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Post by BigTenVball on Aug 26, 2004 11:09:26 GMT -5
Did anyone notice that EVERY team from Pool B advanced!!
When the #4 team starts beating the #1 team in crossover (in 4 games at that), FIVB needs to look at doing pools differently!
They seemed pretty lopsided.
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Post by jbspaw on Aug 26, 2004 11:53:14 GMT -5
are they seeded or drawn?? I don't remember.  |
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Post by hhandd on Aug 26, 2004 11:59:42 GMT -5
Pools are seeded according to world rankings... so Pool B, had #1 Brazil, #2 Italy, #5 Russia, #6 USA... while Pool A had the host country Greece, #3 Serbia/Mont #4 France (who didn't get out of their pool) etc....
Having #1 and #2 in the same pool hopefully assures that they will NOT meet in the semifinals... you want them to meet in the finals.
The difference this year was that #5 Russia was actually at the time of the start of the Olympics perhaps really #3 in the world...and thus Pool B really loaded up.
The US got a nice draw in the quarters by getting #12 Greece... but now they play into #1 Brazil in the semis...
The match ups all come down to how you do in pool play... just ask the women's team... they were probably 5 teams that were good enough to win the gold... and the women got matched up against one of them in the quarters.... because of their match record in the prelim round.
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Post by sonofbarcelonabob on Aug 26, 2004 12:07:21 GMT -5
Actually the way the pools are lopsided is done intentionally by the FIVB to prevent the #1 team (world-ranking) and #2 team from meeting until the finals, assuming no upsets.
The problem with doing the seeding this way is when higher seeds don't get the job done in pool-play. That's what happened to the USA Women. Same thing happened in beach volleyball where the Brazilian women were favored to take 2 medals, but one team got upset which forced a Brazil #1 vs. Brazil #2 match in the quarterfinals and knocked one team out of the medal round.
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