http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6824187/ Most boring game in the world’ ends at 5-2 Prep boys' hoops teams take slowdown to new level The Associated Press Updated: 9:22 p.m. ET Jan. 13, 2005 MILTON, Vt. - Hard to imagine a 3-pointer in the second quarter of a high school boy’s basketball game would turn out to be the winning basket — unless it’s one of only three made in the entire game. advertisement That basket, along with an earlier field goal, was all Bellows Free Academy-Fairfax needed to beat Milton on Wednesday night. The final score: 5-2. To the teams’ credit, the score was the result of an apparently deliberate stalling strategy. It could not immediately be determined if the score was a state or national record low, but the contest certainly attracted attention. “We’ve been talking about it all morning over here,” said Bob Johnson, the director of student activities for the Vermont Principals’ Association, which governs high school sports. “It had to have been one of the most boring games in the world,” he said. The scoring was kept way down on purpose, a strategy made possible by the fact that Vermont high schools don’t use a shot clock. No player went to the free-throw line as Milton committed five fouls and BFA had one. BFA took a 5-0 lead and neither team scored in the second half. “It was the ultimate deliberate stalemate,” Milton coach Jim Smith said. “They didn’t come out after us and we didn’t go in against them.” Smith said the slowdown was implemented because BFA (7-4) has a strong scoring presence, while Milton (2-8) does not. The Milton players believed their best chance to be competitive was to just hold onto the ball. The strategy almost worked. “We had a shot go off the rim that would have tied it,” Smith said. “We were one possession away to tie the game. We have not been in that position for quite some time.” Alex Weber’s basket gave BFA a 2-0 lead in the first quarter. Shadoe Adams’ 3-pointer made it 5-0 at the start of the second quarter. Brian Phelps scored later in the period and Milton trailed 5-2 at halftime. “I’ve never had a player hit a game-winner in the second quarter before,” BFA-Fairfax coach Glen Button Jr. said.
regardless of the shot clock, the losing team should have fouled and then chucked up the ball. That is just embarassing. I could score more than that if I jacked up shots from halfcourt all game.
That happened to us my senior year. We were playing Bay City-ranked #2 in the state 4A-in the championship of the Brazosport Holiday Tournament. They stalled from the 2nd quarter until the middle of the 4th and won 27-25. Our coach refused to foul, which we all agreed with. The packed gym booed the team as they received the trophy and our coach allowed us refuse to shake hands with them.
i remember when they showed lebron's high school game on espn i was shocked to find out there was no shotclock in high school games. i then wondered why no one ever did this. especially a crappy team that somehow got a lead right off the bat. it's ludicrous to think this can happen. what's even more ludicrous is watching old college games on espn classic with no shotclock. i forget what game it was but from about 3 minutes left in a tie game this one team just passed the ball around up top until it got down to about 30 seconds left then called a timeout to set up their final shot. perhaps high schools can't possibly all be equipped with shot clocks but the fact college either didn't learn from the pros or refused to learn and put in a shotclock is amazing to me.
Dean Smith's famous 4 corners strategy. I've seen some film of this with Jordan his freshman year...weird, effective, and boring.
I thought there were going to be record HIGHs for a clamp-down defense (blocks, steals, forced turnovers, defensive rebounds, etc.). Wonder which one of these players will play for the Clippers...
They don't. Bellaire, with Okafor and Lucas, tried the same thing against TJ Ford's Willowridge team in the playoffs. They wouldn't come out and guard them in the first half so ford just stood there and dribbled the ball. Willowridge went on to win the state.
