The Medal Round-Super Final

With Friday’s win against Australia we guaranteed ourselves two good games and two chances to win a medal. This is where we want to finish all tournaments - in the hunt for a medal. We find ourselves in the final four with three teams all from former Yugoslavia. It is pretty amazing that there are so many great players coming out of this area. Wow. We need to make sure that we break this final four up some.

Saturday we matched up with Montenegro in the semi-finals. The game did not start out well and we quickly found ourselves behind 3 – 0. We fought back hard and midway through the second period we were down 3 – 2. Unfortunately, we gave up two unanswered goals again and we went down 5 – 2. This was a lead that we never really overcame. We once again seemed out of sync and not really firing on all pistons. Our 6 on 5 looked rusty as we scored only 2 out of 8. I would have to say that Montenegro looked like they were in peak form. They were well conditioned and played well together as a team. What was amazing to me is that as well as Montenegro played and as poorly as we played with two minutes to go in the game we scored a goal to cut the lead 9 – 7. We were very much right in the game. We were unable to score again and Montenegro finished with a goal from center to make the final 10 – 7. It was a fun environment. 4,000 rowdy fans all screaming for their home team. Actually, it was a great opportunity to play in front of this kind of crowd. When we go to Rome next month, our first game will be against Italy in front of 5,000 Italian fans.

In the other semi-final Croatia beat Serbia 7 – 5 in a hard fought battle. This set up the gold medal match with Montenegro playing Croatia and the bronze medal game with us getting a rematch against Serbia.

In our pre-game meeting for Serbia, I reminded the team about some of our principles that we lived by last year. One was a commitment to each other. This meant sacrificing part of ourselves for the good of the team. We certainly want to utilize each of our player’s personal strength. However, we have to match this with the role we are asking them to play on this team. We also spoke about playing defense with more energy and awareness – especially since we have only been back together for a few weeks. Our goal was to make every series on defense count. We can’t afford to give up cheap or easy goals against a team like this. A low scoring game would favor us. We needed to control the tempo of the game for four quarters.

At the pool for warm up, I liked what I saw in our player’s eyes. They looked confident and hungry. As the game progressed we seemed to be in control. We either led or were tied for the majority of the game. Our defense was playing very well and we were not giving the Serbs anything in their front court offense. We did have some miscues on our offensive end that cost us as we gave up four counter attack goals. We set the tempo and kept the Serbs off balance. However, when it came down to it we could not score the critical 6 on 5 or penalty shot in the fourth quarter and Serbia pulled ahead at the end with two late goals to win 9 – 7.

Even though the score did not come out in our favor, I liked what I saw with our team in this game. We played under control and there was definitely a resemblance to the way we played in Beijing. Merrill played great in the cage, recording 15 saves and the defense did a pretty good job of funneling the ball to him. The game was a good step in the right direction. The past two weeks have been good. We have played five games with Serbia, played Montenegro, Italy and Australia. We have also had some good training. Now it is time to head back home and prepare for the World Championships. We have about 17 days of training at home. Not much time but I believe that it will be enough. It will be nice to be on our own and focus on our tactics, fundamentals and conditioning. We need to keep everyone healthy while challenging each one of the guys to work hard and push themselves to their limit.

We will once again be training at Cal Lutheran University in the mornings from 9 – 12:30 and at Oaks Christian HS in the evenings from 7 – 9:30 pm. Practices are open, so feel free to come by and say hello. The team is really looking forward to getting back to the Thousand Oaks community. Many of the guys are returning to their host families. They all appreciate the support they received last year from our community and look forward to seeing many of the familiar faces again.

Here we go again – the final push towards our goal. We are aiming for that gold medal at World Championships. It will be intense, exciting and somewhat exhausting all at the same time. Thanks for sharing it with us. Going for the gold.

See you at the pool.

Coach

The Final Four

We beat Australia today 10 – 6. It was not our best game but it was good enough. The real story was our defense, led by Merrill Moses with 15 saves in the cage. We also recorded 7 field blocks and had a fair number of steals. The play was still a bit sloppy but part of that was the officiating which was very erratic. There was really no flow to the game. The officials called 3 double kick outs in one quarter alone. Our 6 on 5 was adequate and we totally shut down the Australians on their extra man. I believe that they were 1 for 10 on their extra man. We did have some casualties - Ryan Bailey woke up from his nap this afternoon with a severe tendonitis in his right arm. He was unable to play and John Mann has a bit of a whiplash. Overall, we seem a little out of condition. We definitely wore down pretty quickly. Anyways, we are working hard to get everyone rested and healthy by tomorrow.




Attached is the picture of the stadium here in Podgorica. There will be 4,000 screaming crazy Montenegrin fans filling this place tomorrow. I am sure that they will have drums beating while they chant their fight songs and have a good time. We might be lucky to have 5 cheering for us. It will be a great experience for our guys. In fact, I am sure when we play Italy a month from now in Rome at the World Championships; the situation will not be much different. At this point we are two games away from a championship here. It will certainly not be easy.

Montenegro is playing with a great deal of confidence and they will be very difficult to beat at home. However, I think that we match up pretty well with them. We have always played well against them and I don’t expect it to be any different tomorrow. The keys for tomorrow are as follows:

1. Defense first. Hold Montenegro to 6 goals. This is s huge task. They have many weapons and we will have to play our best defensive game of the tournament.
2. Play under control - keep the turnovers down to a minimum – we can’t get in a run and gun type game with these guys. Control the tempo
3. Score our 6 on 5 opportunities. I have no doubt that we will get our chances on the extra man (probably 10 – 12). We need to score 7 – 8 of our extra man to win.

Can we beat them? YES. I believe we can. The guys have all told me that they now believe that they can win every game they play. This is a giant step for us. I am looking forward to the challenge and I know the team is too.

For now it is time for a good night’s sleep. See you tomorrow at the pool.

Coach

Disrespect

Just a few days ago, I told you about one of the best experiences I have ever had as a player or as a coach with our national anthem. Today, was possibly the worst experience. As our Star Spangled Banner was played prior to the start of the game, a loud and rowdy group of Serbian fans began to whistle and boo as they held up banners that referred back to their civil war. I have attached a picture which was taken of the banners by our team leader. It was extremely disrespectful and made me very upset. They whistled and booed so loud that you could hardly hear our anthem.

At the opening sprint, I would have to say that my blood pressure was high and my face was red with anger. Unfortunately, the game did not go much better. After playing reasonably well in the first period we kind of fell apart and got out of our rhythm. We committed 7 offensive fouls and turned the ball over on numerous bad passes. We were out of sync and the time away from each other looked like it was getting the best of us. Our sloppy play definitely fed into the Serbian’s strength. The countered us hard and if it wasn’t for a good game by Merrill Moses, the score could have been very lopsided.

As it turned out we hung around and with about two minutes left scored a goal to bring the score to 9 – 7 in favor of Serbia. Unfortunately, we gave up a goal on the very next possession and Serbia went on to win 10 – 7. The story of the game was really our uncharacteristic sloppy play. We gave up 2 goals from their center and 3 goals on their counter attack. These are two of our cardinal rules. We do not give up goals on the counter and we do not give up goals from center. I would have to say that this was one of the uglier games that we have played as a team since I began coaching 2 years ago. It was not pretty and we will have to change the way we play in order to have a successful outcome here. We are still very much in the tournament, in fact we could still win the whole tournament.

Tomorrow, we begin play in the elimination round. We will play Australia in what is essentially the quarterfinals. The winner will move on to face Montenegro on Saturday in the semis. Australia actually gave Montenegro a pretty good game tonight. They ended up losing by a score of 6 – 4 but had numerous opportunities to make the game even closer. The bottom line is that we need to get back to doing the simple things well. This needs to begin with good defense and good legs. We were pushed around a little tonight and the Serbs pressure forced our sloppy play. We made numerous passing errors and our 6 on 5 was not strong. We were 3 for 8 on our extra man attempts.

Everyone is disappointed. We are not used to losing so we all had our heads down a bit. Tomorrow we will rally the troops and get back on a winning track. Go USA!

We can do this…

See you at the pool.

Coach

The Stage is Set

It has been a long time since we had a game that we as coaches could actually relax a little. It was nice to be able to smile and laugh on the bench. We dominated the game from the beginning and pretty much had our way with an over matched Japanese team. After leading 7 – 0 at the half we went on to win 14 – 3. Another game where are defense was the story and on offense we had a very balanced attack. In fact, tonight we did even better than last night – 10 different players scored.

After our game, we stayed around and watched the Croatia vs. Montenegro game. The stadium was packed with 4,000 screaming Montenegrin fans. Every one of them seemed to hate the Croatian team. They had drums and noise makers and were singing and dancing for most of the match. It was a very fun water polo environment. If all goes well, we will be playing in that environment in a few nights. The whole team stayed and watched as Montenegro beat up on Croatia 12 – 7. It was good for the guys to see.

So here is the story. We play Serbia tomorrow night in the final game of the preliminary round. A win would put us in a cross over game with South Africa on Friday night. A loss will put us into a cross over game with Australia. We are playing well but tomorrow will be a good test. Serbia beat Italy today 6 – 3. They have a few players here that were not in the States last week when we played, but then so do we. I like our chances.

It would be very nice to play South Africa in the quarterfinals. They are the weakest team here and it would be beneficial to have essentially a day of rest before the semis and finals. The truth is that either way we will get some great competition before the week is out.

One of our hosts (our translator) was talking to me this morning and he passed on the fact that we were the talk of all the other coaches last night. The word was that we beat the Italians and made it look easy. The other coaches were saying that it looked like we were playing at about 60% and yet we were in control of the game from start to finish. As I told our host, “now all we have to do is get our guys to play at 100%”. This is nice water polo gossip and it is nice to hear that we are still turning heads. The real test will be in the pool as the tournament progresses. There are big games ahead and tomorrow is the first of many.

See you at the pool.

Coach

World League Super Final - Day 1

In our pre-game meeting today we set a goal of holding each of our opponents to 6 goals or less in this tournament. I stressed the fact that we must play defense first. We know that if our defense is strong we will be in every game. I also talked about making winning a habit. Getting back to the podium last year was a huge step for us – but now that we are an Olympic medal winner we are a target. Every team will show up wanting to play their best game against us. We are now a target. It is harder to stay at the top than to get to the top. This is our challenge. We as a team need to get used to winning - we need to get used to being in contention to win every tournament that we play. Essentially, success is a habit and I want our team to develop this habit.

We came out and played a solid four quarters today. The Italians stuck around and made it difficult but in the end we accomplished our goal and won 10 – 6. Even better from a coaches perspective is that we had 9 different players score today. Jesse Smith led the team with two goals, and Tony Azevedo, Peter Varrellas, Ryan Bailey, Jeff Powers, Justin Johnson, JW Krumpholz, Tim Hutton and Brian Alexander all scored. As a coach, this is a nice thing to see. It was a total team effort.

This was an important game for another reason too. Next month, when we travel to Rome for the World Championships we will face Italy in our first match. So it was important today to send them a message. They are a team that plays with a great deal of emotion and if you let them feel that they have a chance they are much tougher. I am sure that they will give us a battle in Rome but for today – we definitely got the best of them.

On a side note. We played a 4:20 pm today. Game time temperature was about 95 degrees and extremely humid. The benches also faced the afternoon sun which made it almost unbearable. We did not have ice on the bench and all the water that they brought for us was luke warm at best. I know that I left the game pretty dehydrated and all I did was stand in the sun for an hour. We will be better prepared over the next few days. We are sending Rick out to get an ice chest so that we can have ice and cold water on the bench.

Tomorrow we will face Japan at 7:00 pm. The Japanese lost today to Serbia 12 – 6 after being tied at the half. They are relatively small but fast. It should be a decent game but I will be surprised if we don’t over power them.

It feels good to be back with the team. I am enjoying being back on the deck with our guys. They are a joy to work with and the rewards have been great for me.

See you at the pool.

Coach

A New Chapter

I want to begin this new chapter with a story that transpired last week during our week of training with Serbia. We were playing Serbia at Stanford in the third game of a three game series. We had lost one game and tied the second. Both games were very competitive and the training had been very good. If you remember from last year when we went to Serbia, we were crushed by them and we never really challenged them. This week was different. Every scrimmage was competitive and we definitely knew that we belonged in the same pool with them. Anyway, back to the story. The stadium was packed with an estimated crowd of 2,500 water polo fans. After the introductions they played the Serbian national anthem and then it came time for the Star Spangled Banner. Unfortunately, they seemed to be having problems with the stereo system. There was a bit of an uncomfortable minute and then a few fans in the front row began singing our anthem. After a few seconds the rest of the crowd joined in and sang our beautiful national anthem. I have to say that in all my years of playing and coaching and hearing our anthem being played for us this was the most moving and meaningful of all. It gave me goose bumps and brought tears to my eyes at the same time. Our players and coaches gave the fans a great round of applause and then it was time to play.

The game was a good one. We played a solid game on offense but gave them too many easy goals off of rebounds and slam dunks from the post on their extra man. Our defense was not great but I am sure it will get better and better as we spend more time together. Midway through the fourth quarter we were down by two and it did not look too good. We made a nice run down the stretch and tied the game with a minute and a half to go. We actually had a great opportunity in the last 30 seconds but we missed on an extra man attempt. The game ended in a 13 – 13 tie. We have come a long way and matching the Serbs offensive power is no easy task. This was definitely a good week of training for us and without Tony and Tim many of our other guys really stepped up. As we move forward in this quadrennial, I will not forget the powerful rendition of our Star Spangled Banner. It was a moving experience. Perhaps the only better rendition will be played for us in London when we stand up on the gold medal platform.

It is time to get to work on that dream. Here we are in Montenegro getting ready for the World League Super Finals. We arrived two days ago and have been training at a beautiful new $ 5 million Euro facility here in the capital of Montenegro called Podgorica. This is a nice little city with a huge love for water polo. The pool complex (2 pools and room for 4,000 screaming fans) was built in 100 days. They opened the pool 4 days ago with a scrimmage between the Montenegro “A” and “B” team. The scrimmage drew a crowd of 3,000 people. Needless to say, these games will be well attended. We are in the A group with Italy, Japan and Serbia. The B group is Montenegro, Croatia, Australia and South Africa. Tomorrow we open up with Italy in the first game of the tournament.

I am excited about the tournament. We have 10 out of 13 of our Olympians back in the pool. Tony Azevedo and Tim Hutton have joined us here for the tournament. Their European club teams played until early June so we decided to just to meet them over here in Europe. For the rest of the team, it was a long trip over here. We flew through Frankfurt, Belgrade and then into Prodgorica. Many of the guys arrived feeling a little sick. Ryan Bailey has been in his room for 2 days. He saw a local doctor today that thinks he may have the swine flu. Anyway, he came out of his cave (room) today and swam a little. He said that he felt better so we will see how he wakes up tomorrow. Jesse Smith is also feeling a little under the weather and John Mann is feeling pretty beat up. Hopefully, we will wake up and be ready to go tomorrow.

I am reading Coach Mike Krzyzewski’s book, called The Gold Standard, it is the story of the 2008 USA Olympic Basketball team. He has some great team building ideas and thoughts that will definitely come in handy for us as grow together over the next four years. One of the “gold standards” that he talks about is “No excuses” which was also a big part of the team we became last year. Tomorrow will become another test of this standard. We may not be at our best - but I believe we are good enough to still beat Italy. The rest of the preliminary round has us facing Japan and then Serbia.

Off to bed to dream about the “miracles” to come.

See you at the pool.

Coach