In a contest which set a dubious state record, the high school basketball game between Bibb County and Brookwood ended with Bibb County emerging with a 2-0 victory on Saturday night.
Even better/worse? The one score came within the first 15 seconds of play.
The unusually awful score wasn’t “planned” by either squad but it’s apparent that coaches were looking to rest their players. Brookwood coach Thad Fitzpatrick stated that he wanted to slow the pace of the game as his players had to play four games over the course of the week.
“It was not my intention to go into that game and stall,” Fitzpatrick said. “The intention was to get as much rest as we can offensively, and do whatever we needed to do defensively. It was our fourth game of the week, and on Friday night we started cramping a lot, so I made the decision.”
Thus, after the opening score, Brookwood held onto the ball for the remainder of the quarter before heaving up a miss at the end of the period. Bibb County was playing a zone defense and they never chased the ball, so Brookwood was content to hold onto the ball until there was just enough time to get one shot on the basket.
The second quarter was almost a mirror of the first. Bibb County held onto the ball for the whole quarter and heaved up a miss to end the half.
The third quarter started with Bibb County in-bounding the ball. Much like the second quarter, Bibb County held the ball until the end of the quarter before missing the one shot of the period.
Brookwood got the ball to start the fourth quarter and waited for the final shot. The last thirty seconds of the game were the most exciting as the clock forced basketball to actually take place. Incredibly, Brookwood turned the ball over with fifteen seconds to go. They were forced to foul Bibb County repeatedly to get the ball back (Bibb eventually missed a shot which Brookwood rebounded) before they attempted one final shot which they, of course, missed.
And with that, Alabama had its lowest scoring high school basketball game on record and the world had one more reminder of why a shot clock is A Good Idea.
Ron Ingram, the Alabama High School Athletic Association’s Director of Communications, said the AHSAA has no records of such a low-scoring game.
