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The thought came to Northwest College coach Brian Erickson suddenly and speculatively, as a what if.
Call it testimony to the Trapper men’s basketball coach’s sportsmanship-like instincts.
A week ago the Trappers were leading visiting Little Big Horn College by more than 50 points in the second half.
The Rams began the game with just eight players and at different times two of them hit the floor, were writhing in pain and needed medical treatment from Northwest trainers, thus ending their night.
Looking at the scoreboard and clock, then looking at the depleted opposing bench, Erickson asked an official, “Can we play running time for the rest of the game?”
The official said that would be possible if both coaches agreed. He conferred with Rams coach Wes Spotted Bear, and so for the last 10 minutes of what became a 105-55 Northwest victory, two junior college basketball teams played running time.
It is not clear if the few hundred spectators realized they were seeing something about as rare as Halley’s Comet passing.
They do not play running time in college basketball.
In Wyoming high school football, once a team builds a lead of 40 points the clock runs continuously to the end. In many places there is a nine-run mercy rule for softball or baseball.
In college basketball? Um, no.
“I have never seen it before,” Erickson said. “I have never been part of it. I didn’t even know if it was possible. One of the referees said he had been involved in a game once where it was done.”
So the clock on the scoreboard ran and ran and ran and didn’t even pause for foul shooting. Some fans may have thought the clock was broken, but this was all by design.
“It gets to a point where how much is enough?” Erickson said of piling it on another team. “Let’s not keep going. The game was out of reach, for sure. But it was the injuries on my mind.
“You know, sometimes you see high school games where the score is like 98-2. Why?”
Sports are sports, not war, and annihilation is not necessary. Everyone thinks they know what sportsmanship is and they’re all in favor of it in the abstract.
Once in a while, in the flow of a game, it is a conscious choice. This was one of those occasions and not only did Erickson do the right thing he initiated the right thing by instinct, without even knowing if it was possible.
That was a legitimate question.
A fan can watch college basketball for decades and never witness a scene like the one in the Northwest-Little Big Horn game.
“No, I’ve never seen that,” said John Akers, editor of Basketball Times magazine, the Bible of the sport. And I’ve attended more than 1,000 games in 42 states.”
Over a 36-year span, it might be added.
Four-year colleges apparently don’t even have a running-time option available to them for such circumstances.
A check with Chad Waller, director of communications at the NAIA in Kansas City, “There is no provision in the rules to do this. As point of reference, the NAIA follows the official NCAA Basketball Playing Rules.
“If it was a non-varsity game, the length of the game may be reduced by mutual conference agreements or by mutual agreement of the coaches and referee. There is no situation where a running clock may be used.”
That pretty much takes care of all four-year basketball schools.
This was a varsity game and the game was not halted either because Little Big Horn had too few players. The Rams still had six. Many, many games have been completed when one side finished with just four players on the court because everyone else on the team fouled out.
Almost exactly a year ago, after the Meeteetse girls built a large lead in a game and the opponent was down to three players due to foul-outs, Coach Kelsey Scolari told two Lady Longhorns to stand to the side at half-court and do nothing so the last minutes of the game were essentially played three-on-three.
There are many negative sports stories that spread across the nation’s landscape like Arctic weather blasts, reminding us not everyone has a good heart.
Yet Scolari’s and Erickson’s spontaneous gestures reinforced to all that sportsmanship is about more than just the post-game handshake line.