Best of the best.
Remembering what happened in year 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGdWRsoSutcthere was more than a little soul searching afterwards, and a little trepidation about what would happen this time.
We spent a year cleaning up our game, playing hard. But would it matter against very strong Dallas opposition on their home court?
AWVP Seal Teams Alpha and Bravo decided to gear up and find out what would happen at Mansioncourt this time (the history buffs in the crew might get the analogy).
Alpha Team: The Big 4: Mikey, Ford, Dub Javi, who chose the other 2, after much secret deliberation--LJ, Jess;
Bravo Team: Scott, Dan, Monkey, Chief, and vet but new traveling squad member Navy, with rotating player from A
I must admit I was a little confused when we arrived not only on time, but early on Day 1 of Dallas Challenge. I mean, that's a miracle in Panda Land. Ultra organized Dallas was somewhat unready--court not set up, late arriving to the dance, short a player. So we loaned them Attorney Scott, one of our best, which was actually a smart move, both because of mix it up ethos and because that gave them an A team what was pretty much as strong as the last one we faced.
Weather was cold (like 72-75), but at least no rain. Day 1 was glorious:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YeVXxCWHLQGame film will tell for sure, and Dan has total coverage, but 2 Austin teams faced one Dallas team often + Scott, which looked pretty A to me, for about 3 hours. Austin A beat Dallas A 15-5, and team Bravo managed to beat them as well. Overall, Austin won more than Dallas on this day. Quite a turnaround from last year.
Darth Nowell, who inexplicably was not there on day 1, called this a "near tie." I'll humbly say he was either in deNowell, or was deNowellifying the results.
So I kind of figured Dallas Sith would gather reinforcements and strike back on Sunday. Sho nuf.
The sun graced us with it's presence (I guess, because even at 85 it's freaking hot in that valley obstacle) on Day 2--tournament day, apparently. As I was in the dark through the whole trip, in that no light was shined on what was going on from the get go.
OK, so now we fight for real. Darth Nowell sure as shit makes the trains run on time up there. Austin B was fed into the meat grinder with 3 straight games to start the tourney. Lost them all. Austin A underperformed compared to day 1. This time around Dallas brought 2 full teams. Mostly familiar faces from last year. But this time around, their B team was a lot better and scrappier. Clearly there was a Vets vs Grizzlies style grudge match a brewin here.
And guess what? Last year's Dallas B took the tourney! Congrats to them. It looks to me from an outsider's perspective that they'd been trying to snatch the crown for a long time.
Then LJ lipped in. Now that the "tournament" is over, why not bracket. With noting on the line, Austin B "nerds" team, with only a couple of tall guys, beat * the tournament winners.
* is that Dan probably "lifted" and didn't call it. I only saw it out of the corner of my eye, but it looked pretty lifty from Dallas standards. Oops. If it turns out to be true, I expect Dan will put LIFT in giant red letters on the video.
But these things happen...
I think it was a mistake for Austin A to retreat to the poolhouse on Sunday after losing, rather than watching what's going on in the court. Minus the Dan miss on a self call, we're very self conscious about what we do up there. As an outside observer, with Navy as a second outsider who can corroborate, sometimes I saw some things that the locals decided not to call when they were fighting each other. Just sayin...
We do the same things, and they are basically us in terms of experience. All you had to do is listen to David (guy in the white hat on Dallas B, I mean tournament winning team) who was also there last year, describing what happens when they deign to descend on the public pool--the Village:
Mayhem, boobery, and slaughter ensues. A lotta young bloods want to get in and impress their girlfriends, and instead end up not even rotating, and being shocked that the game is over already. But hey, you gotta go find fresh blood who might be able to play, right?
Sound familiar???
So, there are the similarities, here's the differences: Dallas is an older, more technically proficient, forward driving dominate the net on offense and defense minded game.
They are great fighters, but we fight great. Our unorthodox and improvisational style confuses them. Fighting an awkward fighter makes you look awkward. We have certain other game advantages that I won't give away on the public forum, but have been discussed within the traveling squad.
We also start slow and tight, but loosen up as games go on--I've always called that the playing pool better with a buzz on factor, and that we often play for 6 hours or so 2 days a week, so we have a bit more endurance.
Darth Nowell's commentary on the tourney that Dallas technically won, with Dallas playing Dallas, was amusing: "If the results keep going the way they're going, we may have to suspend this tournament." That's a great deal of respect, for both Dallas B that won the tourney and AWVP Austin, which is rapidly approaching parity, even though we are much shorter.
I've put this on the chat list before, but I might as well share it here as well--a private pool is both a blessing and a curse. White hat David said the same thing--if all you do year after year is play each other, you'll get good games, but not anything new. And so far, social media is only sporadically getting any of us something new...
At a big public pool, there will be players, some of them living players (h/t Mikey/Simpsons). And, at least for me, both the haters and the worshipers that you physically run into keep my love of the game warm.
My favorite line this year was from Megan, who apparently has both buns and sense:
"You guys dominate the court, as you should. But do you realize that everyone out here is watching you, and want to be like you?"
That IS something, actually!
But I digress.
I won't go much into game analysis. That's for game film viewing. But I will say this: as much as it pains me, because he was kind of on the bubble, was a controversial pick for several reasons, LJ put in an above average performance--for a change! So he's the Dennis Rodman of this league--doesn't show up very often, but can play big in big games. Fair enough. Good job.
We all played way better than we did last year. But there is still much room for improvement. Agreed?
For future contests, I recommend more transparency, preparation, and unity. I understand the Big 4 are used to playing big, but not making big decisions about who starts A and who plays B. This will become even more difficult when we start thinking about including sanders like Baker, Bumble Bee, Georgie, and Land/Sand Jesus in the mix. My suggestion is this: put your egos aside. Darth Nowell has a certain point to his instructions: bring your best teams and best game, put the pedal to the metal and win big.
Austin B very nearly beat Austin A in Dallas. And it's not like getting even mo better players and mo of them will make our chances of winning, A or B, in Dallas any worse.
In future communications, I propose we refer to our opponents as "AWVP Dallas" and that we play twice a year.
Good times. Good times. Thank you generous hosts!