A California high school girls basketball coach has been suspended for questionable sportsmanship after his team beat a winless squad 161-2 last week.
Arroyo Valley High School coach Michael Anderson told the Riverside (Ca.) Press-Enterprise that he was suspended for two games in the wake of a lopsided win against Bloomington High School during which his team kept up a full-court press for the whole first half in building a 104-1 lead at halftime.
The fourth quarter was played with a running clock, and Anderson said he didn't play any starters in the second half. He also didn't report the score to local newspapers, but it was posted to the team's Facebook page.
"The game just got away from me,'' Anderson told the San Bernardino Sun. "I didn’t expect them to be that bad, I’m not trying to embarrass anybody. And I didn’t expect my bench to play that well. I had one [bench] player make eight of nine 3s [3-point field goals].”
“People shouldn’t feel sorry for my team; they should feel sorry for his team, which isn’t learning the game the right way,” Bloomington coach Dale Chung told the newspaper.
"He’s a great Xs and Os coach," Chung said of Anderson, referring to the basketball playbook convention of designating defending players with Xs and players on offense with Os. "Ethically? Not so much. He knows what he did was wrong.”
In its first game without Anderson on Thursday night, Arroyo beat Indian Springs High 80-19 while being coached by Anderson's 19-year-old son, Nick.