There certainly has been quite a bit of chatter in the last week about the Epiphanny Prince’s 113 point basketball game for Murry Bergtraum High School. It set a record for Epiphanny and has brought considerable condemnation for Coach Ed Grezinsky, who told the New York Post “We play the schedule we’re dealt and some of the team are weak, but I didn’t think I should punish [her] for that.”

There can be no doubt that the control of the score rests with the coach for, after all, 137-32 is quite an unnecessary differential and seems to beg the question, where were thoughts of sportsmanship? The issue really does come down to respect for players of the game.

Sometimes a league game requires that unequal teams play and there is no doubt going into the game that the score will be “a lot to a little”. Both teams are able to learn from such a game. It is an opportunity for players on the better team to get game experience when the bench is unloaded. It is an opportunity for the better team to learn to win with grace, and to treat the smuggling team with respect.

At the same time there is quite a lot the loosing team can learn. Loosing with your head up, looking for the “little victories” and dealing with adversity come to mind, but perhaps my favorite is that when we get out in the “real world”, things are not always equal or even fair.

Those of us who have coached for any length of time, have been faced with the problem. There really are a number of factors in determining when to pull the starters. I, for example, had a standing rule that I would always keep my man up and man down unit together. If our opponent received a penalty, my man up team would go on the field. I felt that we always needed real time practice for them and because I never had a second team man up or man down unit, the starters would go on until the penalty was over.

On occasion, this practice would influence the score. I also felt that players would only enter the field in their normal positions. For some reason, attackmen always want to go in as defensemen and defensemen want to play attack. I always felt that was demeaning and improper and was not allowed.

I guess my point is that it is sometimes difficult to keep the score down; difficult but not always impossible.

The problem with this basketball game is that it would appear that, other than making a point that we are better than you, there doesn’t seem to be anything of value learned in this game. I can’t imagine that scoring a national record number of points against a team that has no chance can be very meaningful. I can’t believe that players who didn’t get reasonable playing time and sat on the bench saw much meaning in this game. It couldn’t have been easy for the girls from Brandeis or their coach to wait for the clock to end the madness. Brandeis, by the way, was missing one of their better players, but I suspect that if she had been there, it would not have made a great deal of difference. Epiphanny hit 54 of 60 shots so it would seem that there was not a great deal of defense playing against her.

Perhaps the point to be learned from this game is that coaches need to think more carefully about these issues and each coach needs a “game plan” that focuses on the values of sport rather than on the score.