Volleyball and Pete Carroll

Well, Super Bowl XLIX (which looks like Mueslix to me...) is over and for followers of American football, it had an ending that will remain famous/infamous for a good long while and in the Internet age, means the creation of a bunch of memes like:

(List of good plays to call for Seattle at the end of the game)

 

or

 

 

Pete Carroll spent a ton of time Sunday night defending the decision and why it was smart to throw the ball and waste a down, and he's still catching grief for it today--probably will until he reaches another Super Bowl.

 

From the Patriots 1, time running out, Carroll chose to throw a ball, an inside slant that the defense jumped on, intercepted, and ended the game as a Patriots victory.  He's been criticized for not handing the ball to Marshawn Lynch (aka 'Beast Mode'), a giant running back who had already scored a touchdown and run for more than 100 yards on the day.  He'd even dragged a 350lb Patriots lineman (Vince Wilfork) behind him a couple of times.  Some of the computer geeks estimated Lynch's chance of scoring from the 1 to be near 80%--so he's got a 1/5 chance of failing.  He's going to get at least two tries, so probability suggests he's going to fail both times 1/5x5 times--1 in 25.  4%.  If I'm coaching, I'm taking the 96% chance of winning.

 

So what's this got to do with volleyball, Jim?  Fair question.

 

Carroll is known as a smart coach, a brilliant one.  He's won a collegiate national title and a Super Bowl.  And here with a 96% chance of winning--he goes the other way.  He got cute.  Not only did he not hand it off, he didn't let Wilson run, he didn't throw a fade to the corner (an almost impossible ball to intercept)--he ordered in a slant into the crowded middle of the field.  He. Got. Cute.

 

It got me thinking as I watched about that--you see coaches get cute all the time in sports, and volleyball's no different.

 

I saw a coach go up 21-5 in a volleyball match and decide to let her players start jump serving--not something they practiced much, but hey--it's 21-5, right?  Missed serve, run of a few points.  22-10.  Missed again.  23-16.  Missed another.  24-22.  Now it's panic mode, don't jump--"just get it in"...lollypop to the center of the court, sideout.  Three serves later--24-26.  The coach got mad at her players having blown such a big lead..they came out flustered, couldn't pass or hit or block, and lost the third game 25-11 (Illinois only plays best of three, and the deciding game is to 25, not 15...unless it's a tournament...stupid rules....)

 

Was that the players' fault?  Playing sound volleyball, they built a big lead--then got cute and blew it.

 

Three years ago (four?), my team was playing at a tournament and we got smeared in the first game (this is college, so 3/5)  We fall way behind in the second game, score a couple points and tells her players to stall...shoes start becoming untied, there's sweat on the floor that needs to be mopped up--she's trying to disrupt us--she wants a big win because we were ranked high and a dominating win against a ranked team always gets you noticed.  Instead, my players felt like they were being shown up and FINALLY decided to play.  Down 13-23, we won 26-24, then won the next game 25-20, then 25-10.  When we won?  The other coach made her players do sprints because they'd lost--never considering that they'd been smoking us until she got cute and made them start using stall tactics.

 

And, as always, I'm not an innocent, able to cast stones with no fear.  Uh uh.  I did it this past year and it cost us a match against a Top 3 team.  @#%@#$!!!!!

 

I used two primary lineups this year--those were sound volleyball things.  In this match, I used lineup #1 and we won 25-20, then lost 13-25.  I switched lineups to the alternate, we lost 13-25 again but the person I subbed in played well, so I stuck with the lineup and we won game 4, 25-18.  And then I went cute.

 

Usually, I'll either go with the same lineup for a game five, same starting spots and everything OR we'll start in the exact same spots we're in when game four ends.  I don't really worry about the other team and what they are doing--I always want us to focus on our side of the court.  So....we had one player who had hit really well so far in the match.  Instead of starting where MY players expected--we started with that hitter at left front (usually she started at middle back).  She'd ended the game at right front.

So out of nowhere, we are starting at a point we've never started a game at.  Strike one.  Doing that, I didn't think about my setting situation--she was starting at right front which meant she'd have to play defense immediately (another strike...) and it turns out that the great hitter had had two good games, two bad games hitting.  The most consistent was now in the back row--unable to affect the match right away.  Strike three.

 

Yeah, we lost.  10-15.  I didn't yell at the players though or anything.  I knew I pooched things about five points into the game, and spent most of the game being encouraging because they got down on themselves--even though it was a 100% coach screw up.  I got cute.

 

So now--I've got myself a little note in my computer (and I'll tape one to my desk)--going to have a meme of that Super Bowl: Don't Get Cute.