Obviously the Beast Boys are from all over but so is the Vegas team. USAWP allows teams to qualify in any zone regardless of where the players are from. Really calls in to question the automatic bids to all zones. Why give MTN a bid to championship that they give or sell to SOPAC?
It does look like there are new additions to the JO roster that weren’t at Quicksilver.
Beast Boys are at least almost all CA guys at least, taking a CA zone spot that N Irvine is meant to be in. For “Vegas”, had they not pulled the Brazil situation and called themselves Vegas instead of N Irvine/Vegas it probably would not catch much attention. Channel Islands is quite diverse from where they are pulling from, but at least they are qualifying in the right zone.
Does anyone know if Coach Packet is being used at JO’s? We got a questionnaire from Coach Packet for Super Finals and this was the first time I’d seen it. Would love to know how any of this works.
I think I have watched enough 16u this year to make a top 8 prediction…that will probably be all wrong…and I haven’t played out all tthe if/then with the schedule.
Without rosters its a little hard but I am basing this on 16u eligible players for the top teams playing in the 16u tournament…unless they havent been lately (ie Newport and LAP). And not accounting for “out of nowhere” internationals showing up.
That said…
Del Mar - this group of kids has won together every year since 12u in 2021 and no reason to think that will change. At full strength they are the best team around and know each other very well.
Stanford - this team has seemed to be on a mission this year and could easily be holding Gold medals on the last day. They won Super Finals without their stud Hunter Coleman and seem to have a team ethic that pulls together in big games and when things get tight.
CC United - were undefeated at one point in the year and have a talented group that plays hard and doesn’t make a lot of mistakes. Could easily be in the finals on day 4. May have to play back after a likely day 2 matchup with Del Mar.
San Diego Shores - this team has been getting better all season and seems to be peaking at the right time. They have a coach with high expectations who pushes them and they play physical polo that throws speedy teams off their game.
La Jolla - have been up and down at times but seem to be peaking here at the end. Their lefty Dexter Black is a monster but when he draws defenses, he gets the ball to others who finish. Seems to be great teamwork and camaraderie with this group.
Atherton - have not seen too many of their games but at Super Finals they played everyone tight to the end and were well coached and disciplined.
Channel Islands United - a really talented team, top of roster to the bottom, and could be a top 4 team but they seem to struggle in big games. Good chance of a day 2 matchup with Stanford. Their goalie Elliot King has been a beast at times.
Sand Canyon - can tell this group plays together alot (mostly Yuciapa HS kids) and for each other. They drive relentlessly and get defenses reeling.
Others that could 100% be in top 8 in no order…
Newport - their underclassmen studs have been playing 18s, but if they play 16s too they are a threat.
SHAQ - they seemed to play fast the 2 games I saw them this year.
LA Premier - see Newport…same.
OCWPC - winning SoPAC quals is no easy feat…and they did just that.
Trojan - Grant He and Austin Miller are big bodies and their goalie has good vision and hands.
Vegas/North Irvine - well coached team with talent.
Does anyone have any thoughts on 18u boys this year any predictions for top 10?
I applaud your willingness to put predictions into writing and I hope many on the board are inspired by your example.
I am surprised there is not more talk about the Mountain Zone/Team Vegas/North Irvine situation. This looks very different from just a club adding few athletes.
Mountain Zone needs permission from USAWP to award spots for NJOs by phone call rather have a qualifier. Presume that happened, then Mountain Zone gave Team Vegas 2 of 3 spots in 16U Championship.
Team Vegas presumably coordinates with North Irvine. North Irvine skips SOPAC quals and gets a free pass to the 13 seed in Championship for their athletes in exchange for some Team Vegas kids (and maybe Brazilians) to joining them. Mountain Zone benefits from this arrangement with a better seeding for next year NJOs.
Assuming this is what happened, is this fair? Is this good for water polo?
Please consider:
Fundamental Olympic principles are that athletes earn the right to compete in Championships through performance and qualifying.
A system allowing administrators to use influence and relationships to handpick athletes to receive the benefit of competing in an USA National Governing Body Conducted National Championship completely violates Olympic principles.
Furthermore, this opens the door for administrators to manipulate the integrity of the competition. The administrators are picking athletes for the teams and collaborating with the Zone on which team takes which seed.
The intent of NJOs is that athletes qualify through their home zone earning a spot through zone tournaments. This improves fairness and integrity. Shouldn’t the rules require this?
To be clear, I am not accusing anyone of breaking the rules and if anything stated is incorrect, please set the record straight. As a water polo community, we have to ask if the current rules are acceptable?
Well said. I would offer up this counterpoint:
There are 48 slots in the Championship bracket. If Team Vegas did not have enough high-level athletes to put together a competitive locals-only 16u JO team, then MTN zone sends one fewer team, and their Championship slot would get reallocated to PAC, CST, or SPA.
With no arrangement, no Vegas kids would be on the JO team filling that allocated spot. It would be a team of all California kids who got the opportunity. With the arrangement, the competitive Vegas kids do get to go to the show and only the gaps are filled with California kids. I’m not so sure making an all-or-nothing demand of non-California zones is the better path.
So would putting a roster minimum be a compromise solution? We now have roster limitations for non-Americans, would a would requiring a roster from a zone be made up of at least half of kids from that zone work?
They can still showcase themselves and at the same time allow outside “help” to meet the requirement in order to participate?
Example: they have 6 kids in their roster from their zone, so they are allowed to pull in an addition 6 players from other zones to fill out their roster.
I could get behind a 50% rule requiring at least half the kids live within the zone boundaries.
I think something like that from a zone% makes sense, but I guarantee that will get manipulated as well and USAWP will always be chasing this. I think teams are getting creative now to work around the international rule.
I think we need to go back to 15 on a roster. 18 made some sense during COVID but now is just too many. This doesn’t solve the Team Vegas issue but it might curtail the adding new international or out of zone players to a team late in the year.
I think at least two thirds of the roster must be kids from a zone. Sure, there will be successful and unsuccessful attempts to evade it, but the rules also help create a certain culture, which would be helpful in this case. Also, a penalty for breaking roster rules should be sufficiently significant to deter “creativity”.
This applies to teams like the Beast Boys too (they may be 50% SOPAC). This isn’t only about internationals but about what having zones means. Beast Boys has players from all over California and their high finish will assist a team from SOPAC next year that may or may not have SOPAC players.
Agreed. It would be interesting if other Mtn Zone teams wanted to do a quals and force that Vegas team to travel in for it.
It looks like a similar result obtains in 18B Championship as in 16B with Vegas/North Irvine.
18B Championship Seed 47 is theoretically a MTN allocation (per Marco and I believed confirmed), but the seeded team is “South Florida/Vegas”. But we don’t know the makeup of that roster. Sadly for PSW, the 4th place 18B team gets relegated to Classic, despite PSW having 4 Championship slots for each of the last 5 years.
Interesting, so is this Florida/Vegas yet another Vegas hybrid getting another zone without quals? Are they a loaded 47 seed potentially throwing off the balance of seeding?
If Mountain Zone had conducted a qualifying tournament and a team of athletes switched affiliations to earn the spot, then fine. It’s imperfect, but at least athletes played games to determine the outcome.
Instead, the system allowed the North Irvine group to get the #13 seed through a deal without playing a game.
As Marco has illustrated, it was easy to know in advance this deal would slot North Irvine in the #13 seed with CST #4 as their top opponent in Group L. That’s a huge advantage!
In contrast, Newport, CDM, SoCal, Mission and SET earned their spot in quals and have a much more difficult first day path.
Plus, if Team Vegas doesn’t have enough athletes, why do they have two teams in 16U Championship? The 38 seed is also Team Vegas listed as “Imperial PV Vegas”.
So is this a second group of athletes from CA getting a free pass to Championship Division through a deal with Team Vegas?
Meanwhile South Coast, San Jose Express, Carlsbad and Vanguard are shut out rather than having a slot added to one of their zones.
when do the rosters for JOs typically get released?
Usually they don’t get released publically