In 2013, our problems were similar.
1) We had a player who had gone 6-0 in the 2012 Mosconi Cup in Archer but he played poorly. In 2014, once again, the player that figured to be our anchor played poorly.
2) Shane was winless in singles in the 2013 event. Same thing in 2014.
3) On the 2013 team, we had a player who had won one of the toughest events of the year in Rodney Morris, the US Open 10-ball champion, but he didn't perform. Makes me think of Bergman this year, who won at Hard Times, beating Biado in the final to win the event. Bergman didn't play well in the Mosconi.
4) In 2013, we had two guys who were several years displaced from playing their best pool in Strickland and Hatch, two players whose best days were surely behind them. This year's team had Deuel and Schmidt, who are also on the downside of their careers.
Same old same old. Let's lose the veterans on the downside of their careers and go young. Shane, Mike D, Justin H, Justin B, Skylar W would have been a team with four guys in their twenties and if we had wanted to rebuild, we could have gone young. We didn't do it this year. Maybe next year.