Initial team usa squad is named for mosconi cup xxv

I would prefer to see

Team Road Warriors
Mcminn/bergman/hall/roberts/smith

Vs

Team Tournament Titans
Svb/hatch/thorpe/oscar/skylar

Winner gets the slots! Make them work together as a unit and build team work.

Just my 2 cents

Kd

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk
 
Dave Sapolis would be perfect to help them with their mental game approach. That's all he does now.

Anybody want to contact him?
 
jay helfert said:
A boot camp or advanced training seminar or whatever you want to call it may or may not be that helpful for the Team USA players. I'd suggest they also need a psychological/motivational coach as well, and maybe even more so. JMHO as always.
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MW tried that.

Lou Figueroa
 
sjm said:
The right boot camp would have taken place in February, and the coaches would have told each player what they were expected to work on and which skills needed further development. Those failing to improve the indicated skills should be eliminated from consideration for the team.
Boot camp in August is too late and won't accomplish nearly as much.
I'm inclined to disagree with you here, Jay. I think the skills gap is so large that training is the only solution and if the skills gap were filled, I'm not convinced mental game coaching would be terribly important. Unfortunately, addressing the skills gap might take years until players are held fully accountable for their development.
Year after year, our team shows up with the same weaknesses in both conceptualization and execution. No amount of motivational coaching will fix that.
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Our teams show up with poor concentration skills. And they tend to get into that "rah rah" stuff instead of being cold blooded executioners and dispatching the enemy. Do the 'rah rah' AFTER you've cashed the winning tickets.
Can you imagine players like Mosconi, Worst, Lassiter, Mizerak, etc. etc. jumping up and down and high fiving it after a good inning? Noooo way...they were too focused on robbing the opponents.
Every one of them knows what to do on a pool table when playing in the serious money. They all know pattern play and they all know how to execute.
The coach should have all of them listening with earphones to subliminal message disks dealing with concentration/focus all day long from now to 'kickoff time'.
That stuff works wonders....and it requires no effort on the part of the user either.
 
Kid Dynomite said:
I would prefer to see

Team Road Warriors
Mcminn/bergman/hall/roberts/smith

Vs

Team Tournament Titans
Svb/hatch/thorpe/oscar/skylar

Winner gets the slots! Make them work together as a unit and build team work.

Just my 2 cents

Kd

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Make that 4 cents....I like this idea.
 
sjm said:
The right boot camp would have taken place in February, and the coaches would have told each player what they were expected to work on and which skills needed further development. Those failing to improve the indicated skills should be eliminated from consideration for the team.

Boot camp in August is too late and won't accomplish nearly as much.

I'm inclined to disagree with you here, Jay. I think the skills gap is so large that training is the only solution and if the skills gap were filled, I'm not convinced mental game coaching would be terribly important. Unfortunately, addressing the skills gap might take years until players are held fully accountable for their development.

Year after year, our team shows up with the same weaknesses in both conceptualization and execution. No amount of motivational coaching will fix that.
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Many of the execution errors occur due to mental errors- lack of confidence or concentration. These guys are professionals and know how to execute. Especially the caliber of players they’ve had in the past 5 years or so- it’s not like they’re C players or something. Sure they should practice/get coached on execution but the psychological component is huge.
 
jay helfert said:
A boot camp or advanced training seminar or whatever you want to call it may or may not be that helpful for the Team USA players. I'd suggest they also need a psychological/motivational coach as well, and maybe even more so. JMHO as always.
Click to expand...

I think there is a good amount of truth in this Jay.

As a Brit, whilst I'd suggest the Europeans perhaps do have better fundamentals (generally speaking), I don't think there is a massive skill shortage in the US, there are enough talented players to suggest the European winning run is down to more than just skill.

One thing that has always confused me, is that the Europeans almost always watch each other play (with the occasional exception of the player up next, who might be practising), but the Americans often don't. For a team competition this seems a bit odd, this combined with the body language makes the US team appear as if they don't care.

Now I'm not suggesting they actually don't care, they are all pro's and I'm sure they want to win, but they don't look like they do and I think Jay has hit the nail on the head here (sorry if that's just a British expression), in order for the US to win again they need a fresh mental outlook.

I'm not sure about other pro sports in the US, but over here all pro sports teams have access to sports psychologists (or similar), its a big thing and many pro players (Ronnie O'Sullivan for one) credit their upturn in form on a stronger mental game.
 
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jasonlaus said:
They lose almost every lag. It seems the team that wins the lags wins about the same amount of games and in a short race that is everything.
Jason
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Mosconi Cup matches won and lags won: Team Europe - Team USA

2017 -- 11-4, 11-4
2016 -- 11-3, 6-8
2015 -- 11-7, 9-9
2014 -- 11-5, 14-2
2013 -- 11-2, 9-4

5-year totals -- 55-21, 49-27
 
jasonlaus said:
They lose almost every lag. It seems the team that wins the lags wins about the same amount of games and in a short race that is everything.
Jason
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Yes.

But my point was that you don’t need to go to a boot camp to learn how to lag.

Lou Figueroa
 
Low500 said:
Every one of them knows what to do on a pool table when playing in the serious money. They all know pattern play and they all know how to execute.
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It is here where we disagree. They have shown inferior pattern play, inferior defense, inferior kicking/jumping, year after year and I, for one, think that a lot of it has to do with bad decision making, not poor mental game issues. Their execution skills would, without question, improve with better mental training, but without better decision making, the cause is a lost one.
 
sjm said:
It is here where we disagree. They have shown inferior pattern play, inferior defense, inferior kicking/jumping, year after year and I, for one, think that a lot of it has to do with bad decision making, not poor mental game issues. Their execution skills would, without question, improve with better mental training, but without better decision making, the cause is a lost one.
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Would it be acceptable for me to say that "bad decision making" IS a poor mental game? The result of poor concentration or focus??
They've all been in the same spots on pool tables before, you know.
I just don't buy into the idea that their skill levels are inferior to the opposition.
I believe old Max Erbele is right.....learn to trigger entrance into "the zone" and you will rule.
I watched Jimmy Reid do that under seemingly impossible conditions for a long time.
I really, really, believe that the mental game is the key. We've all seen it happen.
I have beaten people I had no chance (on paper) of beating but in that uncanny moment I somehow got into "the zone" and hit 'em like I was Mosconi.
Only time will tell....it's interesting cutting up jackpots though.
:shrug:
 
Low500 said:
Would it be acceptable for me to say that "bad decision making" IS a poor mental game? The result of poor concentration or focus??
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No, the problem is that the current generation of American players lacks some of the knowledge they require when it comes to rotation games. As has been suggested by others in this forum, some of this is definitely attributable to a) the absence of a true pro tour for many years in the USA, and b) the decision by most of the top US players to forego participation in so many of the World's most prestigious events. Yes, there is a relationship between mental game and the quality of decisions, and while this made be amplifying the problem, but it is not at the heart of the problem.
 
Europe has far better foot work and pre-shot routine based on the snooker stance and they drop in to alignment far better than the USA style gun slingers that hop from shot to shot with out properly addressing the table!

Kd

Sent from the mobile client - Forum Talker
 
Kid Dynomite said:
Europe has far better foot work and pre-shot routine based on the snooker stance and they drop in to alignment far better than the USA style gun slingers that hop from shot to shot with out properly addressing the table!

Kd

Sent from the mobile client - Forum Talker
Click to expand...

I would tend to agree with that.

Even though they look more "robotic" and are usually "boring to watch", their fundamentals are more "solid".

Gun Slingers and fast shooters are more fun to watch, as a spectator, but it leads to greater potential for errors and bad choices.

FWIW, the Mosconi Cup, to me, is nothing more than a carnival show. The short races make it a crap shoot. I don't consider it an accomplishment of anything, other than bragging rights for winning team.

Also, I don't care who wins or loses. It means nothing to me. I'd rather watch a single's match in a long race, or ahead race, for their own money.
 
Fact is, most of our "pros" are not pros, they just play very well.

If they put in the practice and fitness Shane does, their games would improve, it's not like they dont have the talent, they just dont have the professionalism that the Europeans do.

Why Shane doesn't perform in the Cup, I have no idea. Lone wolf syndrome perhaps.
Jason
 
Maybe SVB doesn't perform as well in the Mosconi Cup as he does in other events is because he is more of a "singles" player than a "team" player.

I don't mean that in a sense that he has some sort of attitude or anything, but that maybe he "feels" that he is expected to "carry" the team, both by his team mates and the American audience. That is a burden mentally if he feels that he is giving it his 100% by practicing 12-hours-a-day, every day, and the others aren't.

If any player on the team CAN'T beat SVB, on a somewhat 50-50 basis, then they should be practicing as much as he does in order to compete...not only with him, but the other team.
 
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