Rankings

...matter.

Also, rankings don't matter.

20 teams go to nationals. Only one of them can win. Only eight make quarterfinals. Does it matter who the other 19 or 12 teams at nationals were?

It matters to those teams, but it's probably program dependent. In my eyes there are four categories of programs (who appear at nationals more than once). Teams that don't go to nationals, periodic qualifiers, perennial qualifiers, and title contenders.  If you're a periodic nationals qualifier, that probably means you're like Illinois. Some years you qualify for nationals, some years you don't.  The next steps above that are the programs who are always at nationals. Maybe they miss one year out of ten or so. Some years they'll contend for a title, others they won't. Carleton, Wisconsin, Colorado, Pittsburgh, Texas, Oregon, Florida...this list changes every couple of years, but these are the programs where if they didn't qualify for nationals, you'd say "Oh wow, _____ missed nationals this year!" However, just because they're there doesn't mean they're favored to win or even make semis. Obviously after that it follows that there are the title contenders. This has, potentially, the quickest turnover of the categories. You can go from being a title contender to finishing T-13 in a short time. For a few years, Wisconsin and Carleton were in semis and sometimes the finals, and the past few years one or the other hasn't made it past pre-quarters. (Note: this is somewhat shoddily fact-checked but I think it's legit; ideally I'd graph nationals finished over the past ten years; that would be awesome, actually...coming soon!)

In my mind, it's hard to move from not qualifying for nationals to winning a title. If the sport keeps growing and we hit a certain point of parity it will be possible, but until then, I think you have to migrate through tiers and give your guys experience. You have to taste nationals before you can beat Pitt at nationals. Once you're a perennial qualifier, you could jump from finishing T-17 to winning a title (Colorado got knocked out in pre-quarters before winning the title). I do think though that a program that can't consistently get to nationals will have a tough time winning a title until they can at least consistently get to nationals.

[That being said, I don't think the goal of quarters is unreasonable for us, provided we win the Great Lakes region. Obviously a team's nationals results mean the world to that team, it just means less and less to outsiders the higher the number by your name is.]

Anyway, today or yesterday or whenever it happened Cincinnati pulled out of Huck Finn after the USAU rankings had them at #14 in essentially the second-to-last set of rankings that can realistically be impacted by regular season results. They've gotten a lot of flak from the ultimate community, or certain groups in the ultimate community. All day I've been trying to answer the question "What would I have done in Cincinnati's shoes?" I still don't think I have an answer. Michigan isn't quite comparable to Pitt, but at this point the chalk would probably pick Michigan to win the region based on their regular season results compared to ours (and ignoring !history! or whatever...). So, if our region has one bid locked and we think we can keep another by dropping a mid-level tournament...I don't know what I'd do. I guess my point of rambling for the first few paragraphs was to say that if Cincinnati takes a bid from the Southeast and gives it to the Ohio Valley, that still leaves the SE with four bids. If all SE teams make semis, then we can make the case for Cincinnati truly "robbing" a "deserving" team of the chance to compete at nationals...but at that point, that's all it is, right? Just theoretics. The title contenders will go to nationals and contend for a title. All the rest of the teams are just there to experience nationals. You can make the argument about "Any given Sunday..." but Cincinnati figured out a way to [potentially] get to nationals and they're going to take that route. I'll still cheer for Lehigh in the Ohio Valley (nothing against Cincinnati, I just want to see a DIII team slay it) and I'll cheer for Auburn in the Southeast. Heck, I want to go to nationals. I'm sure those guys do, too. I don't fault them for wanting to do what everyone who's not on a perennial qualifying team wants to do.

Easterns is this weekend and it would be awesome to crush teams and turn heads, but realistically all that matters is figuring out how to play so that we can go undefeated at regionals. I think the Great Lakes getting two bids is outside the set of possible outcomes right now. Let's go.

Injuries

As I sat out from practice this past week I was left wondering if I would be in this position now if I had just taken the time to recover fully in the fall. I had strained my hamstring after Illinois Invite in October and instead of doing the smart thing and resting it and bringing it to full strength before returning to playing, I returned too soon, not only playing on it in practice but playing a full tournament on it as well at MLC. What would have been a 3-4 week injury went to a nagging season long one, preventing me from playing 100% when I was able to play and in my current situation, putting me on the sidelines for the next 3 weeks.

So why was it that I felt I needed to return sooner than I should have? Why was it that I played on it when I should have just sat out and continued strengthening it? Was it the pressure of tryouts and showing Stupca that I wasn’t a total scrub? Was it the pressure of my teammates?  Looking back to last year we might be able to see that team culture can have a lot to do with how one responds to injuries. There was a negative stigma about being hurt last year and this can help drive people to come back sooner than they should. Another driving factor is not wanting to let the team down. When injured you get to sit back and witness all of your teammates putting in work while you focus on recovery, its hard not to feel the desire to join them. This feeling is especially amplified around tournaments. You train all year for these few tournaments and having to sit on the sideline watching your teammates go to war without you is just rubbing salt in your wounds.

For an example, lets look at Greg’s injury progression from last year. Greg injured his knee at practice in the early spring and sat out for an extended amount of time letting it heal (good!). Greg then sat out for the majority of our first tournament before deciding to jump in during a close game. During the one point was in, he chased down a huck and re-aggravated the injury, putting him slightly for longer (bad). Come Easterns he was able to play a majority of the tournament before once again re-injuring his knee during the last game. This put him out until regionals where he eventually went for broke during our semifinal match up against Northwestern was able to play one point before getting scored on and falling back to square one once again.

The moral of this story and something I wish I would have considered more in the fall, is taking your full time to recover. You know your body, you know if you are healthy enough or not. If its even borderline something that could potentially sit you out for the rest of the season, take care of it the first time. Don’t risk injuring it again especially in a situation that doesn’t matter as much as regionals does. I believe all that Greg did was due to his love of the team and wanting to be able to help them win, but sometimes we need to step back and consider what really matters in the long run. Even though it may be hard to sit out as you watch your teammates grinding through practice and putting in the work, you have to think about the end result. Although it may suck to miss a regular season tournament, its better to do whatever it takes to ensure you can play when it matters come regionals. In my case I’ll be out for the next 3-4 weeks working on bringing my hamstring back to full strength. Its going to hurt not being able to play at Centex but if I can ensure my health for the rest of the season it will definitely be worth it. And in the meantime I’ll be doing everything within my power to expedite the healing process.