Friday, March 03, 2006
Response to "Facing Reality"
This is a bit of a copy of Hector's criticism of one of their earlier articles, but I thought this piece on Collegeulti.com by Michael Fiedler of Yale is so obviously flawed that I'd take a chance to respond.
Firstly, it's a semifinal BERTH. You go to Yale. Jeez. Secondly, Oregon scored 8 in the 2003 finals. Check your facts.
Anyway, isn't this blowing the whole "2 consecutive semis losses" thing out of proportion? He talks us star-powered Berkeley and acts as if Stanford had nothing in 2004, and yet, it was Stanford that gave Colorado their best game of the championship bracket, not Berkeley. Granted, Berkeley had the stronger season that year, but if we're bringing that up, we may as well bring up 2003 as well, where Stanford would have been the favorite to repeat had they not lost a 1-bid regional final to Oregon.
Finally, let's really tackle the central premise here - that Stanford lost because they lack a superstar. While Zip blew up in the 2005 semifinals, and Beau made some amazing plays as well in 2004, both of those games were won by the team with more great players, not just the greatest player. Look at that 2005 Brown team - they had the Mahoney brothers, Will Arnold, Dan MacArthur, Alex Bowman... and that's just guys with club open nationals experience. That Colorado team had not just Richter and Beau, but Parker, JV, Jolian Dahl, Adam Simon... and a couple more Johnny Bravo players.
Bottom line: Stanford has been beaten by better teams. It's a team sport. One spectactular player can provide you instant offense, but it's not the only way to score, and no single player can stifle the opposition defensively. (Incidentally, his claim, "No one could get open on Beau, if you threw to his guy, you lost the disc", is just silly. Nobody shuts down everybody all the time.) He points out the 2003 Hodags as a team lacking one obvious superstar powering their game; I'd add as a converse argument that the 1997-1998 LSU team had the hands-down best player at nationals, and couldn't produce a semifinals berth because the other teams were deeper.
We'll have a much better sense of the college open landscape after a couple more big events, but there's no reason to expect anything less than great ultimate from Stanford. And if nobody has a stronger, deeper team this year, then they might pull off a championship. They might beat a team with a "superstar", but an inferior supporting cast, along the way, too.
Firstly, it's a semifinal BERTH. You go to Yale. Jeez. Secondly, Oregon scored 8 in the 2003 finals. Check your facts.
Anyway, isn't this blowing the whole "2 consecutive semis losses" thing out of proportion? He talks us star-powered Berkeley and acts as if Stanford had nothing in 2004, and yet, it was Stanford that gave Colorado their best game of the championship bracket, not Berkeley. Granted, Berkeley had the stronger season that year, but if we're bringing that up, we may as well bring up 2003 as well, where Stanford would have been the favorite to repeat had they not lost a 1-bid regional final to Oregon.
Finally, let's really tackle the central premise here - that Stanford lost because they lack a superstar. While Zip blew up in the 2005 semifinals, and Beau made some amazing plays as well in 2004, both of those games were won by the team with more great players, not just the greatest player. Look at that 2005 Brown team - they had the Mahoney brothers, Will Arnold, Dan MacArthur, Alex Bowman... and that's just guys with club open nationals experience. That Colorado team had not just Richter and Beau, but Parker, JV, Jolian Dahl, Adam Simon... and a couple more Johnny Bravo players.
Bottom line: Stanford has been beaten by better teams. It's a team sport. One spectactular player can provide you instant offense, but it's not the only way to score, and no single player can stifle the opposition defensively. (Incidentally, his claim, "No one could get open on Beau, if you threw to his guy, you lost the disc", is just silly. Nobody shuts down everybody all the time.) He points out the 2003 Hodags as a team lacking one obvious superstar powering their game; I'd add as a converse argument that the 1997-1998 LSU team had the hands-down best player at nationals, and couldn't produce a semifinals berth because the other teams were deeper.
We'll have a much better sense of the college open landscape after a couple more big events, but there's no reason to expect anything less than great ultimate from Stanford. And if nobody has a stronger, deeper team this year, then they might pull off a championship. They might beat a team with a "superstar", but an inferior supporting cast, along the way, too.
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Just a quick link
I thought this story on ESPN.com was interesting; it's a conversation between Bill Simmons and Malcolm Gladwell. Simmons I've mentioned before. Gladwell is a great writer; I've had conversations about "Blink"'s application to Ultimate before and it might have been blogged about before although I can't remember.
Anyway, the part that made me want to link it was the section that begins, "You're probably right." The application to Ultimate is fairly obvious.
Anyway, the part that made me want to link it was the section that begins, "You're probably right." The application to Ultimate is fairly obvious.
