As I expected, you don't have that competitive sports nature to understand what I meant, and I don't mean that to try and sound condescending. It's just one of those things where either you have it or you don't. If the way this comes across sounds that way then I apologize.

Just making a team in itself is a competition. Remaining on that team is a competition. The purpose of being on a team is to learn to function as a unit in order to win and to strive to become a better player in order to allow your team work better together.

If you aren't good enough to be a starter, you ride the bench. If you're not good enough off the bench, you get kicked from the team.

Like I said, it's a priviledge and not a right and it needs to be looked at that way and not about just letting kids join based soley on them wanting to have fun, because some of the best players look at it as much more than that.

Right: competition can be fun (fun is not mere frivolity, just like happiness is not mere hedonism. Same way grind-fests like Monster Hunter can be just as fun as a quick-paced game of Smash), but again, losing very badly is not fun and doesn't have a place in the system. Forcing people to endure a bad loss beyond any point of recall is just a humiliation, like if everybody was forced to try out for the team, even if they didn't want to, just so the people who were good at the sport could stoke their own ego about how much better they are than average. You are not proving anything beyond a certain point that isn't already apparent to everyone, there is no pride or glory, just angst.

Though ultimately we're talking about very isolated incidents. I'd peg the mercy rule as something like two standard deviations away from the average point spread for the sport in question, something that's statistically very unlikely to happen, but certainly can happen. Would only apply to high school sports, maybe the NCAA. Pro is different because the folks may get humiliated, but at least they're getting paid.

Agreed, this is no doubt an isolated incident. It is never usually this bad in any level of sports, unless you're playing playground ball and getting your butt whooped to the point where you pick up your bags and walk off the court.

As for losing badly not having a place in the system though, I do not believe mercy rule in all sports does either, but clearly this isn't a discussion where we will likely come to any full agreement on and I am positive we have said just about all that we both could say.

Still enjoyed it none the less.

Oh, ok, maybe we should suspend the world cup too, because making Brazil lose on home at 7-1 was reallly "disrespectfull"(and i'm a brazzilian).

Really, this kind of thing happen, when you go dispute anything, you go accepting the possibility of loosing badly. If you don't want this preassure on you, don't even try.

Germany could have easily had more than 7. They went easy on Brazil.

I love seeing teams get smashed like this. The only message being sent by suspending the coach is that winning isn't important. Wait, what?

Isn't that the goal of any game?

Uh? Hmm.

Winning is everything in life and I have no sympathy for losers.

Sadly, those two points they scored were free throws.  Bloomington had 1 point at the end of the first half, and the only way to make 1 point shots in basketball are from free throws.

This I've never heard before. A coach getting suspended for winning by too much? What!?

LOL suspend the coach is not gonnal do thing to the team. If this team have superstar still winning team. Just replace with assistan coach and done LOL

The argument was that it was unsportsman-like to win by that much. 

Personally, the more I think about it, the more I feel like this problem may be accentuated by sexism (that it's girls basketball, and therefore it's less serious and more about 'just having fun').   I could be wrong, though.

I've read a lot of the comments on several different articles, and I see a lot of them also make it seem like this was a middle or elementary school.  I don't think high schoolers are as sensitive.  Then again, it's not like this is a topic I know much about, which is why I wanted to see different opinions by making a thread about it.