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Was Andover out of line in its win? (updated)

March 3, 2009 @ 2:29 p.m. by Joanna

by joanna

The Andover boys beat Caney Valley (4-15) 92-7 last night.

Was this unsportsmanlike? I had someone e-mail me about this, citing the 100-0 game by the Texas team this season. Is this the same thing? (By the way, I wrote a blog post about this issue in January and what are the secret rules.)

Now, Andover, which beat a good Kingman team 100-52 earlier this season, is one of the better area teams. So for me, I was impressed that the Trojans didn’t score 100. That impressed me as much as the fact that they held a team to 7 points. You see that on the girls side, not the boys.

But I wasn’t there. I don’t know if Andover pressed the whole game. I don’t know what tactics coach Stucky used. (Check at the end of this post for Stucky’s comments. It should answer a lot of questions.)

But I saw that 11 players scored and only two were in double figures and Luke Meisch, an All-Metro player last year, only had nine points.

Keep in mind that Caney Valley is one of the five smallest 4A schools; Andover is the biggest, with 300 more students. Andover has played a tough, tough schedule this year, losing to McPherson (5A), Andover Central (5A) and Collegiate (3A). Caney Valley, according to KSHSAA, had 4 wins.

So there are my thoughts. What are yours? Was Andover unsportsmanlike? Was Andover in the right?

Jason Stucky’s comments regarding the score:

“We pressed the first 6.5 minutes of the first quarter. We went back into a half-court man and basically stayed inside the three-point line. When they missed a shot, I told our guys I still wanted to work on our (fastbreak offense). We got some fastbreak points. It wasn’t like we were cherry-picking. They didn’t get anybody back.
“We came down, ran our offense, threw it to the wing, then post man came up and caught it, and the other post player was wide-open and he scores on a layup.
“Sometimes they weren’t out there on the perimeter and we shot threes and made threes. In the fourth quarter, we quit shooting threes.

“There was honestly nothing else I could do.

“Every one on our team played in the first quarter.
“With the first round of sub-state, it put us in an extreme disadvantage, because, one, we didn’t get a chance to work on specials or set plays. If we had run a set play, it would have resulted in a layup, which would have run it up even more.
“We just played solid half-court defense inside the three-point line. Then we’d get the ball out quickly and sprint to our positions down the floor. If you don’t do that, we become sluggish again.
“At halftime I told them, I do not want to score 100 points. That is not our goal. I came home and told my wife, we could have pressed the whole game and I don’tknow if they would have scored. We probably could have scored 175 and set all sorts of scoring records.
“We did a running clock in the fourth quarter, even though we’re not supposed to. I called our AD at halftime and asked him to talk to their AD and their administration. (They said) Absolutely do it. After the game, Caney Valley’s administration, superintendent and AD, actually thanked our athletic director for not running it up more.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 at 2:29 p.m. and is filed under Basketball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

  • Joanna

    By the way, I’ve talked with Coach Stucky. I’ll have his quotes up here soon, but I have to write a story first. Look for an updated version of this post a little later.

  • BBref

    They did not run the score up, the other team knew what was going to happen and laid down. I was there, I was on the court. It was not unsportsmanlike, it is what happens to a well coached team versus a team who is lost.

    Andover only scored 7 points in the 4th quarter, I called a 3 second violation with 30 seconds left so they wouldnt score another basket.

    They could have scored 120 easily.

  • Itsjustagame

    I think it is more unsportsmanlike to completely back off. It insults the struggling team during the game. It kind of says your not good enough for us to take you for real. I think Andover took Caney for real.
    Like you pointed out Andovers scoring was spread out and so was Caneys ;] and the coach kept the boys from hitting that over the top number of 100. Andover stopped pressing early. Like I posted earlier after a 14-0 start one of the Caney players came up to our son and said (It looks like baseball starts tomorrow) I think this was a good sense of humor and I think both teams are class acts.

  • justanotherfan

    Games like this are why I think the state playoffs should be cut down. Rather than have every team qualify, and have a squad like Andover in basically a walkover game against a team that has quit for the season, why not just cut down to only the top 16 in 6A and 5A, top 32 in 4A and 3A and top 48 in 2A and 1A. That would avoid long road trips for ridiculous blowouts, as I suggested yesterday on the substate pairings story.

    Getting back to the subject, I don’t think Andover was out of line. From all appearances, they spread minutes around and everything, but the thing is, they have another game on Thursday, and if they take the “vacation” mindset, they may not play past there. They have to play hard every minute, because you want your team competing every possession by this point in the year. It’s just unfortunate that they were matched up against a team that was woefully overmatched.

  • ictaero

    I wasn’t there, but from the score in the paper, it looks like it was 52-3 at half. And, Andover apparently had 9 three-pointers. Does a team that is so far ahead really need to be shooting the three?

  • rhsports

    Like bbref stated above, Andover only scored 7 in the 4th qtr, so I don not believe they were not running up the score. I also understand what itsjustsagame is saying to, you can be percieved to be “rubbing there noses in it” if you just completley back off, it kinda of saying, you’re not even worth our effort. There is a line there, but how to walk it is different in a lot of peoples minds

  • Schmakey

    From what I’ve heard I agree, Andover did their best to make it more of a practice for them and be able to keep sharp for their next game. I would also agree that if you are not a .500 team you don’t belong in post season play. You have to draw the line somewhere and it is not fair to Andover to have to play this bad of a team again since they are the top seed. Fix the system so this doesn’t happen anymore.

  • out west

    After 14-0 start it turns into a pracitce, so YES 9 threes in the first half was probably necessary. So was anything in the third Q. The 4th is when the rest of the team plays and you play soft and you work the ball. Nothing wrong with it!!

  • bartont_32

    if they only made 9 threes, that’s not that many. what, just because you’re up, you can’t shoot threes?? i’ve played ball all my life, and if i’m open in the first 3 quarter, i’m shootin it. in the 4th, if the games out of hand, then i agree, no 3′s, unless it’s by the autistic water boy. if andover’s that good, i’m not surprised that there’s 4a teams this bad, so there doesn’t have to be any running up the score to get this score. besides, a loss is a loss, i’ve been on both sides, and it hurts just as bad to lose by 1. sometimes more because you had a chance.

  • Hovpen

    On teams qualifying, I’ve seen a team that went into districts at 0-fer end up in the state semi-finals. Let everyone in.

  • That’s Life

    It’s hard to be on the losing end of a game like that, but it’s not easy to be on the winning side either. How do you tell your team to quit trying, but still prepare for the next game. I don’t know what the answer is, I don’t think you can always say you’ve won if the score is a 30 point difference at half, but they do have mercy rule in other sports, baseball, softball, 8-man football. I like, many others think that when my team is down by 30, the other team should back off, but I also know that sometimes, that’s the only time some of those other players get to play, and then to tell them not to score??

  • Fan

    How did Caney Valley win 4 games!?

  • Fan

    Also Schmakey Andover was actually the 2nd seed not the top.

  • justanotherfan

    Also, watch for sportsmanship to be tested later this week when the 5A and 6A teams (girls especially) take the floor in their matchups. There are several blowout potential matchups in first round games.
    Wichita East at Washburn Rural, Topeka High at Wichita Heights, Wichita West at Liberal. Those are all teams with no more than 4 wins on the road against teams with no more than 1 loss. There are other equally ugly matchups in Round 1. That’s why there needs to be one less round of playoffs.

  • Andover Fan

    You can’t tell your players not to play hard when they are on the floor at any time, especially in a sub-state game. You can’t tell them not to shoot 3′s (although Coach Stucky apparently did that). You have to keep a team sharp. Now, Andover pulled the press off in the first quarter, and basically didn’t play defense outside the three point circle, which I would argue was a little risky in and of itself as Andover never limits the defense to inside the three point line. I understand not running up the score, but there is a fine line where you may hurt your own team by not playing your game. I am still for letting all teams qualify for sub-state as we do now, and unfortunately, that will lead to some games like this. You definitely can’t say Andover ran up the score when their leading scorer didn’t even get double figures.

  • NWBB

    THAT SOUNDS LIKE A SCORE OF A NORTHWEST GAME!

    I still feel score as many points as you can and hold your opponent to as few points as you can. And if people complain then just ignore them. Doesn’t make you a bad sport because you play hard the whole game. As far as I know these kids are past the putting on the same color wristbands as the guy your guarding stage of basketball.

  • Panther44

    Something needs to be done about a playoff system that allows something like this to happen, and yet places East, Southeast, and Heights all in the same Region.

  • 3afan

    Tonight Wichita Collegiate gave a perfect example of how to back off in a situation like this. Collegiate played Eureka (0-20).. and won 77-15. But, It could of easily been 100-0 if they wanted it to be. But, they stopped pressing in the first quarter, stopped running fast breaks in the first quarter and only shot if they were wide open.

  • bartont_32

    yeah, because 77-15 is so much better than 92-7?? like the andover coach said, he could’ve set all kinds of scoring records if he wished. you’re point was irrelevant.

  • 3afan

    It is better.. Collegiate is better than Andover and Eureka is much worse than Caney Valley, It could of easily been much worse than it was…

  • DanielEdwardHobble

    Actually, collegiate might have won, but andover goes way to deep, and all 12 couldn’t mess up if they tried. Andover took it as easy as possible, dont try to tell me that Collegiate has class because they won their game by ONLY 62.

  • bartont_32

    my point exactly

  • inthedark

    I think if KSHSAA would allow more than 12 players to suit up it for post-season play it would help. Basically Andover had to play their 8th-12th players for the second 1/2 and their 8th and 9th players are probably alot better than most 4A schools 3-5th players. If Andover was able to play their 11th-15th players then the score may not have got so out of hand. I don’t blame this on Andover I look at KSHSAA hand cuffing Andover and only allowing them so many players to play. Andover would have benefitted more from practicing instead of playing.

  • Spalding Wilson

    On the other hand, in the Cheney-Hugoton girls game tonight, which ended 77-14, Cheney had 4 starters in with 3 minutes to go, with a 55 point lead. Guess they felt like Hugoton might have a surprise 60 point play for the end of the game.

  • Coach Fiegel

    look, Andover had an 11 point lead on us in our gym, played poorly and took us to the limit

    I’m not ready to say Collegiate is better. On a neutral court Andover very well wins that game.

  • DanielEdwardHobble

    Andovers JV could very well start for some of the Varisity teams around here also.

    Not a well known fact but they also put up 100 on Kingman, Andover is way deeper then most teams, and will be a force to be reckoned with for the next couple of years.

    Also i bet 50 cents that isn’t coach Feigel himself

  • RikRok

    Shooting 9 threes is better than shooting 9 more layups.

    Suiting up more kids is worthless because most of the time those at the end of the bench will never get it and their time would be better spent doing homework or getting ready for their next season, not tagging along like little brothers.

    Seven reverses is more than enough kids to plop on the bench. Kids are way past the thrill of saying “I suited up varsity” when they know it’s only because some bonus seats were opened up because of some rule.

  • bkb Fan

    I agree with inthedark – Allow teams to suit up as many as they want for 1st round substate games. Beyond that there’s not much a team can do – you can’t tell kids to not play hard, that’s bad for them and insulting to the team they are playing.

  • Michael Jordan

    many teams, especially deep ones like Andover who also had a dominate JV team could use the experience of the state tourney to help Fr and Soph grow in the program I see no downside in expanding the roster to 15 except a little more meal money

  • ta town

    MJ, I disagree. Part of the thrill of state is that a lot of the time a team hasn’t been there before. You figure it out and the teams that can handle the pressure succeed. Usually, these are the kids that have put work intp the program for three or four years. I don’t think Freshman and Sophomores should be put into state games “just to get experience.” They should earn their way there by being on varsity and getting their team there.

    That’s rediculous. Let’s write a “is this fair?” story about cheney girl rather than andover boys.

  • Point Taken

    It is up to the defense to stop the other team’s offense, and not the other way around. Sure, there are some lopsided scores, but the game can still be played with sportsmanship.

  • Coach EM

    Lots of venom from NWBB today…

  • putmein

    I thought it was a misprint

  • MJ

    TT,

    In some cases to get to 12 from 15 you are cutting players that have been seeing acting all season. On a deep quality team the last 3 may have played in every game but are left home during State.

    that’s a pretty tough cut

  • BigFan

    You can’t make one team completely give up just because the other team is struggling. It’s a game in sub-state and it’s obvious the goal is to win and keep going until you make it to state. It’s pointless – one team that isn’t ranked as high knows they have a big game and are probably going to lose. It isn’t fair to make the better team back off in the prime time of scouting, etc…

  • BBall Fan

    About the limiting the playoff games. Have you never heard of an upset game, where the underdog comes up plays hard and wins. C’mon Caney Valley seemed like they just gave up and Andover had a really good night where they made baskets and had good defense to cover up Caney Valley.