Rollerhockey Defeats LSU, Takes Championship

[wcd35]

Nice shoutout on Stevie P's show today Turbine!!

Just to let everyone know, the pools have been set and we know our opponents for the opening round. We will be going up against:

UC Santa Barbara - 12-6-2 Western playoff champions (2nd place reg season.) California teams are always very tough opponents
Stony Brook - 9-9-2 East coast 3rd place team.
FIU - 9-8-1 Went 1-4-1 all season against Florida who we beat the only time we played them. Runners up in playoffs

Looking at this, we really should finish no worse than 2nd but we need to win the group to get a good seed for the elimination parts. We just need to get to Philly ready to play our game like we did in Atlanta earlier in the year.

Of the teams we play, we are the only one that led our league all year and got it done in the playoffs. None of these teams were the regular season champs and only UCSB won in the playoffs.

[CajunFun]

_ Thanks for your history lessen and for the sake of history only:

I must be wrong, but seems I recall a Final 4 trip for LSU in the early 1950ies and a Top 10 ranking then as well.

I'm not the history buff some might be, so I could be wrong. _

That supports my point, exactly. You made a Final Four, and did nothing with it after. Which proves what I was saying, you weren't interested in basketball.

...that is, until somebody else in Louisiana was threatening to pass you up in something.

[wcd35]

Also, thanks to KLFY for coming out to practice yesterday and doing a story on the team for the 6 and 10 PM news yesterday.

[Membertou]

_ Thanks for your history lessen and for the sake of history only:

I must be wrong, but seems I recall a Final 4 trip for LSU in the early 1950ies and a Top 10 ranking then as well.

I'm not the history buff some might be, so I could be wrong. _

To say nothing of the fact that LSU was forced kicking and screaming to add women's softball (and to kick up their women's basketball funding) by a Title IX lawsuit. But then, why allow the facts to mess up a good story?

[CajunFun]

_ To say nothing of the fact that LSU was forced kicking and screaming to add women's softball (and to kick up their women's basketball funding) by a Title IX lawsuit. But then, why allow the facts to mess up a good story? _

To say nothing of the fact that when UL was going to the WCWS, LSU supporters repeatedly said, "Oh, we're not interested in softball."

That all changed, of course, when they started their own program, hired our coach away, attracted record crowds to their games, announced repeatedly, "National Championship in four years!" and committed a fortune to build a new facility.

But now? After we eliminated them from their own Super Regional, made the WCWS, and are currently ahead of them in the polls?

It's dejà vu all over again...

Now they're saying, "Oh, we're not interested in softball."

[4LSU]

_ That supports my point, exactly. You made a Final Four, and did nothing with it after. Which proves what I was saying, you weren't interested in basketball.

...that is, until somebody else in Louisiana was threatening to pass you up in something. _

I pointed out that LSU had a Top 10 and Final 4 team in the decade before the UL one. Perhaps it was cause LSU had success in the 50ies that the Cajuns became interested in the 60ies....just trying to follow your thought process.

Anyway, if the Cajuns, UNO, Tech or whoever caused us to see the light/open the door for our modest success...I thank each and all.

"After we eliminated them from their own Super Regional, made the WCWS, and are currently ahead of them in the polls?"

Congrats on doing all of that and I hope you make it back to the WCWS. There is always more interest/chatter when you win. I don't think we have the market cornered there, but when you have 1600 at a Wednesday nite game I don't think that shows a lack of interest in softball either, but each to our own.

[LSUalum1]

I thought LSU Softball would be awful this year, especially with Hofer injured the whole season, but it looks like Yvette is doing her best coaching job since being at LSU. After sweeping Alabama Wed. and playing Number 8 Georgia tough Sunday, maybe we can host a regional.

Next year's team should be pre-season top 10 for sure. Lots of talent coming in.

[CajunFun]

_ I pointed out that LSU had a Top 10 and Final 4 team in the decade before the UL one. Perhaps it was cause LSU had success in the 50ies that the Cajuns became interested in the 60ies....just trying to follow your thought process.

Anyway, if the Cajuns, UNO, Tech or whoever caused us to see the light/open the door for our modest success...I thank each and all.

"After we eliminated them from their own Super Regional, made the WCWS, and are currently ahead of them in the polls?"

Congrats on doing all of that and I hope you make it back to the WCWS. There is always more interest/chatter when you win. I don't think we have the market cornered there, but when you have 1600 at a Wednesday nite game I don't think that shows a lack of interest in softball either, but each to our own. _

Please, don't prevaricate. I appreciate your comments, but don't try to distract readers from my central thesis. Let me state it more clearly:

LSU showed no real interest in any these sports, until they were passed up by another Louisiana school.

You made a Final Four, 20 years before UL made the Top 10? Great!

But the fact that you didn't sustain that initiative shows that it was a just a fluke: you were lucky getting a good coach, lucky in assembling good players. If there had been a deliberate move by LSU to compete in basketball-- as there was in the '70's, after UL passed you up-- you would have seen more success thereafter.

This is my whole thesis about LSU, and all of Louisiana: defense wins championships. When converted into the political arena, it results in exactly what we see in Louisiana, the "crabs in the barrel" phenomenon. I don't have to produce any progress. If I can stop you, I win by default.

Defense (stopping everyone else) without a lot of offense (progress, leadership) wins. You saw it in the 2000 Football NC.

But you also saw in under Dale Brown. Remember Dale? He invented the game of "Grab the lead and effectively stop the game by holding onto the ball."

Don't forget, the Shot Clock was invented almost entirely because of LSU.

It's certainly not true of everyone at LSU. But IMHO, the corporate culture at the ersatz Flagship is, "Don't do anything productive until someone in the state makes you look bad."

[4LSU]

"Please, don't prevaricate. I appreciate your comments, but don't try to distract readers from my central thesis. Let me state it more clearly:

LSU showed no real interest in any these sports, until they were passed up by another Louisiana school.

You made a Final Four, 20 years before UL made the Top 10? Great!

But the fact that you didn't sustain that initiative shows that it was a just a fluke.......":

Oh, I might be a tad slow, but I think I can keep up with this thesis of yours and other ones you put forth as well. I just don't see things as black and white as you seem to and neither do I see where it really matters what/who came 1st. But if it does to you...great. I don't care why our interest in baseball picked up and we had some good fortune, I only care that it did and we did. If I have UNO to thank for it, that's fine and having them to thank wouldn't bother me in the least.

As to my misleading the readers, I simply stated a well known and true fact. Success/Top 10 rankings in basketball in this state did not begin with the Cajuns....not that it matters to me where it began. You are welcome to see a Top 10 ranking or a Final 4 appearence as a "fluke" if you so wish, each to our own. I don't think that way.

The weather is beautiful...enjoy your weekend.

[CajunBoudin]

But you also saw in under Dale Brown. Remember Dale? He invented the game of "Grab the lead and effectively stop the game by holding onto the ball."

Don't forget, the Shot Clock was invented almost entirely because of LSU._

Your knowledge of college basketball history is severely lacking. Dean Smith and North Carolina invented the four-corners strategy and the shot clock was instituted because of him. They even called it the "Dean Smith Clock".

Dale Brown only played four corners at the end of games and it cost him many leads and even blew games playing that nonsense.

Four corners offense
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


The four corners offense is an offensive strategy for stalling in basketball. Four of the players stand in the corners of the offensive half-court and the fifth dribbles the ball in the middle. Most of the time the point guard stays in the middle, but the middle player would periodically switch, temporarily, with one of the corner players.

It was a strategy that was used in college basketball prior to the institution of the shot clock.

The team running the offense typically would seek to score, but only on extremely safe shots. The players in the corners might try to make back door cuts, or the point guard could drive the lane.

Even if the team wanted to hold the ball until the end of the game, some such strategy was necessary since the rules did not (and still don't) permit a player to hold the ball for more than five seconds while closely guarded. So some mechanism to facilitate safe passes would be needed, which the four corners provided. There were other slowdown strategies, but the four corners was the most well known.

It was most frequently used to retain a lead by holding on to the ball until the clock ran out. The trailing team would be forced to spread their defense in hopes of getting a steal, which often permitted easy drives to the basket. Sometimes it would be employed throughout the game to reduce the number of possessions in hopes of getting an upset against a stronger team.

The "five seconds closely guarded" rule was originally introduced partially to prevent stalling, and other rules changes were made to the college rules through the 1970s in hopes of eliminating stalling without using a shot clock, as the NBA had used since the 1954-55 season. (Thus the four corners has always been purely a strategy of high school and college basketball.) There was a perception that the NBA shot clock didn't permit time to work the ball to get a good shot, and that it would reduce the opportunity for varied styles of play.

The offense was developed and popularized by long-time North Carolina head coach Dean Smith in the early 1960's. He used it to great effect under point guard Phil Ford; during his career some writers referred to the offense as the "Ford Corners."

However, by the eighties, fans were fed up. In the nationally televised 1982 ACC championship game between the University of North Carolina Tar Heels and the University of Virginia Cavaliers, Carolina held the ball for roughly the last twelve minutes of the second half to nurse a small lead. UNC's coach Dean Smith was the man who had made the four corners famous; a prominent restaurant-bar in Chapel Hill was called the Four Corners, in honor of the stall tactic.

The next year the ACC and other conferences introduced a shot clock experimentally, along with a three-point line to force the defense to spread out. In 1985, the NCAA adopted a shot clock nationally and then added the three-pointer a year later.