Hutton: Time to clean up high school hoops

Updated: April 26, 2011 7:26PM

I’m a proponent of just letting them play in high school basketball.

I don’t know if that really is working anymore, though.

There were 559 unsporting behavior reports by the IHSAA (not just in basketball) through Feb. 25, according to a report from its Executive Committee meeting.

The number was up slightly in March from the previous year, though the totals weren’t available on the IHSAA website.

You can watch video on the Internet of D’Vauntes-Rivera Smith of North Central throwing a haymaker in a game against Lawrence North that got him suspended from regionals.

East Chicago and Lew Wallace had a bench clearing incident that put both schools on probation. There was no declared outcome of the game after the Cardinals left early.

Whiting and North Newton had an altercation in a game this season that earned both of them probation from the IHSAA that was barely publicized.

Lawrence North and Indianapolis Northwest (they stopped a game because too many fouls were called) are also on probation.

IHSAA Commissioner Bobby Cox even talked about zero tolerance considerations at some point after the string of incidents. I don’t know exactly what that would mean but I can see his spiky hair starting to take a turn for the worse trying to figure out the problem.

Are kids really more unsporting than they were 30 years ago or do we just notice it more?

“It’s been going for a long time,” Valparaiso High School coach Joe Otis said of the bumpy competition.

Ah, yes, physical play. Time to clean up the game and take it back to where it once was.

Well, Otis remembers getting roughed up pretty good when he played for the Vikings and they had to travel to Roosevelt. He also recalls getting his forehead split open in a game down south.

He blames, of all people, Bobby Knight, for bringing bone-jarring, chest-pounding man-to-man defense that changed the game forever at every level.

It’s true.

Those grainy black and white films I’ve watched of NBA teams playing in the 1960s, however, don’t remotely resemble the NBA game I see today. Those films show lots of space between the offensive players and rarely the kind of clutter you see in the lane. Besides, kids — even high school players — are lifting weights and getting coached up at an earlier age more than ever. They’re also older. Many of the best players graduate high school at 19.

I do believe it’s time to take action. Widen the lane. Start calling hand checks (which I rarely see called in high school). Require all high school basketball players to take a sportsmanship test that the IHSAA could write and develop. It really does need to start at home with the coaches and filter on down to the players. There is a general uneasiness about the spirit of some of the really important games. Don’t think relying just on the officiating is going to get it done. There is just too much unevenness in that department.

Cubs getting to the fans: I watched part of the Cubs 7-3 loss to the Dodgers on Sunday and I was encouraged by all the empty seats I saw at Wrigley Field.

Maybe the free market is really starting to apply to them. You know, the market that applies to most franchises.

When a team is good, you go.

When it’s bad, you stay home.

Unfortunately, it’s not as bad as it seems. In their first 11 home games, the Cubs averaged 34,294 fans. That is down from 37,814 last year. Because there has been plenty of bad weather to go with lots of mediocre play, it’s too early to apply the laws of supply and demand to Cubdom. We’ll check back in a few months.

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I watched part of the Cubs 7-3 loss to the Dodgers on Sunday and I was encouraged by all the empty seats I saw at Wrigley Field.

Maybe the free market is really starting to apply to them. You know, the market that applies to most franchises.

When a team is good, you go.

When it’s bad, you stay home.

Unfortunately, it’s not as bad as it seems. In their first 11 home games, the Cubs averaged 34,294 fans. That is down from 37,814 last year. Because there has been plenty of bad weather to go with lots of mediocre play, it’s too early to apply the laws of-supply and demand to Cubdom. We’ll check back in a few months.

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