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Post by beachcoach on Apr 1, 2024 13:43:48 GMT -5
In their last 4 events, Poland 1 has stomped Andy/Miles twice, beaten Germany twice, and beaten Italy 1. In their last 4 Cuba has beaten the Bellos and Pedro/Guto remember I said the CUB I was evaluating was the Cuba from this past two weeks. As I said, we'll find out if it was out of the norm when they play in Guadalajara and Tepic next.
you better be careful with thos opinions... I'll tell on you to Thevolleymaster if you continue, and get you banned.
The thing the Cubans have which no one else has as much is potential trajectory. I agree they haven’t beaten consistently the top tier but with the two results in the bag and maybe they get a good norceca result and a late elite 16 run to Ostrava and they start peaking at the right time. Add in the nerves and pressure some teams have. Cuba while combusting on the match points have courage when others haven’t. Def a long shot but at that age (real or otherwise and his behaviour says maybe he is still young) the potential strides and where they end up could be very different than anyone else in the race.
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Post by burnabyjo on Apr 1, 2024 17:41:12 GMT -5
I'm interested to see how the Cuban guys and Evandro do in Guadalajara. 1566 meters of elevation, for the Americans on here that is about 14.27 football fields! I'm not sure if those serves will be able to help them out so much, but it will be another fun event regardless.
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Post by blackmambabeto on Apr 1, 2024 22:38:50 GMT -5
I'm interested to see how the Cuban guys and Evandro do in Guadalajara. 1566 meters of elevation, for the Americans on here that is about 14.27 football fields! I'm not sure if those serves will be able to help them out so much, but it will be another fun event regardless. how funny
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Post by ajm on Apr 1, 2024 23:48:40 GMT -5
On The Road to Paris today Travis was talking about all the forfeits in pool play and how there’s no incentive to win your pool. But he also said in order to forfeit you have to get checked out by a medical provider, who must also check you out again before you can play the next day. I kind of find this hard to believe, but if it’s true it’s even more of a farce than we all thought.
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Post by acrossthepond on Apr 2, 2024 1:39:54 GMT -5
2 things are clear to me: - Cuba will finish within the top 18 in the Olympic rankings (still had my doubts after last week) - Nobody will be happy if they have to face Cuba at the Olympics. They might be the biggest dark horse at the Olympic Games
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Post by COVAlove on Apr 2, 2024 9:42:33 GMT -5
On The Road to Paris today Travis was talking about all the forfeits in pool play and how there’s no incentive to win your pool. But he also said in order to forfeit you have to get checked out by a medical provider, who must also check you out again before you can play the next day. I kind of find this hard to believe, but if it’s true it’s even more of a farce than we all thought. That they have to go to these lengths tells us that they are apparently all lying to medical officials in order to not play, or the medical folks don’t care and are taking any excuse to let them skip. Either way it makes it even easier to despise the trend.
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Post by houdini on Apr 2, 2024 10:05:01 GMT -5
2 things are clear to me: - Cuba will finish within the top 18 in the Olympic rankings (still had my doubts after last week) - Nobody will be happy if they have to face Cuba at the Olympics. They might be the biggest dark horse at the Olympic Games I remember in Rio the Cubans knocked out Samoilovs and Smedins - at that time nr. 2 (or 3?) in the world. Nivaldo/Gonzalez came out of NORCECA and won their pool 3:0.
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Post by houdini on Apr 2, 2024 10:07:12 GMT -5
maybe someone could calculate the men's attack efficiency. It would be interesting to see the top performers. These were the women.
Top attackers from semifinalists. a few top 1/4 finalists and the Klingers and Zoe Verge-Depre who all had good efficiency ratings. By the eye test it looked as if Ludwig performed better, but she also had plenty of mistakes.
Points minus errors divided by total attemopts. en.volleyballworld.com/beachvolleyball/competitions/beach-pro-tour/2024/challenge/saquarema-bra/statistics/women/best-attackers/
Hegeile .536 R. Klinger .522 Xue .500 Z. Verge-D. .500 D. Klinger .500
A. Verge-D. .438 Vitoria .437 Mader .436 Bobner .434 Xia .431 Talita .429 Taiana .408 Bukovec .402 Lippmann .361 Bansley .311 Ludwig .303
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Post by dunninla3 on Apr 2, 2024 10:15:05 GMT -5
By the eye test it looke if Ludwig performed better, but she also had plenty of mistakes. Ludwig .303 There were sets where I'm sure she was negative. Other sets where she seemed close to the Ludwig who won gold at WC and Olympics. Really up and down.
TBH she seems to be up and down in most of the tournaments where I've seen her and Lippmann play. I'm rooting for her. Defense is played differently these days because of her. Maybe eight tournaments ago, I expected rust. But here we are almost a year in, and her inconsistency between sets is crazy.
What concerns me most is a perfect Option set Lippmann gave her in (I think it was) set one in their semifinal, she was hitting way negative in that point, and she refused to take that Option even with no block, and set Lippmann instead where there was time for the block to set up on her. That crack in confidence is very un-Ludwig like.
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Post by burnabyjo on Apr 2, 2024 12:40:12 GMT -5
2 things are clear to me: - Cuba will finish within the top 18 in the Olympic rankings (still had my doubts after last week) - Nobody will be happy if they have to face Cuba at the Olympics. They might be the biggest dark horse at the Olympic Games I remember in Rio the Cubans knocked out Samoilovs and Smedins - at that time nr. 2 (or 3?) in the world. Nivaldo/Gonzalez came out of NORCECA and won their pool 3:0. I believe it was a messy pool with Cuba, Evandro/Pedro, Saxton/Schalk and Sam/Sme in a 3 way tie for spots 2-4 and Sam/Sme lost on a points ratio tie breaker
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Post by burnabyjo on Apr 2, 2024 12:45:32 GMT -5
Brouwer/Meeuwsen, POL1, maybe this year's Cherif/Ahmed, and Andre. -- at his home court, ... CUB played them even. When I said ARE a top 10 team, that is present tense. These past two weeks that is evident. What will be, who knows. We'll know more in Guadalajara, which is a stacked Challenger b/c Andre, Evandro, and Boermans will all be there.
Brouwer/Meeuwsen arent on that list. Top 10 based on their 2024 results seems like a reach. Consider these two teams, lets call them Cuba and Team B. In 2024, both played the two Brazilian Challenges and had near identical match winning percentages. (Cuba was slightly ahead with a .642 winning percentage to Team B's .636% winning percentage, game winning percentages also very close) Both have lost 3 matches to mid-level Challenge teams this year. Those matches are: Both played the Brazilian WC and lost in Saquarema Both played the Bellos and lost Both lost one other match to a mid-level Challenge team. (Cuba to Krattinger/Beer in 2, Team B to Chase/Miles). Cuba also lost to Brazil 1 and 2, Team B has only lost the 3 matches above. At this point, there is nothing in these results to separate these two teams. But as you correctly point out, Cuba played Andre/George very close in an elimination game. So lets add that to our equation. Cuba played Andre/George close in an elimination match and lost. Team B also played Andre/George in an elimination match and sent them home.So what is the difference between these two teams in their performances this year? Maybe its wins. Cubas two best wins are against Pedro/Guto and one of the Austrians Team B has beaten Andre/George and Ukraine. BTW Team B is the Dutch 4. We can talk about who beat who, win %, quality of wins etc. But at the end of the day Cuban's made back to back finals above all the other teams that are fighting for the last couple olympic spots. Plenty of teams that are desperate for a finish like these at this point in the qualifying period and they did it in back to back weekends.
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Post by blackmambabeto on Apr 2, 2024 14:43:32 GMT -5
On The Road to Paris today Travis was talking about all the forfeits in pool play and how there’s no incentive to win your pool. But he also said in order to forfeit you have to get checked out by a medical provider, who must also check you out again before you can play the next day. I kind of find this hard to believe, but if it’s true it’s even more of a farce than we all thought. That they have to go to these lengths tells us that they are apparently all lying to medical officials in order to not play, or the medical folks don’t care and are taking any excuse to let them skip. Either way it makes it even easier to despise the trend. was surprised by Travis' explanation of the process, thought it was something more lax but definitely not from the explanation
crazy they all do it with those protocols
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Post by guest2 on Apr 2, 2024 15:52:54 GMT -5
Brouwer/Meeuwsen arent on that list. We can talk about who beat who, win %, quality of wins etc. But at the end of the day Cuban's made back to back finals above all the other teams that are fighting for the last couple olympic spots. Plenty of teams that are desperate for a finish like these at this point in the qualifying period and they did it in back to back weekends. Its exactly because we are talking about back to back events that we need to talk about quality of wins etc. The smaller the sample size the more important draw becomes. Lets compare another team to Cuba. Chase/Miles finished 4th and 5th in the same two events where Cuba finished 2nd twice. By your standard, that means Cuba outplayed them. But both teams were eliminated by Evandro in Recife and Andre in Saquarema. Chase/Miles just had bad luck in the draw. Other than bad luck in the draw they have outplayed Cuba this year, including qualifying in Doha, when Cuba didn't come close. An even easier example is the Verge-Depre sisters. Both have a 9th and a 5th in Challenges this year, so dead even. But Anouk got 9th in Doha and Esme was 13th. That result might mean Anouk qualifies and Esme stays home for Paris. In Doha, Anouk went 0-3 with a forfeit win. She had a game record of 1-6 Esme went 1-2 and beat the team that won the event. She also took a game off TKN and had a game record of 4-4
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Post by spideas on Apr 2, 2024 15:56:29 GMT -5
We can talk about who beat who, win %, quality of wins etc. But at the end of the day Cuban's made back to back finals above all the other teams that are fighting for the last couple olympic spots. Plenty of teams that are desperate for a finish like these at this point in the qualifying period and they did it in back to back weekends. Its exactly because we are talking about back to back events that we need to talk about quality of wins etc. The smaller the sample size the more important draw becomes. Lets compare another team to Cuba. Chase/Miles finished 4th and 5th in the same two events where Cuba finished 2nd twice. By your standard, that means Cuba outplayed them. But both teams were eliminated by Evandro in Recife and Andre in Saquarema. Chase/Miles just had bad luck in the draw. Other than bad luck in the draw they have outplayed Cuba this year, including qualifying in Doha, when Cuba didn't come close. An even easier example is the Verge-Depre sisters. Both have a 9th and a 5th in Challenges this year, so dead even. But Anouk got 9th in Doha and Esme was 13th. That result might mean Anouk qualifies and Esme stays home for Paris. In Doha, Anouk went 0-3 with a forfeit win. She had a game record of 1-6 Esme went 1-2 and beat the team that won the event. She also took a game off TKN and had a game record of 4-4 Appreciate the conversation and the insight... The one thing I know for sure... I would not want to have to beat the Cubans in the Continental Qualifying event... Our friends from Canada are certainly hoping that the Cubans make it on points...
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Post by guest2 on Apr 2, 2024 15:59:08 GMT -5
Its exactly because we are talking about back to back events that we need to talk about quality of wins etc. The smaller the sample size the more important draw becomes. Lets compare another team to Cuba. Chase/Miles finished 4th and 5th in the same two events where Cuba finished 2nd twice. By your standard, that means Cuba outplayed them. But both teams were eliminated by Evandro in Recife and Andre in Saquarema. Chase/Miles just had bad luck in the draw. Other than bad luck in the draw they have outplayed Cuba this year, including qualifying in Doha, when Cuba didn't come close. An even easier example is the Verge-Depre sisters. Both have a 9th and a 5th in Challenges this year, so dead even. But Anouk got 9th in Doha and Esme was 13th. That result might mean Anouk qualifies and Esme stays home for Paris. In Doha, Anouk went 0-3 with a forfeit win. She had a game record of 1-6 Esme went 1-2 and beat the team that won the event. She also took a game off TKN and had a game record of 4-4 Appreciate the conversation and the insight... The one thing I know for sure... I would not want to have to beat the Cubans in the Continental Qualifying event... Our friends from Canada are certainly hoping that the Cubans make it on points... Definitely agree. Cuba is the only team that is even slightly unfamiliar at this point and their physicality alone makes them more dangerous to Elite level teams than almost any Challenge level team other than Evandro (who can just serve anyone into oblivion every now and then.)
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