I have been really impressed by the sportsmanship shown by both Mike Gilchrist and Kyle Anderson during and after the St. Patrick’s vs. St. Anthony’s “Brawl for it All”. I watched most of the game on the live feed and the first three quarters were just really great basketball. The fourth quarter was kind of like watching Kentucky vs. UConn in the Maui Invitational: you want to root for your guy (Gilchrist), but the other guys are executing to perfection and they’re just playing exceptional ball.
The final score is kind of deceptive. If you woke up this morning and saw that St. Ant’s beat St. Pat’s by almost 20 points (62-45), you might think it was a boring blowout. Not so. St. Pat’s scored the first basket inside of 10 seconds into the game and did not fall behind until the fourth quarter. That’s right, that 20-point spread came entirely in the fourth quarter.
But both Gilchrist and Anderson handled themselves respectfully during and after the game. During the game, there wasn’t a lot of chest-pounding or shoving – they just played ball. Afterward, Gilchrist had these two tweets of note:
[QUOTE]I let my Teammates Down, feel so bad smh sorry yall![/QUOTE] ([URL=”http://twitter.com/MikeGillie14/status/45697103384674304″]source[/URL])
[QUOTE]I want to say Thanks to My homie @jimmywa11*for the words of encouragement![/QUOTE] ([URL=”http://twitter.com/MikeGillie14/status/45698585743990784″]source[/URL])
While Anderson had this to say:
[QUOTE]I keep reading & hearing about how we not a normal good st ants defensive team but we jus held the #1 team in america in the 40s [/QUOTE]([URL=”http://twitter.com/KyleAnderson5/status/45853436838809600″]source[/URL])
[QUOTE]And in my opinion gilly the best player in high school ball to 7 points if u ask me that’s great defense [/QUOTE]([URL=”http://twitter.com/KyleAnderson5/status/45853634654773248″]source[/URL])
It seems that Gilchrist has learned that when you lose, you take responsibility for your part and move on. Likewise, Anderson has learned that when you win, you don’t downplay the other team – the more you lift them up, the better you look for beating them. I know some college players who still need to learn those lessons.
