Posted 7:07 AM by steve

A girl's high school basketball team that won its last game by a score of 100-0 is being criticized for the margin of victory... but the real problem isn't that they won by 100 points, it is that they were even playing such an inferior team.

Matchups such as this don't do either team any good. If the better team continues to play hard, they win in a blow out and are criticized for being poor sports while the losing team gets humiliated.

But if the better team hits the brakes, while the score is less lopsided, the result is the same - the inferior team still gets humiliated and the better team still looks like jerks. It's no fun - for either team - playing in a game where one team won't shoot until the last two seconds of the shot clock or will only shoot after everybody on the team has touched the ball three times a possession or will only shoot one type of shot. And on the other end of the court, it's no fun - for either team - playing in a game where the better team won't play defense or, even worse, just pretends to play defense.

It's embarrassing when one team blows out another, but it's just as embarrassing having your opponent play with one hand tied behind their back.

Absent an official 'mercy rule' which ends the game early, there is no miracle cure that will keep one team from having its nose rubbed in the dirt... and the other team feeling just as bad for being the ones doing the rubbing.