OK, as you recall from last week, the Yates High (Texas) boys varsity basketball team beat hapless rival Lee High, 170-35, continuing to full-court press and gun up shots all the way through the fourth quarter. This despite leading at halftime, 100-12. This caused somewhat of a controversy, well, everywhere, including the comments section of this blog, where readers were actually challenging other readers to duels. (No word yet on how those turned out).
Now the Yates coach, Greg Wise, is at it again, apparently. Going into its game with Westbury Rebels on Wednesday, Yates had a 12-game streak of scoring 100 or more points. But on Wednesday the streak was in jeopardy. So, despite leading by 30 late in the game, Wise ordered his players to foul immediately on every inbounds play, so that Yates could regain possession quickly and try to make it to 100.
In other words, despite being ahead in a blowout, Wise decided that getting to 100 was more important than winning gracefully. From the Houston Chronicle.
With less than three minutes to go, Peters broke away for a crowd-pleasing, 360-degree dunk to push the Lions’ total to 84.
From that point on, Yates employed a strategy of their own: immediately foul on the inbounds play. Westbury went to the free-throw line seven times in that span, giving the Lions plenty of opportunities to pad their point total to triple-digits, but missed shots and broken plays tripped them up as the clock wound down.
The strategy didn’t work: Yates won 94-64. Westbury tried to slow the tempo, using a lot of passing and patient shot selection to keep it low-scoring; although I assume they use a shot clock in Texas, so I don’t know how you can really slow things that much. Anyway, Yates didn’t appreciate the opposition trying to spoil their streak, and went to the hack-an-anybody strategy.
Next week, Yates High players have to get tough with some girl scouts who are selling cookies a little too close to their territory.
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Yates Coach A-Hole Greg Wise Fouls to Hit 100, Misses [Bob's Blitz]
Yates’ 100-point streak ends in win over Westbury [Houston Chronicle]
Texas high school hoops team wins 170-35, most not amused [Out of Bounds]
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- Gelardia - Jan 25, 2010 at 2:11 PM
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Good for Westbury for trying to end Yates’ streak. And as for the Yates coach & players going to a hard foul strategy (I assume that’s what the article means by “hack-at-anybody strategy”), that team is just asking for a beat down of a physical nature.
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- Randall - Jan 25, 2010 at 2:23 PM
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It’s not the team that needs a beatdown, it’s the coach. Here’s hoping some opposing players’ parents deliver it soon.
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- Dallas1012 - Jan 25, 2010 at 3:04 PM
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A win is a win regardless of the score, just trying to score a 100 points in a game is tasteless, sounds to me like the coach does not really care too much about teaching these young kids the fundamentals of basketball just the humiliation of the opposing team. As a coach myself I would much rather win a hard fought contest knowing my kids left their all on the court rather than dominate a less gifted team. With his team dominating the way they have been maybe assisting the opposing teams players and be a coach to both teams, teaching less gifted players about the game of basketball would bring a positive attention to his abilities as a coach and his team.
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- ESKAY09 - Jan 25, 2010 at 5:07 PM
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Even thought I didn’t personally agree with the 170 points earlier, at least the coach had the defense of just playing the game the way it’s supposed to be played. I’ve coached youth sports for 20 years, and this one is probably one of the worst examples of poor sportsmanship that I have ever seen. If they played everybody on their bench, like the coach claims in other articles, and they still score 100, ok, I get it. You can’t ask your subs that bust their butt in practice to get in the game and not score. But you don’t intentionally stop the clock to reach a number, that’s against the spirit of the game, and I for one hope he gets fired immediately.
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- leoanrd - Jan 26, 2010 at 7:49 AM
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I say that scoring as much as you can thru out the game is fine but when u do stupid crap to keep the streak alive then thats when you need to reevaluate yourself as a coach.
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- palos - Jan 26, 2010 at 10:32 AM
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Perhaps, Yates should try real basketball opponents and come to New Jersey where real high school basketball is played. Let us see if his team can score 50 points.
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- justin - Feb 5, 2010 at 7:54 PM
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Oh ya that why Yates beat those New Jersey and Philly schools early in the season because they’re legit buddy. They dont get respect because Espn is too busy praisng east coast schools when you know Houston has just as much talent in basketball as the whole northeast. Just look at the fab 50 rankings. We dont recruit players down here and no prep schools like up there in Jersey, Philly, DC and New York. Try again.
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