Mid-Atlantic Regionals 2014 Day 1

"Where are the horses?"

No horses.  I told you, frisbee."

Your shirt.  It says 'Horse' on it.
Right but for frisbee.
Right.

So, coed, the reason I didn't watch you on the first day is because you're not in bracket play.  You're in pool play.  I can't watch enough of the games to make any sense of your teams.  In women's, by watching Scandal, Green Means Go and Hot Metal, I've got decent grasp on what's going on over there.  3/7 teams.

In open, all I care about are the teams in the top 6.  I watched four of the top 6 yesterday on the same two adjacent fields, except for Truck and Medmen.  Though I'm pretty familiar with the DC/MD open players on those teams through being in the Mid-Atlantic for a long time, my MLU work, the AUDL's existence, and living in the DMV. I can look at the rosters and know pretty well what I'm getting.  I watched Patrol and GSU be exactly the teams that that I expected.  I not-watched Medmen be the team they always are.  Truck has been the team here since Ring left.  There are no others, folks.  Philly, Jersey and Pittsburgh keep switching names and blowing things up and starting again and shifting philosophies... Yet Truck Stop remains.  One of the first (and wholly sensible) UPA/USAU name changes.

Wait... did the UPA make itself change its own name because it was offensive?

Patrol could beat Temper.  GSU could be Temper.
Medmen... I don't know how they stack up against Temper, Patrol or GSU.
Dire is less known to me, but I recognize some of them for sure.

Patrol and Med Men have the decided advantage in the backdoor bracket since they've played one less game than Dire Wolf and Garden State Ultimate.

Temper, on the other hand... has the goods.  But how much do they have in stock?
This is a tournament.  Patrol made Temper look very vulnerable.
GSU did not look wholly overmatched, just situationally.
Would've liked to see that game actually played to fifteen.

Speaking of which, after twitting earlier about games in club not truly being to points, I went through and looked that scored from #MARegionals to see what sort of winning scores most teams had. Of the 66 games played across all divisions, only 38  (or 57.58%) reached their stated point total.  10 (71.43%) of Women's Games, 16 (57.14%) of Mixed Games, 10 (50.00%) of Open Games.

Division	# of teams	# of games	Games to	Winner Full	Less	-1	-2	-3	-4	-5	No Score	%Full	Under	-1	-2	-3	-4	-5	No Score
Men	16	24	15	12	10		4	5	1		2	50.00	41.67	0.00	16.67	20.83	4.17	0.00	8.33
Women	7	14	13	10	4	2	2				0	71.43	28.57	14.29	14.29	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Mixed	16	28	13	16	10	4	4	2			2	57.14	35.71	14.29	14.29	7.14	0.00	0.00	7.14
	39	66	41	38	24	6	10	7	1	0	4	57.58	36.36	9.09	15.15	10.61	1.52	0.00	6.06

If you missed it above, the men's teams played to 15.  The thing that you will not see above is thatall rounds in all divisions were the same length.  If you're trying to reach 15 you'll probably need more time than if you're trying to reach 13.  To put it another way 13 : 15 :: 105 : (1575 / 13)

That's 121 and two thirteenths minutes, if you prefer.
121 minutes and 9.230769 seconds for the men's rounds.

It wasn't like the teams in open were even finishing *near* the end of their games though.  Most most common non-15 winning score in open was 12 (-3)  In both Women's and Mixed, the most common non-13 winning scores were a tie between 12 (-1) and 11 (-2).

So, the results are closer to intent in both women's and mixed both in terms of frequency and distance.
Oh also... no scoreboards at #MARegionals. that's... weird.  I wish Mike G was still in this region.  He'd throw a fit so the rest of us didn't have to.

The plan for Sunday is to familiarize myself with mixed in the 9am round from the polo stands. I can watch the majority of both Amp vs [Ridiculous Jersey] and Tyrannis v [Pribicko's still playing with Herschel? Why isn't Paul on this team?].  Cool.

But then I will start shifting toward field 11 and 5 (which are actually a little too far apart) to see Scandal v Green Means Go and the Truck Stop vs Temper men's final.  On the way, I hope to catch a sufficient amount of Ant Madness v American Hyperbole and Ambiguous** Gr(e/a)y v Jughandle.  I'm only one set eyes and the like, so choices must be made.  Shade, shelter and seats wins barring extenuating circumstances like a final or Scandal.

To get into styles of play for a second:

Temper v Patrol was look-away ugly for much of the game.  Trading full field untouched by the receiver hucks... turfing multiple throws... making 50/50 throws out of reasonably open looks.  They were all playing hard, but never smoothly.  Not an aesthetically pleasing moment in that game. Athletically?  Sure. But you're gonna need more than that.

Garden State puts on the gas better than Patrol.  There is a sense watching them that they are on the verge of going on a run.  With Patrol it feels more like a slow charge forward on the same level.  Not so many highs or so many lows.  That is... Patrol is less likely to blow a team out, but the are less likely to be blown out also.

Dire Wolf and Medicine Men... If you make it through the back door... I'll check y'all soon.

In the women's division, the difference between watching Scandal and watching the other teams is that Scandal is making choices about which way they will play.  They can go long, play the unders, break the mark or do what is required on offense.  Not because they have to do one or the other but because it is what needs to be done for Point X or Y.  There is a fundamental flexibility that they have that the other teams wholly lack.  Depth plays a huge role in this.

Hot Metal and Green Means Go are simply more limited in their options.  AS evidenced by their head-to-head play, either team is capable of going up on the other.  But in watching that game as it progressed, one of the notable differences is that the Philly players keep pushing hard when they were down.  There was no deflation.  Once PGH went down... there was a softening around the edges of play that informed all of their lack of true belief.  Just at the end, as the game was already over in effect, PGH showed some fight.  But too little too late.

PGH or PHL can go to nationals.  If there is a fourth team with a shot, I didn't see it.

More than this, I haven't time for. Nor is there an editor.  So... up this post goes. "