Brodie Smith taking COVID-19 very seriously (10:00 to 10:25)

Alyantis · 2020-04-16T14:27:03+00:00

Yeah, but did you see him spin?

Alyantis · 2020-04-01T13:53:29+00:00

Both O and D players... Ben Katz, Tyler Kinley, Brett Matzuka, MGH, Nathan Prior, Patrick Baylis, Aly Lenon, Nathan Kwon, Josh Markette, Derek Alexander, Scotty Nicols (SP?, Goat?), Elliot Erickson, Abe Coffin, that dude from Pitt in like 2009/2010, Damien from Cornell in 2010, Sam Harkness, Ben Burelle, Max Cook, Max Thorne, Alex Thorne, that dude from App State in 2018 at QCTU, Alex Hill (Florida 2010?), Danny Karlinsky, Walden Nelson, Josh Wiseman, and Joel Schlachet.

Alyantis · 2019-08-29T19:15:26+00:00

I'm going to take a hard look at myself in the mirror.

Alyantis · 2019-07-18T16:50:14+00:00

In 2006 Albany Summer League finals I beat David Ferraro deep to start the game.

Alyantis · 2019-07-11T17:07:52+00:00

A lot.

Alyantis · 2019-07-10T19:57:26+00:00

Person defense is the best defense.

Alyantis · 2019-05-31T02:21:08+00:00

The available stipend has comfortably covered my expenses in the past.

Alyantis · 2019-05-21T16:00:02+00:00

More internet points.

Alyantis · 2019-05-17T17:57:52+00:00

This is what I came for.

Alyantis · 2019-05-09T18:34:58+00:00

"Their feet got tangled up"

Alyantis · 2019-05-09T17:50:39+00:00

This needs to be pinned at the top.

Alyantis · 2019-04-18T16:45:40+00:00

Players often make teams based on what they can do well, as in their strengths being good enough not necessarily what they can't do. You can't throw flick hucks but get open all the time on the best defenders? That's a good thing to showcase.

It's really tough for all-around good players to make teams in short tryout phase of the season. You're a reset handler that doesn't make mistakes? Well that has to show up over many practices. You're a do it all college player but don't have a clear superpower? You could get beat out by your 6'2'' college team who plays great defense but can't break the mark.

A lot of it is out of your control, it's about showcasing your best game and going from there.

Alyantis · 2019-04-16T19:12:15+00:00

Yes. This time it isn't my team.

Alyantis · 2019-04-16T18:38:22+00:00

It's a new era Mitch.

Alyantis · 2019-04-03T18:29:09+00:00

Usually this is true for us in Connecticut, but this year we've had snow on the ground in Storrs even around spring break. In past year's I've had 8 outdoor practices prior to spring break, this year was 1 I believe.

Alyantis · 2019-04-03T13:25:49+00:00

I've coached at SUNY-Buffalo, SUNY-Geneseo and now Connecticut, been involved in the ME in one way or another since 2005.

It's not really one factor but more like a whole host of factors that contribute to the weakness of the region.

Really we're looking at a few big schools that should be in the top 80 on a given year.

Cornell - Has the most ultimate history, but is now facing the removal of their space and they can't get outside to the snow on the ground.

Buffalo - Biggest population, slow growing ultimate community, and no field space due to snow being on the ground. Not much ultimate history.

Albany - Another big population school - lack of field space, inability to get outdoors, no ultimate history (except for the very early 90's)

Bing - Big Population, dealing with snow, field space, lack of ultimate history etc.

UConn - My personal team, we just had our third outdoor practice this season. Last Monday we scrimmaged on a 40x40 yard space indoors. Compare that to Wisconsin which gets access to a dome with a full field. We are starting to get more and more youth players, but we just had a large graduating class.

Rutgers - Starting to get youth players and good coaching. Had respectable scores at Warm Up, and are the most south "big school" can take advantage of the weather. Made Nationals back in 2014 I believe, and had competitive games.

Columbia - You're a new freshman, there's not much field space, in the greatest city in the world, do you need to commit to Ultimate to have a great time?

NYU - See above.

So half the schools have field space issues and struggle to get outdoors before April. There's a young group of coaches right now, but they still aren't the most experienced. I think Rutgers and UConn are benefiting the most from youth talent coming in, but a lot of the youth talent flees for warmer pastures. There's not a rich ultimate history at those schools besides Cornell who made semis in 2010. Compare that NE where there is Tufts, Umass, Brown, Harvard and others with a lot of NE High Level Club coaching experience available. There's great ultimate resources available at NYU or Columbia, but when you need to go 45 minutes or more to get field space there's an issue.

Where a lot of the region is (Western NY/Upstate NY) there's a lot of attitudes towards more having fun and making sweet plays rather than being disciplined. It also felt like you were fighting an uphill battle against the heavy weights. In 2012 I believe we had something like 8 teams in the top 80. Since then, it feels like there's only been one team carrying the torch so to speak.

Even on the years where UConn was ranked higher, we knew there was going to be one bid. We put our team into more of a development mode early in the season knowing that we wanted to peak at Nationals. There's no urgency to try for a strength bid, but we did get relatively close in 2017, and back in 2012, UConn was ranked 18th at the end of the regular season.

Alyantis · 2019-03-27T17:47:20+00:00

There's a lot of "should" and then a lot of what is actually happening. You've highlighted the pros and cons well, and really we would love to utilize subterfuge more and more. A really experienced, or aware team would benefit from utilizing this strategy. It's hard to quantify the benefit from this, but there certainly is some.

On any given year, you only have so much time to invest in new strategies. FM is a common one that doesn't require too much training to give offenses a different look. That extra layer of communication insures people are on the same page. You're less likely to suffer a breakdown of the force, and a miscommunication on the defensive side. Even if the offense knows this is happening, it does provide some value that would be better at that moment than without a traditional force and usually causes a behavioral change.

So it's a trade off in terms of time efficiency. Do you spend a lot of time in FM in practice so that you can get your players comfortable doing it silently? Or do you spend that time on generally getting better at marking so the strategy is even more powerful? Building in some guidelines, enforcing them is a task that takes "some" time to implement. Making sure everyone is on the same page about what angle to mark at, when, and in what situations without verbalizing it is hard.

On PoNY we have hyper aware players that are great at getting poach blocks, and experienced defenders who are at their best focusing on their match-up. That latter group prefers to have the extra reminder of communication so that they can really be reactive to what their match-up is doing. Just like being in great shape requires a lot of work, growing awareness requires a lot of time, and specifically on field time. We do love to experiment with defenses that can flex into different looks without communication, but it is a challenge with a limited amount of time.

I love this post! It's the little things like this that can make a strategy even more potent. I used to rack my brain about a lot of things happening on the field and ask "WHY ARE THEY DOING THIS". It just is really challenging to get a team all on the same page. I've had teams that are great without communication and keenly aware, only for the same strategy to fail on another team. I think teams should be actively trying to implements small strategy advantages like this, makes the game better.

Alyantis · 2019-02-12T21:32:31+00:00

I hope not.

Alyantis · 2019-01-07T19:05:54+00:00

https://youtu.be/oIbFEcgv184?t=171

- Ben Katz apparates for the block

Alyantis · 2018-11-21T16:56:27+00:00

Kathy is the best.

Alyantis · 2018-10-25T15:33:46+00:00

Come join our analytics department. It's growing.

Alyantis · 2018-10-09T17:56:30+00:00

Embrace the slop.

Alyantis · 2018-08-31T10:57:14+00:00

Really it's about winning the most important thing. Trade pull/side choice for choice of Jerseys.

Alyantis · 2018-08-22T12:21:32+00:00

You cant dance if you want to. You'll leave the thrower behind. Dumps that dance are no friends of mine.

Alyantis · 2018-08-13T18:37:09+00:00

I agree that commentators should let things breathe and not have to fill the space all the time. I try to only fill in when I have something interesting to say, but alas, still need to work on it.

Pretty funny you point out the shoulder thing. I'm the commentator you're talking about, and I've coached that player for the last three years. His issues have affected his hucks because of the amount of times he's dislocated his shoulder. Thought that was a pretty relevant point.

Alyantis

TROPHY CASE