I knew the Oceanside fiasco would happen a week ago.
I went to Belfast’s game at Medomak Valley on Jan. 13. It was apparent during the warmups that it would not be a close contest, but when Medomak was up 15-0 in the first two minutes, Gabe Lash had three steals in four possessions, and Belfast couldn’t even get the ball inbounds, it was clear that the Lions were in for a long season.
And sometime during the fourth quarter, when Belfast re-inserted its starters against the Medomak junior varsity players and the JVs went on a run, I remember saying, “Oceanside’s going to score 150 on them.”
No one sitting near me disagreed. I even wrote in my newsletter that Carter Galley could score 100 all by himself.
So if Draftkings had put up a line of Oceanside at 125.5 against Belfast, I would have taken the over.
Belfast, long the weakest team in the Route 1 corridor of the midcoast (the team hasn’t won at Medomak Valley since the ’70s), is in a rebuilding year. The team was supposed to be relegated to Class C, but declined. Oceanside, of course, is the defending B South champion and is even better this year. It has one of the top 3 candidates for Mr. Basketball and an offense that’s explosive against very good defensive teams.
So I knew Oceanside was going to blow out Belfast, and it was going to be more than the 113 points the team scored against Leavitt.
And I knew parents would get angry about it, because that’s what parents do.
However, I didn’t know the Belfast Athletic Director would complain to the Maine Principals’ Association about the lopsided score a mere 126 days after her field hockey team put up an 18-0 victory against Lincoln Academy.
The MPA, by the way, did nothing wrong here (and I’m its biggest critic). When the AD of one of its member schools complains, it has to address it. That’s kind of why it exists.
The other takeaway I had from the Belfast game against Medomak Valley was why do we have to do this again?
Belfast has a 2.3 percent chance of not finishing in last place in B North, according to the Tournament Odds projection at MaineBasketballRankings.com, and is supposed to be in C North. Oceanside and Medomak Valley are perennial powers that are two of the leading contenders in B South. Do they really need to play four times?
I think even the most optimistic Belfast fan would agree that even if the Galley household got a really bad case of the flu, Oceanside isn’t losing that game. If there’s a game on your schedule that you cannot win, that’s not good. If there are four? You need a different schedule.
It got me thinking. What if we could flex games out of the schedule? York plays Poland, who they already beat by 49. Why couldn’t York play Oceanside while Belfast plays Poland? Sure it’s more driving, but it’s got to be better than sitting through the same outcome again.
If you talk to people about scheduling, you very quickly get the impression that it’s kind of like playing Jenga while your kids are fighting and the dogs are barking. Everyone’s got an opinion (and an agenda). Some conferences won’t play games outside their conference and there’s a bunch of rules and conditions and I wouldn’t wish that job on anyone.
But what if we could flex out the games?
I asked that very question to a couple of people in the know and they both agreed it was an interesting idea, but could have unintended consequences, one of which being Heal Point standings.
This would be a situation where a team that’s looking for more Heal Points to make the tournament or get a bye goes and finds an opponent worth a lot of points that they feel they can beat. Of course, you’d have to get them to agree. But what if it creates a situation where two good teams are able to create a great matchup? Last year, we could have flexed the Oceanside girls against Gardiner and watched Bailey Breen and Lizzie Gruber go head-to-head. We could even turn it into a showcase event at a tournament site.
Or we could just look at the schedule around Christmas, identify some of the games that don’t need to happen, and find a way to adjust on the fly.
Because anything would be better than doing this again.
