New club team

[Osage]

Bravo is the first team. Paragon is the second. You can guess the hierarchy in a number of ways. For example, Bravo played Open at Bluegrass, while Paragon played Premiere.

I'm pretty sure there are at least two other 18's teams.

[JDB2018]

On 4/16/2019 at 12:06 PM, Osage said:

Been saying that team was the real #1 18's team. My concern about the other group was that it was constituted to look good in warm-ups and on paper, but once the whistle sounded, I thought they would have first contact challenges.

Having said that, I am surprised that they've struggled as much as they have. Took a quick look at AES just now, and I can't find a single result to be proud of.

I agree.  18-1 was set up to look good on paper and warm-ups and now they are paying the price.

 

[TeeterTot]

Did anyone happen to see the results from Big South?  Looks like a rough outing for most mid Tennessee teams/clubs.

[clifford20]

 I haven't.  I don't even know how to do that.  It seems impossible to fund results.   I will make a guess....poorly. 

[Osage]

 

21 hours ago, TeeterTot said:

Did anyone happen to see the results from Big South?  Looks like a rough outing for most mid Tennessee teams/clubs.

 

Wow, you're not kidding. Alliance sent 16 teams, MidTN 6, and Clarksville 2. Of those 24, only 7 finished top half in their divisions (Alliance 13-2, 14-2, 14-3, 15-3 and 16-3, MidTN 14s and 16s). Since we were talking about them earlier, I did notice that the MidTN 13s beat the Alliance 13s pretty easily.

On the other hand, some of those fields were DEEP. Take a look at the 15, 16, and 17 Open fields... half of those teams are qualified. I'll say it again... we all know why TPV can't play qualifiers, but they're going to have to find a way around that at some point if they want to be truly relevant at the National level. This is where the top teams are competing.

Or maybe not. If all the major clubs in middle TN are JVA clubs, that doesn't provide families with much choice, does it. Might be better for Alliance to align itself tightly with USA / SRVA, in order to more clearly differentiate itself from TPV and Ethos. If they did that, maybe they could get some better seeds at Big South. 

Debate question: should clubs enter their teams to COMPETE at these events, or do you send teams to Qualifiers in order to QUALIFY? Just focusing on the Open teams, Alliance clearly isn't going to be qualifying an Open team at Big South. 

[Osage]

34 minutes ago, clifford20 said:

 I haven't.  I don't even know how to do that.  It seems impossible to fund results.   I will make a guess....poorly. 

Check Sportwrench. 

Which means, among other things, that these results are worthless from an AES rankings perspective.

[TeeterTot]

The Alliance 13-1 beat MidTN 13 in crossover play but got whipped in the Silver division game against MidTN.  

90% of parents do not know the difference between JVA/USA/SRVA and probably don't care. most, if not all, of the area clubs focus on AAU Nationals in Orlando because that all they've ever known.   What they do care about is being as competitive as possible in the tournaments they attend.  I say play your team where you are competitive.  Getting destroyed at these large tournaments is not fun for anyone and I say it does more harm than good compared to being competitive in non-Open divisions.  

[Osage]

I missed that crossover result for the 13s. 

Re JVA / AAU / USA... I agree that it's all the same to most parents, they just want to know what the EOY event is going to be. And families can count and plan around Orlando, for better or worse. But the 10% that do know the difference... those are the families I would want in my club. Give them a choice. I think Alliance or MidTN would do itself good by foregoing the JVA / AAU route, ceding that circuit to Ethos and TPV. Having the chance to compete Nationally in either USA or JVA / AAU would be good for middle TN volleyball in general. As things stand now, that choice isn't really available. 

The SRVA / USAV / Qualifier route isn't without its faults. I just don't think a club can consistently field top 50 level teams across age divisions, year after year, by just competing in JVA events.

I'm going to think about your point on competitiveness a bit. I still don't know where I fall on the question.  

 

[clifford20]

I tend to agree with TT.  Nothing worse then getting destroyed at big tournaments.   but if you are competitive, then ok, play open.     The problem is recruiting.  If you have an average to below average team, but let's say with a couple of high level recruits--they need to be in open for that.   Even though most talent finds it's way out I think.  as usual I could be wrong on that too.    

 

I am not really comfortable knowing the differences.   I agree being able to count on Orlando is a good draw.  And they get recruited very well too. 

[Osage]

16 hours ago, clifford20 said:

Nothing worse then getting destroyed at big tournaments

Been thinking about this competitiveness question. That is, do you go to big events (Bluegrass, Qualifiers, Nationals, AAU Championships) in order to potentially win the event? Or compete against matched competition, knowing you are probably going to win as many as you lose?

The easy cases are on the extreme ends of the spectrum. As clifford and TT point out, nobody is getting any better losing (or winning) by blowout margins. If your team's point ratio for a given event is in the .6 range or lower (meaning, you consistently scored 15 points or less in your games), you were probably in over your head. On the other extreme, if you are one of the top 20 or 50 teams in the country, you need to be entering these tournaments with the goal to win the most competitive division. 

But what about the large space between those endpoints? After thinking about this a couple of days, I've decided the bar for me is: CAN you finish top half in a given field? If yes, you're playing in the right division.

Let's take a case in point: should the Alliance 15-1 team have played Open at Big South? 15O was a tough, tough field: 9 teams entered the event with a bid already in hand, and 3 more teams left with Open bids. Alliance finished 26th out of 32, so on first glance, you'd say they shouldn't played that field. But they were seeded 28th, and their fate was sealed on the first day when they lost 15-12 in the third to a team that ended up finishing 10th overall (and had previously qualified at the 15 USA level).

They were ThatClose to locking in a top half finish. So in retrospect... yes, playing Open was appropriate for them.

 

[TeeterTot]

It's ironic you used the Alliance 15-1 team has an example as that team two years ago (13-1) was the only 1 team that I'm aware of in Alliance history that did not play in the Open division at Nationals.  They played in the next division down and still did not perform well.  

[clifford20]

I think most 1's teams should play open.  But now with the spreading of talent in middle Tennessee, i'm just not sure.  I think many times the director or the coach would like to consider not playing open, but I think a good bit of parents would be angry about it.  Especially 14 and up.  I agree with Osage on the 15 threshold--good barometer. if you can't score 15--way over head. As long as the teams compete... I am good with it.  only about 4-5 teams are actually competing to win those open tournaments anyway--maybe less.