“They cheated. They called a foul every time they got the ball.”

Those were the words Malakai H.’s mother heard from her son after his team, Shift Team, lost the annual Intramural Basketball tournament championship to the Orange Pedestrians. Indeed, the game was clustered with fouls on nearly every play. However, his team did the exact same thing. In fact, Shift Team was probably responsible for half the fouls in the game. The Orange Pedestrians thought that it was “just part of the game” and that they were “leveling it a bit” after Shift Team fouled them first. “We are all buddies, we are all friends,” Mr. Nemecek said at the game’s start. Yet, he decided later on that he would end the game if he saw any more intentional fouls.

The fouls all carried over from the first game in the series, when Malakai fell to the ground several times without any contact. The flops caused more than five fouls to be awarded to Shift Team, which may have played a role in their win. Teammates Nathan M. and Jacob O. admitted to flopping during the game. Jacob chanted, “We are floppers!” While Nathan did not seem to care about the flops saying that, “It wasn’t me who was flopping.”

The 3 v. 3 tournament was also affected by injuries. Jace C., an Orange Pedestrian, suffered a sprained wrist before the championship game.  Connor H., part of team ‘I Don’t Have One,’ was plagued by a fractured elbow. Jace thought that he could have definitely helped his team get the title more easily and quickly. Jesse K. said that his team would have done better in the tournament if they had Connor.  

Things like this have happened in the past. Mr. Nemecek said that the tournament was almost canceled one year when participants “were not having good sportsmanship and they were trying to cheat the rules to get a cheap and easy win.” Rules on fouling were also changed several times. He did not understand why students believe “it is so much more important to win than to do it the right way.”

Not all the kids were caught up in winning, however. Several participants were just playing with their friends, having fun and messing around.

“I think the kids really like it because it gives them the time to stay after school, hang out, and just play and have fun,” said Mr. Nemecek.