Mercy Rule

[Sportsrube]

Read an article in the Bismarck Tribune this morning about a possible mercy rule in basketball. The jist of it was that if a team is ahead by 30 or more in the 2nd half the clock would run continually (except for timeouts I am assuming). The Class A coach (from Grand Forks) they quoted said he didn't think it would come into play in their division, but the Class B person (from Fairmount) said he would like it to be discussed. NDHSAA said it would need to come from the BB committee or from the AD's before they would consider it. They also quoted the head of the NDOA who said the vast majority of officials in ND would like to see it. (Montana has it and he likes it when he officiates there.)

I have mixed feelings about it, I can see a point in JV games maybe, but in Varsity games I don't think I would like it. Would it come into play a lot or only once or twice a season? I know there are teams out there that struggle from year to year but I don't know if this is the answer.

[ndsportsfan98]

I don't see why this wouldn't be a good thing. It works well with football and baseball in ND. I had seen the argument of "putting the JV in when the score becomes out of hand", but I would say in some cases (mostly in Class B) the winning team's JV is better than the losing team's varsity. All in all, I don't see how this could hurt the game.

[justplayalready]

I think it would be quite frequent in class B..there is a big difference between the top and bottom in most regions. moreso on girls side..

Since scoring in BBall is fluid, would it be on when 30 is hit, then back off at 29??? or would it be once thirty is hit, remain on the rest of the game???

Seems to work OK in football...

[balla45]

Some AAU tournaments do the mercy rule. You can end up losing 5 minutes of game time just because of the running clock. If we take Bishop Ryan's girls, and say they have 20 mercy rules games a year over 4 years, they lose potentially 400 minutes of game time over those 4 years, or more than 11 games of playing time. That's what I don't like about it.

[Sportsrube]

I also question what happens if (big if), the team that is trailing cuts the lead, at what point do they go back to a normal clock? I am leaning towards the idea that this would probably be a good rule. It works in FB and Baseball/Softball. I think rally scoring also has somewhat of an affect on VB. I still think it would come into play more in JV games than in Varsity games at the Class B level.

[vikingman]

I wouldn't want it in basketball. It makes sense in football because it's usually a case of one team physically overpowering the other and totally annihilating them. When you're down 50-0, the losing team has such a let-down emotionally that it can lead to reduced effort by the losing team, which might lead to injury. The losing team often has little or no chance of even getting a legitimate first down, let alone a touchdown.

In basketball, no one loses 50-0. A 50-20 score is still a blowout, but the losing team can still manage to put up some points and learn something by running their offense, boxing out, etc.

[Sportsrube]

I am still trying to figure out why the NDOA is so much in favor of this. The story said it had nothing to do with getting games over faster, but with cutting down a risk of injury, etc... as blowouts tend to get sloppier and kids get frustrated. Not sure I buy into that completely.

[ninja_joe]

Montana uses the mercy rule in basketball & I believe it has been in effect for at least the past three years. It is used for all classifications & for all levels of high school play (freshman, sophomore, JV, Varsity) in both boys & girls basketball.

It takes effect only in the second half. Clock must start to signal the beginning of the second half. The score must reach a 40pt differential. Once it hits 40 pts, clock runs. Does not matter if the score drops below the 40 pt differential mark. Clock will only stop for time outs or the end of the 3rd quarter. Running clock once the margin hits 40 pts. It also stops for injured players or for disqualifications (foul out, ejections, etc.) Clock starts once injured player off floor in most instances.

I have seen this rule in effect in MT & I do like it. It doesn't happen all the time, but when it does...it sure helps keep the score from getting WAY out of hand.

I like the 40 pt mark better than the 30pt. It helps eliminate the 100+ pt to 40 pt blow outs we have seen on a few occasions. It will also deter the FEW high school coaches who allow their teams to pour it on a far lesser opponent. They are definitely out there. If you follow ND high school basketball the past 5 yrs, you know some of the coaches/teams that choose to do this. The NDHSAA should simply adopt the same rule. It wouldn't affect the majority of the games out there...just the obvious mismatches that occasionally happen.

[heimer]

Address it with classification first.

What?

Right.

[ndbballfan89]

40 points makes more sense. With Rugby beating Parshall at State by 41, at 30 points the runoff would have taken place early in the game at the state tournament. Could effect TV timeouts, etc.

[RedDirtFan]

How about forgetting the idea of a Mercy Rule and just have running clock in the second half of JV games? Run it in the first half, too, if one team reaches Double Bonus.

This seems fairly simple to me. There really aren't a lot of developmental cases in high school basketball, and the interest level of a lot of JV kids is lacking because they don't have the size or athleticism of other kids. I don't think the application of running clock would cause any major loss of developmental minutes.

Basketball is a game of runs. This rule would be hard to apply. I say running clock after a 30 point lead in the fourth quarter of a varsity game would suffice.

[Run4Fun2009]

Isn't MN's rule run it with 8 or 9 minutes left in 2nd Half if lead is 35+...running clock stops if score returns to under 30. Clock stops for timeouts and injuries too...but runs during Free Throws.

That doesn't seem so bad to me. I'd say 8 minutes left so that A & B have same rules in ND...for Class B that's just the 4th Quarter.

I don't see the Mercy Rule coming into play a whole lot...most teams' coaches (at least in my area of the state) know to pull starters and key players from the game by the 4th quarter when up by a large margin.

[Indy5]

I wouldn't want it in basketball. It makes sense in football because it's usually a case of one team physically overpowering the other and totally annihilating them. When you're down 50-0, the losing team has such a let-down emotionally that it can lead to reduced effort by the losing team, which might lead to injury. The losing team often has little or no chance of even getting a legitimate first down, let alone a touchdown.

In basketball, no one loses 50-0. A 50-20 score is still a blowout, but the losing team can still manage to put up some points and learn something by running their offense, boxing out, etc.

I 100% agree with everything you said here. Class B basketball games are already really short. Stars don't get that much playing to start with if they have a normal coach who pulls them at a usual time. This would make games go by so stupidly quick that the game would barely be worth playing.

And the officials simply want this so they can get paid in a shorter amount of time. That's pretty obvious.

[Sticks11]

I wouldn't want it in basketball. It makes sense in football because it's usually a case of one team physically overpowering the other and totally annihilating them. When you're down 50-0, the losing team has such a let-down emotionally that it can lead to reduced effort by the losing team, which might lead to injury. The losing team often has little or no chance of even getting a legitimate first down, let alone a touchdown.

In basketball, no one loses 50-0. A 50-20 score is still a blowout, but the losing team can still manage to put up some points and learn something by running their offense, boxing out, etc.

I 100% agree with everything you said here. Class B basketball games are already really short. Stars don't get that much playing to start with if they have a normal coach who pulls them at a usual time. This would make games go by so stupidly quick that the game would barely be worth playing.

And the officials simply want this so they can get paid in a shorter amount of time. That's pretty obvious.

I wouldn't be in favor of it. Over the course of a season, there would be a decent amount of minutes lost. Like what was mentioned by baller45, the starters for most strong teams already are losing quite a bit of minutes and if you take that over the length of a two or three year career, it adds up to be more than people would think.

I disagree, however, with the above statement about the officials. Don't get me wrong, there are probably some out there that have that mindset, but for the most part, it's because those games are hard to officiate. When a game gets to a 30 or 40 point spread, how much do you want to blow the whistle? If there is some bad blood between the two teams and things get chippy, things can get out of hand in a game like that. I think that's more-so why officials are in favor of it.

[RedDirtFan]

I 100% agree with everything you said here. Class B basketball games are already really short. Stars don't get that much playing to start with if they have a normal coach who pulls them at a usual time. This would make games go by so stupidly quick that the game would barely be worth playing.

And the officials simply want this so they can get paid in a shorter amount of time. That's pretty obvious.

Could you blame them if that was the case? They get home really late a lot of the time, then go to work the next morning.

[caserace0710]

Montana uses the mercy rule in basketball & I believe it has been in effect for at least the past three years. It is used for all classifications & for all levels of high school play (freshman, sophomore, JV, Varsity) in both boys & girls basketball.

It takes effect only in the second half. Clock must start to signal the beginning of the second half. The score must reach a 40pt differential. Once it hits 40 pts, clock runs. Does not matter if the score drops below the 40 pt differential mark. Clock will only stop for time outs or the end of the 3rd quarter. Running clock once the margin hits 40 pts. It also stops for injured players or for disqualifications (foul out, ejections, etc.) Clock starts once injured player off floor in most instances.

I have seen this rule in effect in MT & I do like it. It doesn't happen all the time, but when it does...it sure helps keep the score from getting WAY out of hand.

I like the 40 pt mark better than the 30pt. It helps eliminate the 100+ pt to 40 pt blow outs we have seen on a few occasions. It will also deter the FEW high school coaches who allow their teams to pour it on a far lesser opponent. They are definitely out there. If you follow ND high school basketball the past 5 yrs, you know some of the coaches/teams that choose to do this. The NDHSAA should simply adopt the same rule. It wouldn't affect the majority of the games out there...just the obvious mismatches that occasionally happen.

Michigan (where I'm originally from) uses the same rule as Montana with the 40 point running clock with a couple differences. When the lead gets back down to 30 points or less, normal timing rules are reapplied. Also the clock stops when there is a FT with less than 2 minutes left in the game.

I like the idea in the sense that it speeds the game up in a blowout and also keeps teams from running up the score (to an extent) as much. I've seen teams up by 50+ still use a full-court press even though the running clock is on.

The running clock could also help out with travel and games getting done earlier in a blowout depending when the running clock starts, especially if the whole 2nd half is a running clock.

[Indy5]

I 100% agree with everything you said here. Class B basketball games are already really short. Stars don't get that much playing to start with if they have a normal coach who pulls them at a usual time. This would make games go by so stupidly quick that the game would barely be worth playing.

And the officials simply want this so they can get paid in a shorter amount of time. That's pretty obvious.

Could you blame them if that was the case? They get home really late a lot of the time, then go to work the next morning.

No, I can't blame them. In their shoes, I'd be in favor of it too. I just don't buy them trying to give other reasoning.

[B-oldtimer]

I see mercy rule will be result of lack common sense that we had back when I played against weaker team which I don't see like I did in my era of basketball. When we were up by 20 to30 points reserves played almost immediately with the best players being removed from playing. Playing very weak team that was weaker than the JV team to I can remember our coach calling time out detailing the offense we were to run. I can remember one of detailing of the offense was we had to make a minimum number of passes before shot was taken and the shot had to happen in the paint. Which greatly reduced offense and made us as younger players work at creating offense and only shooting high percentage shot. Today I see to many of schools that play main players until last few minutes of the game before they bring in subs. There are reasons for this player stats, team stats, seating for various tournaments, and change philosophy that varsity is for the top players. Also in our day too when we had mismatch like this we dressed more JV for the Varsity game in anticipation of this where we would play more players. It was looked upon as time to develop players and give these players more game time experience to be ready for a varsity game.

My second thought on this is were seeing time of have's and have not in class b basketball. There are schools now in each of regions that have not put together contending team for number of years and looks to me that its not going to change much. There are number reasons for this enrollments, competition for other sports, and lack of support or participation for the sport. I think third classification would help this
but see a lot of obstacles and problems in doing this as well as creating market for the new classification in the media. I listen to the state tournament announcers when they talk its been 10 years since certain team hasn't reached state tournament as long time. How about the schools that have not been to regional in 5 to 10 years and teams that have even have played in final two days of regional for equal amount of time. When this happens it gets very difficult to turn things around kids need to learn to win and when it hasn't happened in long while it becomes very difficult to create a winner. Also hard to keep kids interested in the sport because people get tired of loosing and are not willing to keep participating in the sport. The kids of today have so many more options of activities and spending there time they will not participate if they feel they don't have a chance. Yes I know its not way a lot of us were told or competed but the world has changed and to a lot of people sports has become to over emphasized to what is important in going to school so they encouraged there kids to look to other activities or interests. I believe that we need to get to some balance between the sports supporters and general public and parents that think sports have gone to far. I do believe we need to balance the field either by adding a classification or just moving some larger calss B back to higher A in some form of competition or some combination of class B. If not I can forsee in the future where schools will not field a teams for a sport or will just play JV schedule like that.

[HammerTime]

Those are some good points. I think that if we don't do something soon, there will be fewer and fewer schools that will field teams, and not just for enrollment reasons. As Mr. Oldtimer said, it's hard to put together a team when nobody's interested in playing because they'll simply lose. It's not as though they are required to play that sport. There might be teams like Westhope-Newburg or the Langdon Area that, in a decade, might not put together a team or even co-op with another school, because nobody is interested in playing because they just don't want to lose.
I'm not advocating that we just hand out trophies to get people to play. First of all, it's condescending and even the kids know that and they hate participation trophies, too. Second, you should have to earn a trophy. But, when you feel as though you have no chance at earning anything, why bother even play?
I feel as though we need a three class system because of three reasons.
1) It solves our problem (more or less) with our private schools.
2) It takes out the big Bs from taking away regional spots and dominating other activities.
3) It will slow down the enrollment decrease from around the state. (Yes, I know that western North Dakota is growing right now, but that won't last forever. The trend shows that younger people and families don't want to live in small towns and farming communities and would rather live in suburban areas like Bismarck, Grand Forks, Minot, or Fargo. That's how things are looking to shape up and it likely won't change.) It will allow similarly sized schools to play similarly sized schools.

We don't need a mercy rule. We need a new system.

[GrizzlyBear24]

No

[HONKER]

yes

[theman23]

I dont like this rule because i have seen comebacks from 30 down before. I would like it better when a game is getting out of hand in the late stages, you clear out the benches and put in the JV players. I feel like this would hurt the game because players might just give up once it gets close and you might not see the fight and effort that you see in Class B basketball that really makes the game fun.