves, that's fine. I'm focused on me and mine and we'll just keep going."

Winters stated that he played all nine of his players throughout the game -- not just starters -- and decided to allow his players to compete as usual because backing off would be more embarrassing for Arlington High's players.

From personal experience, I can recall playing in a freshman level baseball game where the score was 21-0 after two innings. Our coach instructed us to bat from our non-dominant side from that point on until the game was stopped after three innings due to the mercy rule. I have no idea if it was more embarrassing to the opposing team that we did this, but the mercy rule put an end to the charade fairly quickly.

Unfortunately, in this instance that wouldn't have helped. There is no mercy rule in Indiana for high school basketball that would stop a game early due to a blowout.

So should we just chalk it up to a rare occurrance between two athletically disparate squads? Or should heads roll? And if so, is the coach more at fault or is the state athletic association to blame for not protecting teams and players with a mercy rule?

Sound Off: Have you had a similar experience as a player or coach? How would you react from either side of the situation? Who is most at fault, if anyone?

Justin Mikels is a staff writer for Operation Sports. Follow him on Twitter: @long_snapper