Credit: jessperna.com

While browsing the jungle of the World Wi(l)d(e) Web, I stumbled upon a blog which calls out Basketball Daily World. This blogger labels BDW as “public, negative and critical“. He likely read only one article in BDW; if he took some time before he took the pen, he would have found tens of articles which are neither negative nor critical, and I have yet to hear of private blogs as opposed to public ones.  The blogger, who calls himself a sports editor, disregarded the well-established etiquette of online publishing which says that you should provide a link if you mention another online publication. Maybe he will mention it in their PDF version, which he likely refers to as newspapers. You can find this artifact in barber shops in Belmont or, if you are a local zealot, you can even subscribe to it.

This blogger from the Belmont Citizen-Herald seems to have skipped classes where they teach the basic structure of composition:  His Majesty the Paragraph. In his classic booklet, The Elements of Style, William Strunk Jr. says: “As a rule, single sentences should not be written or printed as paragraphs. An exception may be made of sentences of transition, indicating the relation between the parts of an exposition or argument.” Going by this, this whole blog is a transition of sorts and it takes a great effort to understand where it is transitioning to. After reading it three times, I think this is what the blogger wanted to say:

• The Marauders finished their season 18 – 4, at some point they were 15 – 0, and they won the Middlesex League, therefore WINNING is most important in high school basketball.
• No, wait, this is high school basketball – FUN is the most important thing.
• No, wait again, this is high school basketball – LEARNING is important too.
• The Belmont Marauders are not the Boston Celtics or the Duke Blue Devils and they shouldn’t be confused with any of these two basketball teams.
• This is a free country and people are free to write anything they want; preferably they will write about the Celtics or the Blue Devils.
• It is legal to publicly express opinions in this country, including criticizing the coach.
• By some unknown standards (moral? ethical?), it is not OK to express opinion about high school basketball team if it’s critical of the coach; if the opinion is positive it is OK to express it.
• We are at a dawn of a new age, technology has changed so much, and blogging rules the world.
• Basketball Daily World writers should find new hobbies; Belmont Citizen-Herald bloggers will continue pursuing their hobby of writing – it is unknown if they will master the basics of composition along the way.

Credit: thesportshernia.typepad.com

My favorite sentence of all is: “This… is… high… school… basketball.” This blogger could really benefit from reading another book, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, by Lynne Truss. Both books may help him understand that shooting sentences in clusters is more effective than sniping them one at a time. Clustering your thoughts, though, requires knowing where you are going. Is it winning, fun, or learning? Maybe all three, but in what order? Judging from the BC-H blog, the priorities are clear: 1) Winning, 2) Fun, 3) Learning. If the team can’t get to all three they must make sure they get to the first one at least – that’s how priorities work. It is justified not playing team basketball and disrespecting the coach as long as the team is somehow winning. All the writers who disagree with these priorities and publish online should be convinced to find new hobbies. Then, we won’t have to be worried about the “dawn of a new age” any more.

If NCAA doesn’t suspend Coleman for the whole year and puts him on some sort of probation (next incident, banned for life), then they would tell the public that they’ve lost their compass.

We strive, enough of us do, to be the best. We strive to win. We strive to avoid defeat. Enough of us still do. Don’t believe otherwise.  The liberals have made efforts to shut that aspect of our nature down. Wherever you live, I am certain that you, when you were a child or your kids today in youth sports are told not to keep score, because the losers, it’s just not fair. They’d be humiliated, especially if one girl’s basketball team can defeat another one 100 to nothing. And let’s fire the coach who put that game together. It’s so unfair.  So let’s not keep score. Well, here’s the dirty little secret. The kids are keeping score. [Applause] You know they are. They don’t want to lose. They know what winning and losing is. They’re saying, well, why go out there and put on the pads and play football or T-Ball if the objective here is to not keep score. So they’re keeping score. They get in the car with mom and dad and they tell mom and dad:  Yeah, we kicked their butts tonight. Wait a minute, I thought you weren’t keeping score. They weren’t officially. They keep score. We’re competitive people. Adults are doing the same thing.

Covenant coach who beat Dallas Academy 100-0 is fired, Barry Horn, The Dallas Morning News

The Covenant School fired its girls basketball coach Sunday, the same day he posted a message on a youth basketball Web site saying he disagreed with school officials who had publicly apologized for the team’s 100-0 victory over Dallas Academy.

“I respectfully disagree with the apology, especially the notion that the Covenant School girls basketball team should feel ‘embarrassed’ or ‘ashamed,’ ” part of the post says. “We played the game as it was meant to be played and would not intentionally run up the score on any opponent. Although a wide-margin victory is never evidence of compassion, my girls played with honor and integrity and showed respect to Dallas Academy.”

Grimes said in his Sunday post that his team stopped applying full-court defensive pressure after the score reached 25-0 three minutes into the game, then dropped into a relatively benign zone defense and began resting its starters in favor of its three bench players.

Dallas Academy coach Andrew Lott agreed that Covenant stopped pressing at that point but returned with an alternate press later in the game.

“I am 100 percent sure,” said Lott, who estimated that his team was able to take seven shots all game…

Team that won 100-0 girls basketball game has seen enough piling on, Jacquielynn Floyd, The Dallas Morning News

No victory ever came at a higher cost than The Covenant School’s now-infamous 100-zip annihilation of Dallas Academy in a girls basketball contest last week.

What would otherwise have been an unremarkable contest between two little-known private schools has become an overnight global wonder, making the news as far away as Australia.

It’s a terrific, made-for-the-headlines story – a national ethics lesson, a rare chance to disparage arrogant victors and celebrate the long-suffering underdog. It’s a vindication for every kid who ever got picked last for a team or unnecessarily humiliated by an opponent.

After a 100-0 game, Compiled by Staff, USA Today

Dallas Academy girls basketball team talks about 100-point loss, The Dallas Morning News [VIDEO]

Dallas School Apologizes for Basketball Game Blowout, Scott Gordon, MSNBC

A Dallas school whose girl’s basketball team beat another team 100-0 has apologized, calling its win “shameful” and “a victory without honor.”

“It is shameful and an embarrassment that this happened,” the statement said. “We humbly apologize.”

Academy basketball coach sees a win in 100-0 loss, Barry Horn, The Dallas Morning News

The game took place Jan. 13, on the road, against The Covenant School. Civello didn’t expect his girls to win. He never really does. His girls haven’t won a game in his four seasons at the White Rock Lake-area school, renowned for its work with students with a variety of learning problems. In most games, they haven’t come close.

The Bulldogs play, Civello said, for more than the final score. They play in hope of improving skills, learning teamwork and picking up whatever life lessons athletics may bring.

But they won’t be playing Covenant again this season; they canceled their Jan. 30 game against the team. After the game, Dallas Academy informed the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools that it was withdrawing its girls team from the league for the rest of the season.

“We just said, ‘The hell with it,’ ” said Jim Richardson, Dallas Academy’s headmaster.

School seeks to forfeit 100-0 win, AP, Rivals.com

A parent who attended the game told The Associated Press that Covenant continued to make 3-pointers — even in the fourth quarter. She praised the Covenant players but said spectators and an assistant coach were cheering wildly as their team edged closer to 100 points.

There is no mercy rule in girls basketball that shortens the game or permits the clock to continue running when scores become lopsided. There is, however, “a golden rule” that should have applied in this contest, said Edd Burleson, the director of the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools. Both schools are members of this association, which oversees private school athletics in Texas.

“On a personal note, I told the coach of the losing team how much I admire their girls for continuing to compete against all odds,” Burleson said. “They showed much more character than the coach that allowed that score to get out of hand. It’s up to the coach to control the outcome.”