Apologizing for Blowout Match

[AdamHeard]

If I were on the losing team, I would not accept a forfeit from the winners.

[NorviewsVeteran]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

If I were on the losing team, I would not accept a forfeit from the winners.

Same here. A match that you win 100-0 might not have much honor, but taking a match you lost as a win is undignified. And rather confusing.

[aaeamdar]

First, I want to re-iterate what the OP said - that with such a complex issue, many different viewpoints are possible and respectable. I also want to say that this is a fantastic idea for a thread and a great opportunity to allow us to examine the concept of GP in a new light.

Originally Posted by NorviewsVeteran

Same here. A match that you win 100-0 might not have much honor, but taking a match you lost as a win is undignified. And rather confusing.

I agree. My own opinion is that the winning team should not let up. They should definitely not forfeit - that's just rediculous.

Let's say that the team that was winning had let up and alllowed the other team to score a basket. There are two possibilities here: one, that the other team would realize that they were being allowed to score, and the other that they wouldn't.

In the first situation (they realize that the other team is slacking off), this poisons the possibility of future victories. What do I mean by this? Put yourself in the position of the losing team. You just scored, but only because the other team let you. However, let's say that three minutes later in the game, you saw a great scoring opportunity and took it. Wouldn't you suspect that the other team had simply allowed you to score again?

In the second situation, the winning team is implicitly deceiving the losing team by letting them score - in other words, they are lying to them. Some people might say that this is a good thing (a "white lie" perhaps). I disagree, though I'm not really interested in arguing the point, since there's no point to be argued. If you think lying to make people feel better is generally good, I'm not going to try to convince you otherwise.


Anyway - another interesting question. What should have been done? A few people have said (including myself) that the winning team should not forfeit. Several sources in the article said that they should have backed off at halftime. I disagree - but what should they have done? Definitely an open question, but again, here's my opinion:

If at all possible within the rules of the league, the coaches of the two teams should have met at halftime and talked things over, coming to some mutually agreeable decision. One possibility might have been for the losing team to forfeit, and continue play with mixed teams. Another would be for the winning team to mentor the losing team in how to play better (though this obviously has potential for ill will). Continuing play wasn't necessarily a bad idea - it just seems to me that there might have been more constructive things to do.