Beautiful weather start to week 2. Chance of rain for the next couple of days, but the start has been great. Slightly smaller group this week. Our counselors:
Emily Baecher
Lexi Marsh
Jody Avirgan(NYC)
Sam Roberts
Derek Gottlieb(CO)
Micah Flynn
CITs:
Andrew Hollingworth
Jason Chow
Adam Fagin(CA)
Leila Tunnell
We ran the camp hard yesterday...shuttle run relays, Chelsea's diamond run, foot fires, body builders, etc. I think the kids slept well last night. The general level of play seems to have increased over the past couple of years. In other words, more kids know more coming in.
Last week we did not have access to the fields in front of our dorm due to the soccer kids. We have this week, though, and DDC seems to be all the rage.
Zip....we figured out that technology for Sunday night. It worked great.
Questions that have been discussed under the tent and in the dining room:
1) Percentage of the time you set up "go to" and the lines are too close together.
2) Why is the transition to man always after 3 or 5 passes? Why does every team say "fire" for the audible?
3) Percentage of the time that a goal is scored after an "on field, in play" time out.
4) Percentage of possessions greater than 35 yards in which a goal is scored after a dump-swing is completed(dump-swing occurs any time during the possession).
Please feel free to weigh in. I will add the general consensus from here in the comments.
Monday, July 23, 2007
NUTC 2: New Start/Questions
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14 comments:
1) Too close? Our lines always seem to drift further and further apart, regardless of where they start, unless we lay down some cones.
2) That was never a convention for us in high school - in college 3 is enough to spoil a play and 5 is enough to actually consider getting a turnover.
As for "fire," it's really common but plenty of teams use other words. Carleton plays it tricky and says "fire" the throw before they transition in order to throw off the offense, then say "engine" on their real transition.
3) 100% - or do you mean by the team that called it and in that same possession? I'd say about 60%.
4) Depends on the level of play, obviously, but I'd say that it's consistently about 20 percentage points higher than on a possession without a dump-swing.
Don't have a comment on the cafeteria discussions, but I gotta disagree with the comment that the general level of play at NUTC has been going up.
Granted, I am not going to NUTC this year and didn't go last year, but I was there the past 3 years and I can positively say that my first year had the highest quality of play, followed my second, and then my third, which is one of the reason I didn't return for a 4th session. It's a good thing. It means kid of all levels are thinking frisbee is worthwhile enough to warrant attending an overnight camp for, it just means it isn't worth it for me to fly from California
Hey Kevin,
Thanks for the comments. I just want to make sure that I understand that you are disagreeing with my opinion (not a factual statement) about the last "couple" of years....years in which you did not attend.
Is this correct?
-G
yes, that is correct
I've always been a fan of transitioning from a zone or junk D after 4 or 6 throws. Just because.
I'm also a fan of using a different audible on every point. Just call it on the line (e.g. "rusty is the call to switch to man"). It's not that hard to remember one word.
j
Kevin,
It seems to me that it is possible, if your assertion about the quality of camp declining during your three years there(ending in 05) is correct and we are able to agree that 05 was some kind of low, that the past two years have shown an increase in quality, and, as you weren't here, I am having trouble understanding how you are in a position to comment.
Julian,
Yep...agreed.
-G
OK...here is the non-scientific data:
1) 99%
2) Habitual non-thinking
3) 60%
4) 60%
My smart-a__ answers...
1) Never, because no one would ever run a drill where you just ran, without a fake or anything, in one direction repeatedly. When you start off the cut with an away move, or a sideways move, or really any kind of move...you warm up your footwork while the thrower works out a couple of pivots, then you get the same hard cut straight to the disc [but much more gamelike]. The lines are never too close for an appropriate move.
The 'BuzzBullet' drill is essentially a go-to drill with the lines placed 1 foot from each other. Great drill. Probably has lots of other names, too.
2) Even weirder, given that so many teams are using the transition zone specifically to stop string plays out of any offense...you want to present the other team's best thrower (almost always the 2nd thrower) with a zone so that instead of throwing to the best mid, they go sideways or backwards. You'd expect more teams to be running transitions for 0-2 passes (which, at least out on the West Coast, many of the best teams are, I think).
3) More interesting...has this been on Tiina's mind since Finland '04? That's where the US Boys played Finland in the semis. After tanking the pool play game the day before (and losing 17-4 with their best players on the bench) the Finns came out playing great in the semis, keeping it tied til 8's. However, the US would win 17-9...helped in large part by the Finn's 4 (FOUR!) TO calls within 10 yards of the endzone. They failed to convert on all four, turning over either the first or second throw on every single occassion. The US won each point, and I think that on at least 3 of them scored in less than 4 passes after forcing the turn.
Great US D? Terrible play calling? Regardless, an interesting statistical oddity. Thinking what that game might have been like had they converted those 4 more points is terrifying.
4) Good question, though somewhat Vertical Stack minded...you could ask the same question about the Horizontal Stack, but substitute in "dump to the middle of the field before stall 2" for "dump swing to the other side of the field".
[respectful] Smarta__edness complete.
bl,
Thanks for the comments. I appreciate your answers. Certainly, they are within the spirit of what happens under the tent after we have been sitting there for several hours.
In terms of 1, I think your point is well-taken....really, this question is just inane.....
3) That is a very interesting comment. I enjoy this type of historical thinking. I will be curious to see what Tiina thinks.
4) Agreed that it is vert biased. Which brings up the fact that, like you mention, there is no real equivalent to a dump swing in the non-vert sets. Certainly, there are resets and breakmark throws...but that is a bit different.
-G
George, you really laid into Kevin there. Ouch.
James,
Well, I try hard to keep the general tenor of this blog respectful and open for discourse. I hope my comments to Kevin did not come across as overly snarky or "rsd-like". That was not my intent.
Certainly, we are all entitled to our opinions, but they are simply beliefs and, generally speaking, not something that furthers a conversation.
I do think that Kevin's observation about the quality of play during his time at NUTC is interesting and maybe worth a discussion. Is it that he improved as a player so that it seemed to him that the quality of play was decreasing? Or was there some kind of actual dip between 03-05?? I don't know. Certainly those types of questions are just the fodder for the minutiae that is pondered under the tent.
I remember in high school that I raised my hand to disagree with a proven theorem that my Stats teacher was showing us. I had no basis by which to disagree other than the ignorance of my youth. He paused as I made my comment and then said, "Well, you have the right to disagree." He then moved on without hesitation.
-G
-G
The teams I've played on around here always seem to use sports team names for the call. It got the point for a while that you could use "Red Sox" as a fake call to switch to personD because everyone would assume that it really WAS the switch call.
Timeouts let EVERYONE set up. And I remain convinced that starting from a stopped disc is difficult. [That's why I believe so much in EARLY/Good Timing as one of the keys to effective offense. Why have to start from a stopped disc so often?] Further, not everyone is as good with the disc starting from a stop. Thus, the time out can be a point-saver, but it's not without risk.
(Something I could blog about, if I still blogged ultimate, y'know...)
Marshall,
You know I agree about the stopped disc. Thanks for chiming in.
-G
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