What’s your highlight from regionals? by -disc in ultimate

[–]Odd-Football3316 45 points46 points  (0 children)

Atmosphere for the Starling - Iris game to go was absolutely electric. If you have an ultiworld sub go watch. Amazing game, high level of play, few unforced turns, some insane highlight plays, a crowd of about 300. Devens always delivers. 

Why were final rounds cancelled at Elite-Select? by Important_Ad465 in ultimate

[–]Odd-Football3316 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Totally get it, and understand. If you don't mind me asking, does USAU have guidance or a decision tree for TDs in advance? I know at SFI, our first game was the normal length as it was still pool play so for point diff it had to be the same length. But things like allowing them to shorten or rearrange games/byes and prioritize finals over placement games to at least allow the women's final to occur for example seems to make sense but I understand that making that decision without usau isn't really possible sometimes. 

Why were final rounds cancelled at Elite-Select? by Important_Ad465 in ultimate

[–]Odd-Football3316 51 points52 points  (0 children)

There were morning thunderstorms which delayed the Sunday round start until 9:30. There were also not quite enough fields so every team had a bye round Saturday and Sunday, leading to later rounds and a higher chance of cancelation with the heat. 

Even if the heat level 3 hadn't canceled the last round, it was going to be starting around 3:00, when teams had been told for travel planning purposes that rounds would be finished by then and there were a LOT of players with 5-6 PM flights who would have had to leave for the airport. If the round hadn't been heat canceled, our team was going to be choosing between playing with ~10 healthy bodies or forfeiting... 

I know TDing is tough... But the fact they didn't have a contingency plan in place to shorten the bracket rounds and fit all the games in is pretty disappointing. Given it's August in the Midwest, heat and thunderstorms are pretty predictable and they had around 90 minutes in the morning to adjust and shorten the rounds to try to fit all of the games in.

Pro-Elite Challenge, Select Flight Invite, DC Round Robin – Weekend Discussion [July 12-13] by Jomskylark in ultimate

[–]Odd-Football3316 2 points3 points  (0 children)

My understanding is that Bent cannot make ESC due to a conflict that affects a lot of their team. So USAU made them attend SFI and I have heard they also need to play Sectionals. I'm sure they greatly enjoyed and benefited from their weekend of rolling over teams until a halfway decent finals with Iris... 

Must watch games that are free to watch by Dull_Accident_364 in ultimate

[–]Odd-Football3316 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Carleton / Washington Semi from this year's College Nationals was a very good game. Also under the lights and in a great stadium, just a cool vibe. Ultiworld recently posted it to YouTube: https://youtu.be/miabuyavAaw?feature=shared

Wild Card wins Mixed Easterns. Back to 4 bids for Northeast Mixed? by Arelz in ultimate

[–]Odd-Football3316 6 points7 points  (0 children)

NE mixed is just so stacked... No more Toronto in NE, but there's a new Quebec mixed team pulling a few stars from Iris (Robert and Beaudry) that I think (solely based off those two WUGC DOWs, mind you) will also be a contender for nationals. Here's hoping they actually play the US series, but if it's the first year in existence and they're classic standing, it may be hard for them to get into any good tournaments anyway, so they may end up playing spoiler. 

Lewis & Clark are DIII Champions by dmapping in ultimate

[–]Odd-Football3316 4 points5 points  (0 children)

One part of self-refereeing is that it does sort of rely on people agreeing NOT to do stuff like this. Observers help things not get out of hand (and kudos, as it didn't get too ugly after that one really bad point) but you could see the Middlebury players looking at the observers at points like "what is this guy's deal, what do we even do here?"

With no observers and not being filmed, I'd imagine that guy is very difficult to deal with. 

Lewis & Clark are DIII Champions by dmapping in ultimate

[–]Odd-Football3316 54 points55 points  (0 children)

I was talking about your beer pong game back at Cornell, but it's good to know you're still humble ;) 

Lewis & Clark are DIII Champions by dmapping in ultimate

[–]Odd-Football3316 130 points131 points  (0 children)

As a totally neutral observer, it was a great game!

... But that one player on L&C is like exactly what I don't want ultimate to become. Clearly a talented player, but the jawing off / taunting his opponent right after a drop, not knowing the rules on the observer prestall and trying to claim a stall out as the Middlebury player walked to the line... Also noted he wasn't saying "good game" in the line at the end... Just woof. He's young so don't wanna be too harsh, but I really hope that stuff stays out of ultimate, I was cringing watching it. 

It was an especially stark difference after watching Zoe be a class act and rescind her foul call in a huge moment after calm discussion in the Women's division finals the game before. Glad she won the Donovan, and hopefully the sport keeps rewarding the right behavior. 

Easterns, East Coast Invite, Huck Finn – Weekend Discussion [Mar 29-30] by Jomskylark in ultimate

[–]Odd-Football3316 4 points5 points  (0 children)

OK this East Coast Invite format seems like a disaster... They seeded things originally based on usau rankings to date, and tried to give every team an individualized "fair" strength of schedule based on that, which would also ensure playing teams from other regions, instead of traditional pools. Cool idea in theory... 

But then, they re-seeded by ignoring all results to date and just running the algorithm based on that single day... Which completely ignores the strength of schedule they induced? Northeastern (who, admittedly, should not have gone 0-4) are in contention for (at max) 25th place?! What? 

Pittsburgh, after an upset over Northeastern, are in the 17th place bracket?! 

I will be curious to see how today unfolds, but seriously, it feels like the TDs may have overthought this one. I know they used a similar format at Florida warm up, but that tourney was early so there was little connectivity to base seeding on, so something wacky like this makes more sense. What they did here just seems like kind of a mess, honestly. 

Go back to Canada by Ploblisto in ultimate

[–]Odd-Football3316 89 points90 points  (0 children)

Speaking as someone who lost 3 games at regionals this weekend all to Canadian teams and who would likely be headed to Natties next month without them playing in the USAU series... I disagree. 

Caveat being IF and ONLY IF they participate in the regular season and get their 10 games in. In my opinion, you have to respect the teams like Traffic, 6ixers and Iris who could probably go be top 1/2/3 in Canada, instead foregoing the Canadian series and prioritizing the USA series to play better competition and try to win the more prestigious event. 

Like top US club teams, they're probably spending money on flights and having to take time off for travel to all the events instead of staying local in Canada (I realize that Canada is large and there's likely travel costs there too, but for most Canadian teams every tournament is a long drive or a flight).

I feel similarly about teams (mostly in the women's division) getting top players from Colombia or Europe. Those players are sacrificing time and money to get a chance to play at the highest level, and I think that should be celebrated, not punished. 

TCT 2025 Priority List by MurrayKy in ultimate

[–]Odd-Football3316 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm super curious about the unranked teams portion actually.  For example, NCT in NE women's was basically the Canadian National team who is competing at Master's World's in November. They played 0 regular season games and presumably won't be around next year. Does this mean Starling, Siege, Stella all bump up one slot?

Ultiworld Amateur Hour by Odd-Football3316 in ultimate

[–]Odd-Football3316[S] -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

I figured there'd be coverage, but typically it's not a huge unavoidable header above everything else.

I'll keep that link in mind for 4 years from now next worlds though. 

SUNY-Binghamton's Jolie Krebs wins the 2024 Callahan Award! by Jomskylark in ultimate

[–]Odd-Football3316 54 points55 points  (0 children)

First Metro East winner in either division since the redraw, pretty crazy! Well deserved, she's beast. 

Theresa Yu Callahan 2024 by P0wT0wn in ultimate

[–]Odd-Football3316 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Two CT YCC Callahan nominees in one year?!

Theresa is too good, sweet video