Running Up Score in Junior Basketball

I think I agree with you.

I may be wrong but I believe you aren't allowed to play full court press when 20+ points in the lead but someone in the know will confirm.

I think at certain agegroups that is the rule but regardless a good junior coach will normally stop the full court press at a certain stage.

They will also let their bench players have more minutes and also tell the players to pass more and shoot from the outside more rather than take easy layup after easy layup

From what I've seen

My sons school team is made up almost entirely of junior league players and has a very experienced junior league coach whereas most schools they play only have 1 or 2 players at most. Some have none.

So they have to play nicely etc or its terrible for both teams IMO

At schools football our games are stopped once a team gets 10 goals ahead as well which does happen

There certainly used to be rules for u11 and maybe even u14 basketball called "Passerell" (forgive the no doubt incorrect spelling). They limited the type of defences you could play and even dictated how you rotated your bench.

Ideally with a decent league structure these mismatches should never happen though at u16 and u18 level but they do.

I can recall as a scratch side in Junior NAtional LEague in London in the late 80s getting absolutely creamed by both Brixton and East London Royals in our first season. We improved, worked harder and got tougher (never good enough to beat Royals though!). However that was to be fair the only National League division at the time. Since the introduction of what used to be called the conference or development league these mismatches should be more infrequent. When they happen though I do think that coaches need to be sensible and focus on getting something more out of it than humiliating an over-matched opponent.

It is a dog eat dog world but this is junior basketball and I really don't see what is to be gained.

I completely agree with your sentiments. With the restructured age groups it is especially prevalent at under 14s where there might be a 2 or even 3 year age gap. Add a physical mis match and it gets ridiculous. I've seen teams press for the majority of the games whilst hammering/ humiliating 11/12 year olds. It's beyond me what the coach thinks anyone is gaining from that approach. Certainly no gain in respect for a coach doing that. Glad to see yours didn't take that approach.
At local league there is a rule to drop to half court at 20 points but not national league.

At 16s and 18s I have a slightly different view. The physical mis match is likely to be less and the emotional maturity more. A team that can't handle a press is lacking a decent coach IMO When a team puts in a full court press on I'm dissapointed if we don't score from the inbound.

Youth basketball is a nightmare! I had 5 parents complain that their kids don't get the ball enough. ( it wasn't a game it was training where there child had a ball the whole time!)

Can't imagine parents in blow out games being any better!

It's a difficult one. Obviously a coach should call off the press - even before it's a 20 point game if it's obvious it's going to be a blowout - and they should take the opportunity to run the bench, if only so s/he can justify less minutes for them when it's a tight game.
But you can't really expect young kids to take things too easy. Caitlin's debut in an under-16-ish game (she was 9!) was a blowout. Hawks were 92-29 with six second to go when she stole the ball on the break with the chance to score. I expect Plymouth Raiders to run the clock down at that point, but I couldn't really expect her to pass up the chance to score her third basket of the game. My only complaint was she ruined a nicely palindromic score. It's half-court defence in all the under-11 basketball I've seen.

My experience of parents of football and basketball parents is that the latter are far better. I suspect part of the reason is that every dad thinks he can manage a football team, there's plenty of basketball parents who accept their knowledge is severely limited. Maybe that will change as Cait moves through the age groups.

Absolutely no reflection on the players who are entitled to go as hard as their coach tells them to.

I've coached in lots of one sided games and on both sides of the scoreline. I hate games where we win easily as there isn't much to coach. I have never pressed other teams beyond a 15-20 point lead as absolutely no one gets any benefit out of a team who can't get the ball over the half court line - you wouldn't do lay-up lines for 40 minutes of practice so why so in games. I would also play the weakest players i had and the regular starters would hardly touch the floor. In my experience players don't really care about the feelings of the other team and really want to score. Its really hard to curb that instinct even against weaker opposition and being magnanimous has to be coached.

We would ban fast break scores after a certain point and impose rules on offence, number of passes/screens/reversals, etc. I would also get players to take on different roles to practice skills they might not get the chance to usually against live opposition - like a big guy taking on more ball handling. Big wins also present opportunities for learning how to be gracious in victory. One of my pet hates is teams cheering (and parents) when the score reaches triple figures.

There was a rule/guidance in national league u14/13 age groups a few years ago about not pressing after 20 points. Generally most refs didn't know about it and it wasn't clear whether it was an actual rule. In one game when down by about 40 i asked the ref about pressing who asked the other coach to stop it who then got out paperwork saying it was guidance only and pressed and trapped the rest of the game. What fun was had. Despite getting a schlaking my boys got more out of the game than the other team.

Its a situation which shouldn't need a rule introduced as coaches should police themselves but i do think its needed from the governing body. As well as banning lazy arse zone defence when the giant is stationed under the basket to swat away lay-up attempts and never learns to defend and move. It does the player an injustice and you rarely see them progress and/or stay in the game when others catch up.

Don't really get why an example from adult sport where the ultimate goal is to qualify for the World Cup is relevant to junior sport. This is not about winning and losing. This is not about every getting a medal just for turning up. This is also nothing to do with parents on the sidelines.

Hopefully there are more coaches out there like Kol. They teach their players how to play the game, prepare them to win and then coach them to do it with class and humility when the opponent is over matched. Their players learn more and, critically in a country where basketball struggles to get going, ensure that we don't lose disillusioned kids from the sport altogether.

The kids getting a beating may go on to be fine players at a very good level. They may be local league players. They may qualify as coaches, table officials and heaven forbid even referees!!! :-)

A perennial problem in Junior basketball and a topic close to my heart, so apologies for the splurge!
This issue is one that we seem no closer to solving now than when I first got involved 18 years ago. And now, as a coach who has been on both ends of blowouts, I see a whole lot of other competing challenges including parental pressure, player expectations, attracting players, preserving premier status etc.
'In game', a (potential) blowout is clearly an issue for coaches to manage - a lot of good points raised above, but at younger age groups in particular the game needs to continue to be a development opportunity for both teams - good coaches on both sides will recognise and make use of that, poorer coaches wont. I have tried various things - will take the press off after 20 points up (I believe this a 'guideline'?? up to the U14 age group), 5 on 5 off, halfcourt actions only etc - but bear in mind that at young age groups we are generally trying to encourage players to space out, pass ahead and attack the basket for the easiest possible shot. Also all players, including the bench want to get the chance to score (and assist and crash the offensive boards) and as a coach I would want to encourage.
When I was an even more inexperienced coach I used to be a big advocate of the press in order to teach intensity in man 2 man D(and perhaps because it suited my personnel?) but now (currently coaching U18s) I see a lot of the most talented teams running presses for 40 minutes because of their physical advantages - but I can't help but think this is selling these players short somehow - every coach should be able to come up with (google) effective press breaks, and these boys simply will not have the physical tools to apply this as they graduate into senior ball.
My second issue is clubs taking responsibility - for a range of reasons clubs often find themselves either because of the system, naively or on purpose, in the wrong league. That could be in Premier when they should be in development, or, more worringly in development when they should be in premier. This is always a theme of chat between coacches about why teams have failed to step up to Premier when they are blasting everyone at Development (if their Premier application has been rejected, thats a different question!). While BE allow the winners of the development leagues into the Premier playoffs this is always going to be a potential issue.
Finally there are the systemic issues. A 14s 16s 18s model is always going to lead to physical / experience mismatches due to the breadth of ages involved (of course clubs can always put their best players in higher age groups or move them to higher quality teams - a whole other topic of conversation). I think this is also exacerbated by the academy structure who recruit the best national league players from national league teams around the country at 16 to concentrate talent in order to play in the EABL competition (in order to rightly improve the level of elite competition and support for players), however, academies are also allowed by BE to enter teams into the U18 national league where they are generally overmatched. In my opening U18 game this season, the top scorer for our academy opponents, was the top scorer on my U16 team last year! There is another glitch in the BE rules about playoff placings - in some age groups playoff placings are not resolved through regular season placings but on overall records across a number of regional leagues. This means there is pressure on clubs to get the best points margins where a number of teams may end the regular season undefeated. And finally, there is the whole conundrum of how BE allocates places to the Premier league - which is an absolute minefield based on facilities, performance across multiple age groups etc etc
Here endeth the lesson!

Interesting thread.

My son plays U14 Junior NL, first game the opponents played full court for a lead of 20+ then took it off. Son's team came back a bit but never really got back in the game and ended up with a heavy loss. The opponents have since gone on to clock big, big wins in their next 3 games. Obviously nice to be winning, but walk overs are boring to watch, don't really develop the winners or instill confidence in the losers. So tricky one, the team he played look to be in the wrong league - they are a good outfit and I'm sure they'd like to be more challenged. There are a group of more evenly matched teams in the league and we've seen some great, close games which I think the boys involved (win or lose) come away having learned something (about themselves, the team and basketball).

I haven't got a solution, just thought it was interesting to see this isn't just something in the league my son plays in. That said I'm grateful he has the opportunity to play competition basketball of a good standard for his age group every weekend. Better that than sitting on his PS4!

Huge winning margins are really waste of time matches for all involved but finding a solution is not easy.
My suggestion is a pre-season tournament at each age level to determine the standard of teams. These could be
at a regional/county level. Teams could then enter a more appropriate league or be seeded according to results.
This will upset some coaches who want to play kids "up a level" so that they can be challenged.
All I can suggest to deal with this is more friendly matches against better opponents.