Tennessee high school girls basketball teams kicked out of tournament after intentionally trying to lose game

Two Tennessee high school girls basketball teams have grabbed headlines around the country, but not for a good reason. The teams are accused of intentionally trying to lose their game against each other on Saturday to try to get a weaker opponent in their tournament.

On Monday, the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association (TSSAA) pulled Riverdale and Smyrna high school teams after their awful showing in the District 7-AAA consolation game. According to the News Journal, the two schools from Rutherford County were also put on restrictive probation for the rest of the school year and next year. They were also fined $1,500 each.

The TSSAA made the decision after a report from a referee pointed out how noncompetitive both teams were. Riverdale “missed 12-16 free throws intentionally,” while Smyrna “wouldn’t get the ball across the half-court line to get a 10-second count or to make us call an over and back violation intentionally.”

“One time a Riverdale girl looked at one of the officials and gave the official a 3-second signal wanting him to call three seconds on her,” the referee noted. “Smyrna stood in the lane as well to have us call three seconds on them.”

The last straw came when a Smyrna player tried to shoot into the wrong basket. At that point, the referee called the coaches together and “told them we are not going to make a travesty or mockery of the game.”

As USA Today notes, a Smyrna administrator asked the team’s head coach why his starters weren’t in.

“We were told the (administrator) went up to him and said, ‘What are you doing,’” TSSAA executive director Bernard Childress told the News Journal. “They told them, ‘You need to play to win the ball game and stop this.’ That’s when he put his starters back in.”

Smyrna eventually decided to start playing for real and won, 55-29. But by losing, Riverdale would have played a weaker team in the next round of the tournament (unlike many other tournaments, when the winners get matched up with the lowest remaining seeds).

Video of the game has gone viral and makes it painfully clear that both teams were trying to figure out how to lose.

While some might argue that it was the coach’s fault for the disastrous game, Childress disagreed, noting that it was the players who were on the court.

“The student athletes bought into it,” Childress said. “They were the ones asking to call three seconds. They were the ones stepping back over (midcourt). They were the ones not attempting to shoot at the basket.”

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