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Post by neodesha on Dec 23, 2005 15:10:56 GMT -5
There are a million players who are great in practice and stink in matches, and another million who shine in trivial matches and disappear in big matches. I am a big fan of objectivity and statistical evaluation of players, but no successful coach, regardless of how he/she markets a system to the players, ignores these basic realities of athletics.
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Post by vbfanatic on Dec 23, 2005 19:57:56 GMT -5
I doubt McLaughlin himself really cares if anyone considers him to be a genius. He has a system he likes, he sticks with it, and he seems to espouse it. Any coach that has success with whatever their preferred system is would be given similar praise from fans and media. Did Don Shaw use "the cauldron" when he was winning national championships at Stanford? People frequently considered him to be a genius as a coach. Did McLaughlin use "the cauldron" while he was at Kansas State and was he a genius back then with a team that wasn't as successful as his current Washington team? He's a very good and successful coach and his players predominantly seem to like him and believe in his system. McLaughlin could not get the type of player at K-State that he can get at Washington. K-State subscribes to the McGown philosphies and it has proven successful for them. Besides winning the Big 12 in 2003 with less athletic talent than some of the other schools in the Big 12, K-State has finished in the top 5 every year for the last 8 years in the Big 12 something no other program other than Nebraska can attest to.
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Post by calibro on Dec 23, 2005 23:52:10 GMT -5
Just to show that a coach has to have some common sense to make the cauldron successful. Arizona State coach, Brad Saindon was asked when being interviewed regarding his cauldron method before a match this season. Iff his team was in the finals and his best players had a bad week of practice, would he play his bench if they had won in points in practice....his answer was yes. His star players would be on the bench. NO other coach would do that. You cannot tell me thatWashington players did not have bad practices. But he kept the same basic line up all year.
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Post by Gorf on Dec 24, 2005 2:26:22 GMT -5
I doubt McLaughlin himself really cares if anyone considers him to be a genius. He has a system he likes, he sticks with it, and he seems to espouse it. Any coach that has success with whatever their preferred system is would be given similar praise from fans and media. Did Don Shaw use "the cauldron" when he was winning national championships at Stanford? People frequently considered him to be a genius as a coach. Did McLaughlin use "the cauldron" while he was at Kansas State and was he a genius back then with a team that wasn't as successful as his current Washington team? He's a very good and successful coach and his players predominantly seem to like him and believe in his system. McLaughlin could not get the type of player at K-State that he can get at Washington. K-State subscribes to the McGown philosphies and it has proven successful for them. Besides winning the Big 12 in 2003 with less athletic talent than some of the other schools in the Big 12, K-State has finished in the top 5 every year for the last 8 years in the Big 12 something no other program other than Nebraska can attest to. So, essentially you're saying that recruiting the a certain level of players is more important than the cauldron itself. Nebraska have finished higher than K-State almost every year and they don't appear to subscribe to the cauldron. As for Kansas State finishing in the top 5 for of the Big 12 for the past 8 years. Mike Hebert's teams have only finished outside the top 5 in the Big 10 twice in the past 20 years (once in 6th and once in 8th) and 11 of those yeras his teams finished 1st or 2nd. I don't think Mike subscribes to the cauldron and I'm sure he hasn't gotten the same calibre of recruits as Washington (and some of the other "big" programs) for many (if not most) of those years. How many of the previous several coaches of D1 national championship teams used the cauldron with their teams in those championship seasons? Dunning? Haley? Cook? Rose? Gimmillaro? (sp?) Shaw? I'll stick with my earlier statement that it isn't the system but the coach's belief in a specific system that will work for that coach and that coach's ability to get their team(s) to buy into the system.
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Post by cyberVBmidwest on Dec 24, 2005 13:00:31 GMT -5
Arizona State coach, Brad Saindon was asked when being interviewed regarding his cauldron method before a match this season. Iff his team was in the finals and his best players had a bad week of practice, would he play his bench if they had won in points in practice....his answer was yes. His star players would be on the bench. NO other coach would do that. ASU started 4 new players in its last match against Arizona including the libero. The libero ended up getting back into the rotation playing as a DS (and did a fantastic job) but I have not watched the entire match to see if the others eventually made it in. They lost 3-0 to Arizona (as expected) but had some fairly close scores.
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Post by neodesha on Dec 25, 2005 22:57:54 GMT -5
Another thing I do not like about a mindlessly strict application of the cauldron philosophy (as Saindon advocates) is that it discourages a player from working on her weaknesses. Why would player ever work on tooling, roll shots, hard angle, new passing techniques, whatever, if it is going to cut into one's practice success percentage and decrease playing time, even if it might make them a better player in the long run.
The other problem I have seen in its application is when 1st team goes against 2nd team, and those stats are part of the comparison. It artificially inflates one group's stats at the expense of the other.
Bottom line, it is extremely difficult to implement a truly objective system, and is potentially hazardous to team morale and an indivdual player's development if not done properly. Congrats to Washington for being so effective with it (although I agree with other posters that players, i.e. the setter and libero won the title), but the cauldron philosophy is already trickling down into club and high school programs where I have no confidence in its effective application--especially as it relates to player development. If this is the only way a coach can stimulate competitive fire in practice or evaluate player talent, then god help them, and the players.
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Post by cyberVBmidwest on Dec 26, 2005 17:23:22 GMT -5
Another thing I do not like about a mindlessly strict application of the cauldron philosophy ........ The other problem I have seen in its application is when 1st team goes against 2nd team, and those stats are part of the comparison. It artificially inflates one group's stats at the expense of the other. If you setup your drills and competition correctly, you can avoid most first team vs the second team issues by having the first team be required to get more "successes" in a row (i.e.: 5 kills for 1st team, 2 kills for second team) etc... than the second team to obtain a "point" in the practice/competitions (wash drill-like). PS: I am not advocating the system, just pointing out how to avoid the first team vs the second team balance issue..
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