COLUMN: St. Vincent's 99-point win a once in a lifetime anomaly

St. Vincent's 102-3 win over Meridian High School of Illinois in the first round of the First State Community Bank Holiday Classic on Saturday, Dec. 14, was a one-in-a-lifetime combination of excellence and incompetence.

The governing body could not put any mechanism to prevent such an outcome because there is simply no way of predicting the mere possibility of a 102-0 run at any point in a game.

St. Vincent shot 34 3-pointers almost out of mercy in the second half because the Indians simply dribbling to the basket with layup after layup may be an even worse visual. They accidentally made 16 triples, falling one point short of winning by exactly 100.

The Lady Indians shuffled their lineup throughout the game to make sure everyone on the bench saw the court for a meaningful number of minutes.

In a way, you can't really fault the players for simply playing the game the way they've been taught to play. It's a Class 2 contender looking to return to the state tournament after taking a step back last year.

Head coach Mel Kirn is not like Delta head coach David Heeb, who intensely coaches his team until the final whistle regardless of the size of the lead. He has long appeared to let his players play the game the way they've practiced.

And play the way they have.

"We've been putting in a lot of hard work in practice and it's definitely paying off and showing what fundamentals we have and what we've been working on," St. Vincent senior Haley Emmendorfer said.

Nobody can predict a team could ever go three full quarters without scoring a basket. Meridian was actually winning 3-0 early in the first quarter before the game played out in a way in which the entire gym wondered if St. Vincent's run would end at some point.

Meridian proved it to be an anomaly during their 50-29 loss to Meadow Heights in Sunday's consolation round. On Monday, Meridian played a Cairo team down to one single player on the court against Delta, an equally overwhelming team that finished last season in the Class 1 final four.

In that game, Delta had a 54-15 lead at halftime and Cairo spent the final 12 minutes of the game with less than five players on the court. One player left with an injury and another fouled out, making it a 5-on-2 game with four minutes to go and finally an incomprehensible 5-on-1 in the final minute.

The officials have their hands tied because they are graded on their proficiency in calling the game by the book. Not even they can swallow their whistle and prevent such madness.

This is simply proof that the Holiday Classic has simply gotten too big for its own good. Two years ago, the tournament had six teams in the Cape Girardeau area playing a round-robin schedule with the two 2-0 teams playing for the title, the two 1-1 teams playing for third place and the two 0-2 teams playing for fifth place. Notre Dame dominated the Holiday Classic for four straight years.

Last year, the tournament ballooned to 12 teams, but without Notre Dame, which found a new holiday tournament to partake in.

St. Vincent led a new group consisting of Kelly, Woodland, Scott City, Cape Central, Oak Ridge, Scott County Central, Meadow Heights and Cairo. The tournament added more teams this year with Perryville, Meridian and Chester. Oran was originally supposed to come back after missing the previous season, but was a late scratch.

The Holiday Classic got too big when it invited these three inferior Illinois programs. Chester gave a rebuilding Cape Central team a good game Saturday and will be just as competitive against Meadow Heights on Wednesday in the consolation semifinals.

However, with three wins going in and Cairo and Meridian having two wins each entering the tournament against overwhelming opponents, maybe we were asking for these first-round results.

As overwhelming as the first three games of the Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournament (the boys basketball version) gets, it never gets to the level of St. Vincent-Meridian.

This should be the last time these Illinois schools play in the Holiday Classic.

This tournament should stay within the Southeast Missouri area and maybe even add Eagle Ridge Christian, if the organizers are so inclined to add schools outside of the MSHSAA jurisdiction. Notre Dame should be invited back and Chaffee also should be added if the tournament needs to remain at its current number.

Also, teams such as Jackson, St. Vincent and Delta shouldn't be playing low seeds in the first round of a tournament anyway. At least the crowd is treated to a dunk show when a big school plays a little school in boys basketball.

In girls basketball, all that can come from such matchups are outcomes such as Saturday afternoon.