If you want to field a competitive team you can't pass over several obviously much better players and hope team spirit gets it done.
LMAO. Let's keep doing the same thing over and over and keep hoping for it to somehow magically turn out differently. :banghead: Yeah, that's the ticket. LMAO. :rotflmao1:
You might have a point if all you cared about was winning at all cost, even if you made an a$$ out of your country/people in front of the whole world in the process. But most Americans do actually care about not representing our country and people to be spoiled, bullies, crybabies, mentally unstable, and poor sportsman on the world stage.
And you might have a point if individual skill was all that mattered. But this is a team event, not an individual event. The players are playing together
as a team, and
for the team (and country), not just for/by themselves. Whether or not teammates can support and encourage and get along with each other always has a great effect on the team's performance and this holds true for any team in any sport.
And you might have a point if all our highest skilled players always gave 100% effort all of the time. The fact of the matter is that they don't. And they tend to be at their worst in this regard when at the Mosconi Cup where they are already getting a free paid vacation and a very sizeable payment just for showing up. Way too many have given less than 100% and just coasted or even worse just given up.
And you might have a point if all our highest skilled players would make the effort to prepare and practice for this event. The sad truth is, many don't. They show up and collect their free vacation and big paycheck just for being there, and if they happen to win and get an even bigger check that is just gravy but all they really cared about was the free vacation and big paycheck they were getting just for giving up a few days of their time to show up.
And you might have a point if we had 5 players whose individual skills would be equal to or above the skills of the top 5 Europeans. We don't. In fact our top 5 individual players might not even be favored against their 4th string team (the 16th through 20th best Europeans).
And you might have a point if our top players had a recent history of winning, or at least keeping the results super close. Our top players have been so far from being competitive in recent years it would be funny if it wasn't so embarrassing. Their latest result in fact was [tied for] the worst whipping in the history of the event, 11-2. The only thing even close was when we beat the Europeans by the same score many moons ago before they ever even played the game and had to send their snooker players over to play an unfamiliar game.
And you might have a point if our players could be trusted to never intentionally dump matches. While it has not been proven (to my knowledge), unfortunately it is very highly suspected that some intentional dumping likely has occurred on the American side in the past.
Team spirit is going to get schooled big time.
LMAO. Just what do you call last year's 11-2 loss? You don't call that a schooling? What about our performance for the last few years running for that matter? You don't call that a schooling either? You have your head in the sand if you don't think we have been getting schooled for years now. The simple fact is our top players can't even come close to being competitive, yet you are arguing that we should just keep doing the same old thing that isn't even coming remotely close to working. The proverbial definition of insanity is "doing the same things over and over and expecting different results," and by that definition you are definitely insane.
It is clearly time to try something, anything, new besides the same old "send our best 5 individually skilled players" which is proven to be an utter and dismal failure. And there isn't really anything we could do that could make it any worse so there is nothing to lose by trying a different approach. What we appear to need is players that are going to take it seriously, that are going to give 100% effort, who would never dump, that are going to represent our country with some class, that are going to practice and prepare, and that are going to be team players who encourage and support each other. Unfortunately this leaves out some of the players with the best "individual skills". Maybe this new direction will lead to improved results, and maybe it won't, but to continue doing what we were doing where we are picking based only on the best individually skilled players would be beyond idiotic considering the now long and proven history of failing miserably with this tactic.
And as someone else mentioned, even if there were no improvement in results it would still be a team we would be more proud of because they better represented us with more effort and character. Making these changes seems like a win/win all the way around (and can't lose us much if anything) but the one thing that is beyond clear is that you have to be an idiot not to try something different at this point because the "same ole" sure isn't working. Let's see how it goes and analyze and make judgment after.
