What I'd Do If I Were Playing Florida.
On D:
Mix in trash zone with force backhand and Force Middle. Look, most
college teams always play force flick by default. But against FLA,
that's dumb - Gibson's the game on that team, and his best weapons are
flick and hammer. So neutralize those with a force backhand.
You mix in the others to keep them from getting too comfortable... and
FM is good in that it generally reduces the yardage available to give
n go's (which they run a lot, since Gibson wants to touch it every
other pass) and forces most hucks into the stack / help coverage.
On O:
PLAY WITH AN OBSERVER. Call "DOUBLE TEAM" early and often.
Their 4-man Z, which they run all the damn time, is WAY too close to
the disc (at least, they were all the time when I saw them). You need
to be vocal about calling that violation - don't just accept it. Call
it, every time, over and over. It's a rule that's in the books for a
reason - to prevent D from getting an advantage it shouldn't have over
the O. Not making that call EVERY TIME means you're ceding that
advantage.
And getting an observer there is a good way to make sure they abide by
that 10-foot line after you make that call.
Florida is a great team. If you get matched up against them, it's
gonna be a tough game. Doing dumb things (playing into their
strengths on O, enhancing their D strength by being timid about making
calls) is gonna make it tougher.
Here are a couple other things that might help...
Florida seems to be weak in the very first game in the morning. I
dunno why but they just dont get up for it as well...maybe its the
mcdonalds for breakfast.
I think when UDel beat them last year it was the first game of the day
and I a few other losses, or almost losses in the past couple years in
that first game too. I duno what time the Arizona game happened.
Anyone know. So if you're lucky enough to have the first game of the
day, take advantage.
Also they basically play only 8-9 people the whole game. So it would
be a good idea to get legs in on D and try to wear them out. And rest
your own studs as much as possible. This is probably a reason for why
they play zone, so they dont have to run as much.
seriously......bang' em a little.
make that 8-9 man rotation mean something.
or, just get beat.
Arizona was a couple of games into the day, but that was because of
dominance of Kerschner. Just watch the clips from the Callahan post.
This is terrible zone advice. If you want to make Nationals more
exciting, the addition of 50 observer-mediated "double team" calls
will be excruciating.
To beat a 4-man cup, you need to take advantage of the open space that
is created down field by throwing hammers. If your current players
don't have hammers, get working on it - you don't have much time. If
you still can't throw hammers by Friday, you'll be best off using the
blade. Ben Wiggins used this approach to make it to finals. The
crowd gets steadily drunker at Nationals as you progress through the
tournament, so while their calls to "do it" or "taste it" are probably
well-founded on Friday, think a little on Saturday, and completely
ignore them on Sunday (c.f. Ben Wiggins).
Tournament Prediction: Illinois wins 6 straight DGPs.
Player to watch: Pavan "Air Snake" Saguru, he is the actual
reincarnation of Gabriel "Shank" Saunke
"Key to Victory": Sleep
Women's side: Michigan v Ottawa (at some point, pools not up yet)
More time to throw is a good thing. Advancing up the field due to
Misconduct Penalties is a good thing. Demonstrating a deficiency in
the observer system of not issuing enough TMFs in the face of
egregious rules infractions is a good thing.
Hammers are good, but when they were playing at Regionals, I noticed
Gibson, who was playing deep-deep, liked to poach way in to take away
some of the prime hammer real estate, while leaving the far endzone
pretty open. One trick UNCW pulled to counter this (perhaps not
consciously prepared, though) was to set up a dump both behind and to
the side of the cup, toss an easy swing to the dump, who then ripped a
flat laser huck to the endzone for the score, such that Gibson never
had a chance to catch up.
Do that a couple times, and you'll either make Kurt respect the deep a
bit more, opening up space for hammers in the middle, or just make him
really angry. When UNCW did it, Kurt started yelling at his cup for
letting off hucks, when really, there wasn't much they could do.
-BFG
I think, the onus -should- be on the team violating the rules for any
"excruciating" moments. No one blamed the Magic/Lakers/Heat/Suns for
the excruciating Hack-A-Shaq, which has become a universally reviled
tactic. But then again, the players don't need to care about exciting,
they need to care about winning.