The coach of a California high school girls’ basketball team was suspended after his team won a game 161-2.
Michael Anderson, the Arroyo Valley girls basketball team coach, was suspended for two games after the victory against Bloomington on Monday, January 5, 2015. Some believed the game was unsportsmanlike, hence the suspension.
“I have had a conversation with my coach about it and that kind of thing,” said Arroyo Valley athletic director Matt Howell, according to the Orange County Register. “It’s not going to happen again.”
The halftime score was 104-1. Anderson, who in 2011 led a different high school team to the Division II state finals, had used a full-court trap for the first half, but pulled back to a half-court trap for the second, according to Sporting News.
Anderson said he asked to have a running clock in the 3rd quarter, but high school rules dictate a running clock is not allowed until the 4th quarter, the Orange County Register reported. In the second half, he also told his players not to shoot the ball until there were less than 7 seconds left on the shot clock.
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“I didn’t play any starters in the second half,” Anderson said, according to the Daily Bulletin. “I didn’t expect [the other team] to be that bad, I’m not trying to embarrass anybody. And I didn’t expect my bench to play that well.”
Anderson said one of his bench players made eight of nine 3-point shots.
The Daily Bulletin reported that Anderson’s team is known to win their games by large margins. Before their 159-point win Monday, they had already won games by 73,81,74, and 98 points.
“I’ve known [Anderson] for about seven years,” said Bloomington’s coach Dale Chung, according to the report. “He’s a great ‘X’s and ‘O’s coach. Ethically? Not so much. He knows what he did wrong.”
To prove that he wasn’t trying to embarrass anyone, Anderson said he didn’t post the score to sports score site Maxpreps.com nor did he report it to any newspaper. Pictures of the scoreboard, however, did get posted to the team’s Facebook page.
According to Bleacher Report, Anderson’s team won their first game of his suspension 80-19. They were coached by Anderson’s 19-year-old son, Nicholas.
“I have had a conversation with my coach about it and that kind of thing,” said the school’s athletic director, Matt Howell. “It’s not going to happen again.”
Anderson’s team is ranked 9th in the CIF Southern Section’s Division 1-A and was ranked 3rd for the week in team scoring in the state, according to Maxpreps.com.
