Link time. Check these out…
http://jtbeattyjr.wordpress.com/
Tully Beatty started a blog back in November to chronicle his coaching experience in 2010, where he coached two teams to the National Quarterfinals: the UNC-Wilmington men’s team in the spring and Phoenix, a North Carolina women’s team in the fall.
There are only five entries so far, but the blog is interesting for a few reasons. First, Beatty has played on and coached teams at the highest level dating back to when UNC-W was winning championships; if someone with that kind of experience is talking, I’m listening. Second, of the existing material that’s out there, the stuff that’s written from a coaching perspective (Lou’s blog, some of The Huddle) tends to be the most informative and useful. Third, UNC-W is an interesting team to read about because of their tumultuous history and the fact that they’ve published more about their past than most.
http://willpower17.blogspot.com/2011/01/sb-invite.html
Joaq found this one, written by SDSU coach Will Griffin. It’s got a good look at the SB Invite from the Federalis perspective, touching on UC-Davis, UCSB, and Washington. Pretty much any blog is good for thinking about the game in ways that you might usually not. In this entry, Griffin’s comment that “LPC gave us a little trouble since they looked to break the mark when UCLA didn’t” does that for me. I don’t often think about the actual strategy adjustments that are necessary in the tournament format, but it’s a big deal. If you get used to stopping the inside break for an entire game and in the next round face a team that loves to go around, it might hurt you. There are countless examples and I think that it’s obvious to my subconscious when playing and planning, but I don’t actually consider it too often.
NBA Playbook is awesome. They post a new play/series every day and dissect it.
In this case, they talk about how most teams’ answer to the Hornets pick-and-roll/pop is to switch on defense and guard heavily against a Chris Paul penetration into the lane (the guy guarding Paul looks recover while the guy guarding David West “hedges” into the lane to help on Paul). They also show that it’s a mistake because David West can really hurt teams when his guy gives him an open shot. Finally, they provide an alternative: West often lazy screens, so stay matched up on defense by fighting through them; doing so forces the Hornets away from one of their go-to options.
It’s fun to look at this stuff and apply it to Ultimate. The obvious example is Team A assuming the Team B is so good deep that they constantly jump behind their man, giving Team B wide open unders all game that allow them to really do some damage. Any other examples come to mind?
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