Blanchard River Buzz

A blog for rabid sports fans in the Findlay Area. Maintained by Findlay Courier sports writer Jamie Baker. The opinions expressed are my own crazed ramblings and not those of my employer the Findlay Publishing Company and its subsidiaries.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Differences between boys and girls hoops

For all of you non-wrestling people out there, I have to admit I haven’t had as much blogging time as I’d like.

I write a wrestling report each year ranking wrestlers and predicting who will make it to state from the Northwest District in Division III. If you feel so inclined you can read about it here.

You wouldn’t believe how time consuming that was and trying to keep putting results on the NW District Wrestling Blog I maintain as well.

I can blog about the top 10 prep websites anytime.

Today’s topic is something my buddy Buster and I argued about at work recently and yes we have these friendly discussions all the time and rarely do they end in fisticuffs or hard feelings on either side.

I’d like to hear some other’s opinions on a basketball topic.
In our basketball tab, we had a big feature on Carlee Roethlisberger and how she had a chance to become Findlay’s all-time leading scorer in basketball for both the boys and the girls.

I’ve seen this other places listing a school’s all-time leading scorers and sometimes they list the boys with the girls. I argued with Buster that if a girl today is recognized as the top scorer in the schools history for both genders it wasn’t right. It’s not just basketball it’s boys basketball and girls basketball.

After all it should theoretically be easier for girls to score because they do play with a smaller ball than the boys. Since they don’t use the same equipment they shouldn’t be compared by the same standard was my argument. He disagreed.

His argument was basketball is basketball. It doesn’t matter if it’s played by boys or whether it’s played by girls. It’s still five-on-five put it in the hole. The only difference is girls play with a smaller ball because they have smaller hands.

My argument was that the smaller ball makes it mathematically easier for girls to score. Plus you never hear anyone in track and field compare boys and girls when talking about all all-time list of their school’s top throwers in the shot put and discus. That’s because boys throw a bigger implements (a 12-pound shot vs. 8-pound shot, bigger discus etc).

Is a boys 1,000 point scorer comparable to a girls 1,000 point scorer…I’m a basketball neophyte, please set me straight.

NOTEWORTHY: With the area set to be suffocated by a blanket of White Death (that’s snow to the average Ohioan) Carey has already cancelled it’s boys and girls games as I write this at 6:51 a.m. and expect other schools to follow suit. There were 18 games on The Courier schedule for tonight and I imagine all of them will be either cancelled or postponed.

NEWSWORTHY:My Column this week about the BVC teams competing in the OWL
Findlay Courier Tuesday Local Sports
Fostoria Review Times Tuesday Local Sports
St. John’s pulls away from Ottoville girls
Fort Jennings holds on against Delphos Jefferson
Defiance Crescent News Sports
Lima News Tuesday Prep Roundup
Mansfield News Journal Tuesday Prep Roundup
Tiffin Advertiser Tribune Tuesday Prep Sports

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4 Comments:

  • At 10:51 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Sorry, Buster. Have to agree with Jamie here, for many of the same reasons.
    First and foremost, girls and boys don't play together. If they did, I'd be all for combining the records. But girls play with girls (and with a smaller ball) and boys play with boys (insert own ball joke here :]).
    Now, over the years, I've seen some girls who could compete with boys (some even now). I even saw an entire program I'm sure would have at least given some boys teams problems, if not a loss.
    But on the whole, there's a big difference between and girls and boys basketball players and their accomplishments shouldn't be combined or minimized for the sake of the PC police.

     
  • At 11:30 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Sorry Buster.

    I hope your comments were tongue-in-cheek.

    It's fine for parents to be proud of their daughters, enjoy the experience as fully as possible but please don't waste your time and ours claiming that there is any comparison.

     
  • At 8:27 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I'm going to side with Buster on this one. The size of the ball is not significant enough to make a difference. I don't have the stats in front of me, but if your theory was correct, girls shooting percentages would be much higher than boys, and it's not. 1,000 points is 1,000 points, boys or girls.

    JDee

     
  • At 6:31 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    It seems like comparing apples and oranges.... Yes they are both fruits, but... very different.

    It is no small task to score 1000 in a career.... but... there are many many many differences in the boys game and the girls game.

    Speaking here.... as a coach, who has coached both genders....

    Excellent topic... keep up the good work

     

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