Sportspersonship

I watched the UCONN women's game against UCF. Yeah, us Connecitucutters don't have a pro team to call our own so the UCONN women get a lot of attention. As they should, they have dominated the game as no team since John Wooden's UCLA men have done.

Anyway, UCF's game plan was to beat the shit out of Katie Lou Samuelson. Forearm to the face, elbow to the ribs, hip check, clothesline, flat out punch in the face. The game was a mismatch so this was probably their best option and for the first half it kind of worked. UCF stayed closer than they should have and Katie Lou, with her ribs hurting and her knee hurting and her face hurting couldn't hit her shots. She looked more like a UFC fighter than a basketball player with her face all beat up. She wasn't seriously injured so she'll be back on Wednesday but you know, she could have been.

For most of the first half the officials either didn't call the fouls at all or they called them as common fouls. UCONN coach Geno Auriemma talked to them as much as he could without getting a technical himself and finally, early in the third quarter, the officials called an unsportsmanlike which largely though not entirely put a stop to it. Katie Lou actually retaliated against her principal assailant Thigpen with a clobbering on a shot attempt, which the officials called as a common foul but KLS did court danger by jawing while pointing to a bruise under her eye.

Anyway, once the mixed martial arts match ended UCONN ran away with the basketball game with a total blowout. However, Katie Lou wound up going 0 for 5 from the field, although she did go 12 for 12 from the line and probably should have had 18 free throws. That ended a streak of more than 100 games with a score from the field, but the free throws allowed her to move into fourth place on the UCONN all time scoring list.

Question. Is this ethical? Presuming the coach told them to do this. Yeah, the object is to win the game and if violating the rules and trying to physically injure your opponent is the only way to make that possible, and you're trying to keep your coaching job, is that the right thing to do? Disclosure, I wrestled in college which is a different game in which yeah, you are hitting the guy in the face as often as possible. But it isn't basketball.