National Team staff picks players based on many factors and it really has nothing to do with the finish of the zone team.
There could be many reasons for a team to finish higher or lower in this tournament especially when coaches are required to split play time among the team.
That’s not accurate last year Cadet NT coaches said the higher your team finishes the more spots you get.
As a general rule yes, but the only “rule” is that each zone team gets one spot at NTSC.
The reason why the word rule gets put in quotation marks here is because there aren’t any rules here. Probably one of the reasons why some folks get frustrated about ODP honestly. However, it allows for flexibility for the NT staff to choose who they want to and move players wherever they want as well (especially cadet level gets moved up to youth and back to cadet all the time).
I can agree with that. However, they did send an email out early in the year and possibly last year that at Cadet & Youth now each team is not guaranteed a spot. You can see on the chart above that 3 teams (1 Cadet and 2 Youth) did not get a selection. I think they still do it at Dev to keep people coming back and give kids a reason to play on a B Team.
There were a few Cadet NTSC selections who played in the Youth division for their respective zones: 2 CEN, 2 CST, 2 SPA, 1 NEZ. I excluded these players from the cadet selection charts since we’re looking at team performance vs number of selections. Perhaps that’s the discrepancy?
This is by far the most players moved up for ODP Nat Champs, and the most moved back down for NTSC. Shouldn’t players only be moved up if the upper group NTSC is highly likely? Taking 15% of the lower group NTSC spots off the table seems to defeat the purpose of the tourney.
Edit: happened last year as well. Was not a thing 5 years ago other than a future Olympian here and there. Players got moved up to next level NTSC after dominating their tourney, which seems reasonable.
I believe that last year there were even more players moved up for the National Champs and then back down for NTSC.
Yes, last year there were many more.
I never want to think that “politics” are part of a selection process, and I don’t even really know what that means. But man is it hard to reconcile and make sense of how decisions are made.
What is the rationale for moving players up (aside from a few talented stand-outs)? Is it because a zone team would be weaker without them? If so, who cares? There’s no real benefit or glory to winning this “tournament.”
Players who show potential in regional camps may get moved up during National Champs, but moved back down for NTSC if the coaches feel the player will benefit from staying in their age group.
Then there are those that get moved up and stay up. These are the ones that tend to stay in the pipeline the longest.
Players also get moved up and down for team selection purposes. USAWP is sending a team to the 17U PanAm Games in May and thus Cadet NTSC is moved up in April to select the team for this tourney.
My guess is many of these selections will also be front runners for 16U Worlds next summer so many will be 2010 birth year.
Anyone know more about the potential team they’re sending for U15 PanAm games late summer?
I agree that it’s important to look at whether some of a zone’s top athletes were pulled up or not in considering the validity of their outcomes, their NTSC invitations, etc. But in the end, athletes can only go head to head with the other athletes who are placed in the pool against them.
The NTSC selection numbers were very out of the ordinary this year. Two years ago, the 3rd place team in cadet (SPA Red) had 9 girls invited to NTSC. Last year (2024), the 3rd place team in cadet (again, SPA Red) had 10 girls invited to NTSC. This year’s 3rd place cadet team (PSW Red) had 4 girls invited. I have removed girls who were pulled up and brought back down from the data, so these numbers are truly just girls who played on those specific cadet 3rd place teams.
The 4th place team this year (CST Red) had 5 invited to NTSC and the 7th and 8th place teams (PAC Blue and CEN Red) each had 4 athletes invited to NTSC, the same as PSW Red.
While I agree with other posters that placement is not the end-all-all-be-all when it comes to having kids selected to NTSC, it certainly raises an eyebrow when this year’s 3rd place team receives fewer than half of the NTSC spots as the 3rd place teams of the previous 2 years. The PSW Red team performed significantly better than teams who received more or the same number of NTSC spots and won their bronze medal game in a very convincing manner, so 4 spots does seem unusually low when all of these circumstances are taken into consideration.
And before you pounce, I don’t have a kid in this age group, but I am certainly fascinated by all things ODP…
I think we have the wrong expectation that NTSC selections will be logical and based on performance at the ODP evaluation events. There are frequent rumors that the NTSC selections and even the Worlds/PanAm teams are picked ahead of the National tournament, and this year’s results would support that hypothesis. However, USAWP should come clean about the process, stop misleading people into thinking ODP matters and find other revenue streams to support the organization. Alternatively, they could provide some actual value from the ODP process so that people are willing to pay & travel for it.
Totally agree with your point on transparency, however not sure I’d agree they are having problems with people traveling and paying.
3 divisions of 18 teams averaging prob 12 players per team is approx 650 girls traveling to Salt Lake City and paying $500 to play and gear. That seems like a very healthy participation level.
I suggest you to read the boys’ ODP thread, which already addressed/raised many of the questions above. Many of the threads/concerns/ideas are repetitive.
I think that the Youth CEN Red selections this year suggest that performance in the national championships do have some impact on NTSC spots. Last yr the team finished fourth and got just 4 NTSC Youth invites. This year, the team finished first and received 8 NTSC invites.
any reason boys & girls national teams are not published?
Those are usually published before major tournaments—you can see that the Cadets’ roster was released before PanAms this year. In years without major tournaments (odd years), they historically don’t publish the roster. It might be a matter of policy, but I’m not sure.