Great question! Last night watching the Romania game, he was able to communicate more effectively. His take on the scoring from a natural shot to scoring a 6v5 was excellent.
For the US women’s games, I wonder why they have just one announcer trying to do both play-by-play and color, while the men have separate play-by-play and color.
Hopefully this will change after the group play and all the games will have both.
I think the commentary depends on how you are watching the games…
If you are watching in the AM, live on cable/satellite (most games have been on USA channel) then you get Kenny Albert and Tony Azevedo for the mens games and Kenny Albert and Julie Swail (former USA women’s WP player from early 2000s).
If streaming on Peacock with an associated cable/satellite account linked then you should also get the above announcers.
If straight streaming on Peacock I think you get the single game announcer.
If straight streaming on the NBC Olympics app on Roku or Amazon FireStick sometimes you get the single Euro announcer and sometimes no announcer.
If watching on the afternoon replay its been a hoge poge of how they announce the games.
I was watching live this morning via the Peacock app on AppleTV. (Who still has cable these days!)
Strange that they would use different announcers for cable and streaming. Although, Tony and another guy were both on the Peacock replay of the men’s USA-Romania game I watched yesterday afternoon.
With a victory over Greece tomorrow the U.S. men are in excellent position for a favorable crossover game. The other group is far weaker. The U.S. has a great shot at the final four. Jeff has them finishing 4.
Not going too far when 1 for 13 on power play 
Just talked to an intern in my office who plays college club water polo, and she was totally pumped up about Flavor Flav’s sponsorship. She and people younger than her are the target audience for this stuff, so if it’s working, keep it up.
Not a recipe for success. It seems like they tried to feed the post early, got repelled by good goaltending, and then went away from it entirely even after the Greeks pushed the defense out further.
Not sure if it’s poor coaching, lack or polo IQ, or perhaps a little of both but the international 6-on-5 is more successful when you recognize what the defense gives you. You can’t just get the ball to your best player and have them throw through a bunch of arms like you can at the American high school level.
For a team that relies so much on the extra man, this team is not as effective in those situations as the best teams in the world. A big part of this is not having a left hander who can attack the right side and keep the defense committed and honest. Another big aspect is that the way we run the extra man is very predictable and doesn’t show a lot of variation. As you pointed out, there is an over reliance on feeding post players and the good teams can work to take this away.
The one thing working for the US right now is that Montenegro hasn’t upset Croatia, Italy or Greece. So (as I predicted) as long as we beat Montenegro in our next game we should come out of the group and make quarterfinals. That being said, we would crossover with the 1 seed from the other group (likely Spain) and I don’t have high hopes we can pull an upset there.
The way we have been playing just further emphasizes that the best teams in the world aren’t just professionals (which most of our men ostensibly are at this point) but that they are also playing more together and execute at a higher level in the major international tournaments. The USA extra man woes are symptomatic of this as I and others have pointed out. That phase of the game requires team cohesion and the only way to build that is the reps you get playing together year round.
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I am not very optimistic about USA beating Montenegro who have taken both Italy and Greece to penalties. This has just not been a good Olympics at all for us. We really needed to win against Greece today. If we can somehow beat both Montenegro and Croatia, then we will be in a good position but that’s a big reach
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Yeah I don’t feel great about our chances in the remaining two games either, but this team has surprised me at times before. So here’s hoping they can show up when their backs are against the wall and salvage something from these last two games.
How about Australia! Two huge wins for them and doing it without Aaron Younger, many players in Aus pro league, and an Australian coach who took over from Croatian. Pavillard has been great as has Nick Porter.
Across the three games so far…
Shooting Percentage: 35.87% (33 for 92)
- the 11 for 40 against Greece really brought the % down but I think of the amount of times the US have just thrown it into a shotblock or a sea of arms
Extra Man Percentage: 33.33% (11 for 33)
- cleary the biggest weakness, I think @breckweiny said it best about the coehision and the level of trust needed when playing 6 on 5. The openings at the international level are so small and each stop emboldens the opposing team
Centre Shot Percentage: 20% (2 out of 10)
- Hallock shooting perecentage: 12.5%. (noting that he has most likely over 70% of the US’s exclusions and penalties drawn, just hard to find the number)
- not entirely sure this is a relevant data point, I wanted to point out more the attempts than the percentage. For having arguably the best center in the world, I would like to see him try and take more shots, there isn’t a better one than 3m deep in front of the cage. Can the US do a better job entering and drawing penalties rather than exclusions, which by now, every team will have noticed the US’s terrible man up percentage.
wishing them luck for the next two games, can’t say I’m surprised though. Hard fought games but dropped at the end seem to be story of the mens team for a while now.
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Problems go beyond 6-5, bad as that was. Several easy goals given up on counter–2 in the first quarter alone. Perhaps too much focus on offense and not reacting when Greek defenders release late in the shot clock? And I think another theme is the US not doing well against physical teams when the referees let them play. The Greeks and Italians both did well by holding US defenders to create enough delay for an open pass, and limiting what Hallock can do with aggressive physical play. That risks exclusions, but if the US can’t convert on 6-5, that’s not a problem to worry about as long as the bench is deep enough to keep throwing bodies in.
Edited to add–US performance on 6-5 is not QUITE as bad as it looks. They converted at least 2–one on a penalty shot late in the 6-5 that doesn’t show up in the stats as a 6-5 conversion. Still 2-12 is not much to brag about.
Broken-record time: Greece 5/8, US 1/12 on man-up. Extra player efficiency % Greece 50% US 9%. It is as bad as it looks. I don’t care what level you’re playing at…you’re not going to win against a decent opponent with a stat like that. Unfortunately, the eventual end result is amazingly easy to predict. Time to try something different.
It is such a contrast watching our women play. They were excellent against both Italy a few days ago and France today.
Their style of play is very enjoyable to watch and incorporates motion as well as center play. Their extra player passing is crisp and they really do a great job. The depth of the team really shows as well as they are able to sub freely with very little drop off to keep attacking and energy in the pool.
Defensively, the excellence of Johnson really allows the Americans to shut down most teams and limit their exclusions by playing heavy zones and eliminating a lot of the center position. A friend commented, basically every goal scored against Johnson is a highlight because of how good you have to be to beat her.
I’m excited to continue watching them as they work towards that 4th gold. Best of luck to them.
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Several great points especially regarding club cohesion. USA will beat Montenegro. Then as you point out, the Croatia game will be huge with Spain awaiting the loser. The USA has a shot at HUN and will beat AUS or FRA.
The women have played much better the last two games since their loss to Spain, albeit against inferior teams in Italy and France. They have looked very sharp on offense and their their first-timers have more than held their own so far. They have all received considerable playing time and contributed quite a bit. It will be interesting to see Adam’s substitution patterns once crossover play starts. My gut tells me that he will go with his horses more than he has so far. Johnson is definitely a luxury to have in goal. Their defense is not as good as it has been in the past and they will have to step it up agains the top teams and not rely on Johnson as much as they have.
They are a really fun team to watch and I am hoping that they can put it all together and 4-peat.
I’d like to see more aggression from Daube. He and Bowen and Irving should be the featured shooters on this team. Daube shows up in spurts but then goes long periods without taking a shot. Also I think they need to find a way to get Cupido more shots. I don’t want the Dodds featured on the outside as shooters. I liked what Ryder did posting up and drawing exclusions in the 2nd half. Let’s see more of that.
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In the game vs Romania, Azevedo states that point: he instructed Daube to take more shots, even if they aren’t met with success.