It's about time we ..

Poolplaya9 · Oct 5, 2014

AtLarge said:
Although it has no real bearing on the points you're making, you're off a bit on the facts here. The first MC was in 1994, but the worst beating didn't come until 2001 in London, when the USA (Archer, Deuel, Jones, Strickland, Varner, Williams) beat Europe (Chamat, Davis, Feijen, Immonen, Knight, Souquet) 12-1.

I thought I remember us beating the Europeans by the same 11-2 score so thanks for the correction to 12-1 there. They only had one snooker player on the roster but the point I was making was that the game was played there so little that they couldn't even field a team full of pool players. They had to include a snooker player that rarely played the game on the roster. They had an excuse for a blowout at that time--we don't.

AtLarge · Oct 5, 2014

Poolplaya9 said:
I thought I remember us beating the Europeans by the same 11-2 score so thanks for the correction to 12-1 there. They only had one snooker player on the roster but the point I was making was that the game was played there so little that they couldn't even field a team full of pool players. They had to include a snooker player that rarely played the game on the roster. They had an excuse for a blowout at that time--we don't.

Just a little tangential info.

Steve Davis played 11 Mosconi Cups in a row (1994-2004). His team won only 2 of those 11, but Steve actually had a winning record in singles, 14-13, including wins over Strickland, Varner, Rempe, Davenport, Harriman, and Jones. His doubles record, on the other hand, was only 8-17. But Romford Slim wasn't too bad at pool.

Poolplaya9 · Oct 5, 2014

AtLarge said:
Just a little tangential info. Steve Davis played 11 Mosconi Cups in a row (1994-2004). His team won only 2 of those 11, but Steve actually had a winning record in singles, 14-13, including wins over Strickland, Varner, Rempe, Davenport, Harriman, and Jones. His doubles record, on the other hand, was only 8-17. But Romford Slim wasn't too bad at pool.

So he had an overall win percentage of just over 42%. Not too bad for a snooker guy. The point still remains that their depth of talent in pool was so shallow that they had to pull from the snooker ranks.

AtLarge · Oct 5, 2014

Poolplaya9 said:
So he had an overall win percentage of just over 42%. Not too bad for a snooker guy. The point still remains that their depth of talent in pool was so shallow that they had to pull from the snooker ranks.

Yes, Steve Davis was on the winning side in 22 of the 52 Mosconi Cup matches in which he played, or 42%.

But I also like to look at it from the standpoint of a player's contribution to the final point score. For that, I count just half a point for each player in a doubles match. On that basis Steve gets credit for 18 winning points and is charged with 21½ losing points, for a winning percentage of about 46%.

Over those 11 years in which Steve participated, Europe won 43% of the match points while winning only 18% of the Cups.

..... more extraneous information .....

leto1776 · Oct 5, 2014

BeiberLvr said:
The cake is losing with dignity, something we didn't do last year. The icing would be if they somehow managed to win.

But here's the thing. As long as Europe sends their 1st and 2nd tier pros, it would not matter who was on the US team. We could send our 5 best players, and we would still lose.

I know some might label me Anti-American, but that's just the way it is right now. The Europeans are just at another level than us when it comes to these short race formats.

So when losing is the most likely outcome, I'll take the team that doesn't act like a bunch of crybabies.

Talk about a losing mentality.

pro9dg · Oct 6, 2014

AtLarge said:
Although it has no real bearing on the points you're making, you're off a bit on the facts here. The first MC was in 1994, but the worst beating didn't come until 2001 in London, when the USA (Archer, Deuel, Jones, Strickland, Varner, Williams) beat Europe (Chamat, Davis, Feijen, Immonen, Knight, Souquet) 12-1.

This crushing defeat was probably set up by one incident.Steve Davis was scheduled to play the opening match but with 15 minutes to start of play he hadn't shown up. So with Sky Sports TV starting to twitch they pulled Ralf Souquet out of the practice room just as he was preparing to warm up for Match 2 and stuck him on as first match.
The rest of the team were not too happy as Davis arrived 5 minutes before the off.
Playing captain Souquet was unprepared mentally and had the added burden of having to reshape his playing order whilst he was playing his game. He had to replace himself as a doubles player for the next match. Little surprise that he lost - not just his match but his team had lost a bit of heart.
Steve Davis could play pool to a fair standard but he was there as a snooker icon
to give TV viewers a known face. There were many betterplayers in UK and Europe
at the time. But with team spirit in tatters the USA rolled right over them

AtLarge · Oct 6, 2014

pro9dg said:
This crushing defeat was probably set up by one incident.Steve Davis was scheduled to play the opening match but with 15 minutes to start of play he hadn't shown up. So with Sky Sports TV starting to twitch they pulled Ralf Souquet out of the practice room just as he was preparing to warm up for Match 2 and stuck him on as first match.
The rest of the team were not too happy as Davis arrived 5 minutes before the off.
Playing captain Souquet was unprepared mentally and had the added burden of having to reshape his playing order whilst he was playing his game. He had to replace himself as a doubles player for the next match. Little surprise that he lost - not just his match but his team had lost a bit of heart.
Steve Davis could play pool to a fair standard but he was there as a snooker icon
to give TV viewers a known face. There were many betterplayers in UK and Europe
at the time. But with team spirit in tatters the USA rolled right over them

That's an interesting look behind the scenes, Doug; thanks.

It's about time we ..

Poolplaya9

Tellin' it like it is...

AtLarge

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Poolplaya9

Tellin' it like it is...

AtLarge

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leto1776

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pro9dg

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AtLarge

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