both basketball teams obviously try to lose to avoid playing top ranked team

[Liberal_in_LA]

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (AP) — A pair of Tennessee girls basketball high school teams have been pulled from the postseason for trying to lose a game to avoid the top-ranked team and improve their chances of advancing to the state tournament.
The programs at Riverdale, a state champion in 2013, and Smyrna were fined a total of $1,500 each Monday and also placed on probation for a year by the Tennessee Secondary School athletic Association.

TSSAA executive director Bernard Childress wrote Monday in letters to the schools' principals that the teams "made a mockery" with intentional turnovers off various violations and missed free throws. The referee also reported he stopped play ordering the coaches not to make a travesty of the game with a Smyrna player about to shoot at the wrong basket.

"Now I think Riverdale was the first team to start, 'let's lose the game,' but both teams obviously didn't want to win and it really showed," the referee wrote in his game report that was included in Childress' letters.
http://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/2-prep-girls-teams-caught-tanking-banned-from-6097241.php

[Lochloosa]

1. Both coaches should be fired. It's called sportsmanship.

[Takket]

2. is their video of this game? i bet it is hilarious

I assume this is a double elimination tournament so if you lose one game you play a lesser team to try and stay alive? either way it is pretty silly. nothing to be proud of for trying to lose. win the game and if you lose to the top team, at least you can hold your head high with dignity. that's what you teach kids.

[brewens]

3. Screwed up seeding system it sounds like. The top ranked team would normally play the lower ranked

team. That would of course usually be the loser of a game like that.

[GummyBearz]

4. Just taking a guess

But round robin double elimination is a useful format which I believe could end up in situations like this. The feared team has 1 loss in the round, the 2 other teams would rather lose and play a different team which hasn't lost, as opposed to win and face the feared team.

Note: I know absolutely nothing about this specific tourney... thats just an example of how a decent seeding/playoff system could still end up in situations like this. Coaches need to play to win under any circumstance.

The same principle is being played out in the NBA right now with a certain team suspected of losing intentionally to get a better shot at the top draft pick next year. It ruins things for the fans...

[brewens]

5. Yup. Could be like one fluke loss left a weaker but still pretty good team as top seed.

They would rather lose and play the number one seed in that case.

[Nye Bevan]

6. Reminds me of this:

A soccer team advanced in a cup match by deliberately scoring a goal against their own side.

TRUE

Barbados needed to win the game by two clear goals in order to progress to the next round. Now the trouble was caused by a daft rule in the competition which stated that in the event of a game going to penalty kicks, the winner of the penalty kicks would be awarded a 2-0 victory.

With 5 minutes to go, Barbados were leading 2-1, and going out of the tournament (because they needed to win by 2 clear goals). Then, when they realized they were probably not going to score against Grenada's massed defence, they turned round, and deliberately scored on their own goal to level the scores and take the game into penalties. Grenada, themselves not being stupid, realized what was going on, and then attempted to score an own goal themselves. However, the Barbados players started defending their opponents goal to prevent this.

In the last five minutes, spectators were treated to the incredible sight of both team's defending their opponents goal against attackers desperately trying to score an own goal and goalkeepers trying to throw the ball into their own net. The game went to penalties, which Barbados won and so were awarded a 2-0 victory and progressed to the next round.

http://www.snopes.com/sports/soccer/barbados.asp

[Initech]

7. Wasn't this an episode of South Park?