System Thoughts

Here was a response to Grinnell winning by over 75 points. This coach was kind enough to let me put this  on my blog. He is a system coach and I value his opinion. Hopefully by tomorrow I will have a response to this from someone on the other side. How do you feel?


"I am a huge fan of "The System". It is a great way to play basketball and I truly enjoyed coaching a team that played that way because it builds excitement and more importantly team chemistry. What the game against Faith Baptist did was to give critics a reason to criticize this style of play.

What has to be recognized is that winning by 75 points is a total lack of sportsmanship. The NBA teams don''t run up the score like that. The mission of college athletics is NOT about embarrassing your opponent, and that is just what happened.

It may be about meeting statistical goals and not substitution patterns, though a friend of mine at the clinic in Jackson was told it was part of "The System". But what I do know is that "The System" we ran WAS NOT about running up the score. The system that beat Faith Baptist was about running up the score and the byproduct was a display of poor sportsmanship. 75 points is running up the score at any level and again it shows a lack of sportsmanship and a reason why coaches hate the system."