I agree with PM. There is no good reason once the score got to 20-0 to ignore that something was terribly wrong. Once it got to 25-0, it should have been obvious that the other team simply should not have been on that basketball court.
At that point, the proper thing to do would have been to time out for a conference with the referees and the opposing coach. This is one reason why automatic game-ending "run rules" are important. If this conference had had such a rule, the game would have ended. Basketball being significantly different than baseball, it would have to be anywhere from 25-40 points depending on the age-level playing.
On that note, though, the opposing school and coach also bear some responsibility in this, too. I cannot imagine that the defeated school is competitive in any real league. I wonder if these two schools were in the same league. I kind of doubt it. I imagine the defeated school was "playing up" to gain experience.
We all know that GENERALLY taking a small Div4 school that boasts 40-80 boys against a DivI school boasting 1000+ boys is an automatic disaster in the making. That's why they almost always never schedule one another. If I'm a Div4 coach and I insist on "testing" my team against a powerhouse, then part of the blame rests on me when the mismatch is huge.
Another note: once you've got your 4th string in, and you're still killing them, is it good for a team to tell them to go on court and try not to score?
In short, referees should have the authority to end an out-of-hand game whether for behavior OR for obvious mismatch.
I hope the coach wasn't fired as a teacher, but only as a coach.
“I hope the coach wasn’t fired as a teacher, but only as a coach.”
I have to disagree, xzins. I think it is precisely that he failed as a teacher - a High School teacher. As purely a coach with purely the job of winning the game and nothing more, he did great. Teaching however, involves ethical considerations that go far beyond winning the game. And that’s where this guy not only failed, but showed he never crawled out of the swamp himself.