Wednesday, June 6

Summer League, Actually

An inauspicious start, to be sure.

We (Navy) played Tucker's (Of Deceptisomething fame) team. As I arrived, the game was about to start, and we did a quick round of introductions. As we went 'round/ like a record baby, right 'round, 'round 'round It rapidly became clear that we had WAAAAAAAAY too many dudes for a 4/3 league. Twelve out of thirteen dudes showed up. Damn! That's not exactly conducive to my high-turnover style of league play because invariably, with that many fellas, some weak lines get put on, well, the line. How, you may wonder, does this affect the high-turnover game? Well, you can only play a high-turnover game if you can get it back. Not necessarily on that given point, but over the course of the game, you need to generate more turnovers than you throw. We did not. For example I threw 5 turnovers (Way more than the 2 I had over the course of 6 games at Live Logic or the 1 I had over the 8 out of 9 games I played at Regionals in 06) and generated 3 turns. Not acceptable. Knowing that I'm not playing every point, I can't play the same way and need to come out positive in this category.

In any case, we went down early and often. I think we were down at half 3-8. I'm not sure that we were ever ahead in this game, but the second half was a 7-7 tie. Also of note, we led those Moss bastards into our trap of letting them think we can't play against zone (Who plays zone on the first night of summer league against a team you're obviously killing anyway? Oh way, I'd probably do that...). Perfect. If they try to bring that out in the playoffs, they'll get shredded.

Further thoughts on the team: We have a great top rotation for Summer League including a bunch of players with high-level experience (young and old), a group of women who are athletic (though not, on the whole, all that experienced) and zero (I think) completely new players. In order for us to succeed, the steps I'll need to take are: I'll need a very high completion percentage while still taking more difficult looks downfield. In other words, no hucking to completely covered/non-cutting players just to see if my throws can overcome the odds (and to add excitement to the game), but if he/she is open and/or a good matchup, I can/should still do it. I'll also need to come down with whatever is thrown to me and generate Ds.

I think this team will do very well this season-- we just need to coalesce as a team and slowly define our roles. I'm looking forward to the process.

Oh, after the game, we went to the Lazy Boy for some food and we saw Bernie Williams. This prompted the age-old discussion of "Pro Athlete vs Ultimate Players." I come down firmly on the side of Pro Athlete. (Aside: If you haven't watched Pros vs Joes, your life is incomplete. Not as incomplete as if you had never seen Slamball, but close.) This particular discussion led to trying to get someone from our table to challenge him to a race down the street. Sadly, we were unable to convince anyone. Of course, someone suggested that he would be bad at ultimate whether or not he won the race. Another load of crap.

That's it that's all that's all there is.
--
Workout Total:
1 hr Summer League

3 comments:

John said...

the answer for summer league is less of you and more of me

dusty.rhodes said...

Wait... what was the question? If you're the answer, I doubt we're taking the same test.

Tarr said...

The best part about slamball was the faces the guys were making in their bio photos that got flashed when they scored. Pure gold.