Well, Barnsley finally met their match. After seeing off both Arsenal and Liverpool, their magical FA Cup run came to an end at the hands of fellow Championship strugglers Cardiff City. A ninth-minute goal from midfielder Joe Ledley, playing for his hometown side, proved to be the difference between the two sides: Cardiff created many more chances, but couldn't tack on an insurance marker. Barnsley had their own chances, though, particularly when Kayode Odejayi broke in alone but could only find the side of the net in what Soccernet described as "quite possibly the worst miss seen at the new Wembley". In the end, Cardiff was deserving of the win and a berth in next month's final against Portsmouth.
What's interesting is how Barnsley cranked it up to beat top-flight sides like Arsenal and Liverpool, but couldn't seem to do the same against a club from their own league. Perhaps it's the downside of an upset: all of a sudden, the expectations are weighing on your shoulders instead of those of the opposition, particularly when matched up against a club that's an underdog in its own right. You can't play the "Nobody believes in us!" card any more, because all of a sudden, everyone believes in you. Meanwhile, the other side can play with the freedom low expectations bring: if they happen to lose, it was the predicted outcome, but if they win, they've knocked off the giant-killers. In Cardiff's case, no one would raise much of a fuss about joining a roster of defeated adversaries that prominently displays such names as Arsenal and Liverpool.
The other aspect of this is the danger of buying into the hype. You pull off a miracle win, and all of a sudden, you start reading your own press clippings and believing you're up there with the best. As a result, maybe you stop putting in the extra effort that carried you this far. You think, 'Ah, this will be easy! We've beaten the best, now we can coast!' This kind of attitude tends to lead to abandoning the hustle and work ethic that made the wins possible. Meanwhile, the new underdogs have you firmly in their sights, and you can bet they aren't slacking off.
The best other example of this I can think of is from this year's CIS basketball championships. After Acadia pulled off a miracle double-overtime win in the semifinals against the five-time defending champion Carleton Ravens, beating the seventh-seeded Brock Badgers for the title must have seemed like a piece of cake. Instead, Brock went out there and pulled off an upset of their own. Granted, there were other factors involved, including the far-too-short turnaround time between the late-night semifinal and the early-afternoon final, but there's still a good chance that Acadia thought the hard work was done. There aren't any guaranteed wins, and no opponent should ever be taken for granted: it's far too easy to go from underdog to target.
Another interesting aspect of Cardiff's win: it's only the second time a Welsh club has advanced to the FA Cup final. The previous appearance was also by Cardiff, back when they beat Arsenal in 1927. As the Globe's esteemed soccer writer Ben Knight pointed out a while back, being Welsh also means that they won't get the UEFA Cup slot reserved for the FA Cup champions even if they win, which is a great injustice.
Sidebar: It's interesting to see Cardiff doing well again. I remember watching them play the Vancouver Whitecaps in an exhibition a couple years back, and I was pretty impressed. For all the bashing it gets, the Championship actually has a decently high calibre of play.
Showing posts with label underdogs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label underdogs. Show all posts
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Saturday, March 15, 2008
The upset of the century
Bigger than the Giants and Patriots. More remarkable than the Edmonton Oilers' Cinderella run to the Stanley Cup Finals. More unprecedented than the seventh-seeded Winnipeg Wesmen knocking off the undefeated McMaster Marauders. Even more unexpected than Barnsley knocking off Liverpool and Manchester United. There's nothing that's happened yet this century that can compare to the Acadia Axemen's improbable, almost unbelievable 82-80 double overtime upset of the Carleton Ravens tonight in the CIS men's basketball championships. They'll go on to face Brock tomorrow in a final no one would have predicted. As Streaming Sports Network Canada's Mark Masters noted on their webcast, "This is a game that will go down in the history books as one of the best all-time games in national history." I'd go even beyond that.
Carleton has been one of the most dominant programs in any sport ever, winning the last five national championships, going undefeated in OUA competition this year, and winning 18 straight games at the nationals to tie UVic's record. Acadia barely made it into this tournament, squeaking in from the wild-card slot in a somewhat contested decision over Brandon: as Mark Wacyk of cishoops.ca noted on the SSN broadcast, "Some people didn't even think they should be here." I for one, picked Brandon by a nose for the wild-card berth. The Halifax Chronicle-Herald's Chad Lucas now looks like a genius for his post defending the inclusion of the Axemen over the Bobcats and the overall strength of the AUS conference.
As Masters commented, it's tough to grasp the significance of this upset. "You try to wrap your head around the magnitude of what just happened here," he said. "It's a game that will go down in the history books as one of the best all-time games in national history." The Globe and Mail's Michael Grange captured the significance perfectly in the lede of his article. "The Acadia Axeman chopped down a giant," he wrote. "It took two overtime periods, countless lead changes and surviving a controversial reversal of a basket that may well have decided the game with 21 seconds to play, but they will be playing Brock University Sunday afternoon after an 82-80 win that not only ended Carleton University's remarkable five-year run of CIS dominance but will likely stand as one of the most remarkable games in CIS history."
It certainly wasn't an easy win. Acadia held the lead most of the way through, but Carleton wasn't ready to give up on their dreams of a sixth straight championship and kept fighting back, forcing first one overtime, then a second, and even having a chance to win at the end buzzer. Acadia might have been able to pull further away if not for a controversial overturn of a call near the end: they airballed a long jumper, but Sean Berry grabbed the rebound, hit the shot and got the foul. After extensive consultations, the referees overturned the basket and gave Carleton the ball, though, determining that a shot clock violation had occurred. Acadia coach Les Berry was furious, but the SSN guys agreed that it was the right call, and I'm in a mind to agree. The nice thing is it didn't wind up making a difference: it would have been bad if Carleton had won off that call, and it would have been worse if Acadia needed the call to complete this upset. This way, there's no asterisk, and nothing to cast a shadow on their triumph.
The key to victory for the Axemen was a solid defence. As Masters noted,
"When it counted the most, the Ravens just could not hit a shot." Wacyk agreed, citing the defensive play of the Axemen as explanation for the Ravens' abysmal 33% field-goal percentage. "Carleton did not get a lot of open looks," he said. Acadia also pulled off the rare feat of beating the Ravens on the glass, outrebounding them 38-33.
Acadia got a particularly great performance from Achuil Lual, who did a fantastic job of shutting down CIS Player of the Year Aaron Doornekamp. Wacyk attributed Luau's performance as the top factor that let Acadia win, and I'm of a mind to agree: Carleton is tremendously deep, which is why they were able to hang around for so long, but minimizing the impact of a star like Doornekamp is vital for an upset. Lual told the SSN guys in a post-game interview that his defence is the main reason he’s on the squad. “Since I started playing ball, I wasn't really a big offensive threat,” he said. He recognized Doornekamp’s talent, but wasn’t intimidated. “All I was thinking was play my hardest and try to stop him.” Acadia coach Les Berry also had high praise for Lual. "He matches up against the best player on every team," he said. "His intensity is through the roof. He's the most intense player in our league."
Offensively, the key for the Axemen was Peter Leighton, who poured in a game-high 23 points on 60 per cent shooting, including making four of seven attempts from deep. As Wacyk noted, "Leighton played the game of his life." Leonil Santil also had a great game for Acadia, chipping in 22 points and adding nine rebounds.
Lual cited historical precedent, where UVic's reign of 18 straight victories at the nationals─which Carleton tied with Friday's quarter-final win over the Alberta Golden Bears─ended at the hands of an underdog. "Nobody thought we were going to do it," he said. "We used that as motivation and went from that."
Wacyk also made a good comment about how Acadia still needed to excel, even with Carleton having trouble from the floor. "1985, everyone had Georgetown and Villanova played a perfect game," he said. "Tonight, Acadia played as close to a perfect game as you'll see."
CIS Coach of the Year Mike Katz of the University of Toronto Varsity Blues told the SSN guys the victory should be properly appreciated for its uniqueness, rather than rationalized. "It's just the beauty of sport," he said. "You can't overanalyze it, just enjoy it and move on." As Dale Stevens wrote on CIShoops.ca, "The reign is over!" Carleton's dynasty has been good for the coverage of CIS competition, as dominance is always interesting. There's a limit to the amount of times one can expound on that theme, though, and it's good to see that this isn't just a one-horse league. The kings are dead: long live the kings.
One interesting thing that may come out of this win is a strengthening of the push for a 16-team tournament, which Wayne Kondro of the Ottawa Citizen reports already enjoys significant support. If the wild-card team can knock off a five-time defending champion, it suggests that CIS parity is very strong. This is further evidenced by the quality of several of the teams that missed out, such as Brandon, Katz' Blues, and the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees. If there's a way to make a 16-team tournament work around school commitments and expenses, I'd be all for it. I'm not as big of a fan of the scheme Kondro outlines though, where the tournament is split into four regional ones and only the four champions play. That essentially is a contraction, rather than an expansion, of the nationals, as there already are regional tournaments in the lead-up to the CIS championships. This also won't necessarily lead to the best teams playing at the end, as is evidenced by tomorrow's finalists: Brock finished third in the OUA playoffs, while Acadia picked up silvers at the AUS tournament. One final point against regionalizing the nationals is that most Canadian papers can't afford to send four people to cover university basketball in different locations, so your quality of coverage will be greatly decreased. This isn't just a newspaper issue, either: it would be pretty hard to convince the Score to pay for four different camera crews and commentary teams to fly to different cities and be billeted there for most of a week, in addition to the technical issues with broadcasting from that many arenas. If the nationals go to 16 teams, it should be a full-week tournament in one central location: now that would get some significant coverage.
Regardless of expansion, as Wacyk rightfully concluded on the SSN broadcast, this sort of match bodes well for Canadian university basketball. "Any time a team loses for the first time in six years its a big story, but I think the bigger story is the incredible excitement generated by this ball game," he said. "CIS basketball is a tremendous product, and tonight we got one of the greatest games in the history of the CIS. It just shows you how great CIS basketball can be."
Update: Some new links on this: Neate has good pieces at Out Of Left Field and The CIS Blog, and Chris Stevenson of the Ottawa Sun has a very impressive deadline story.
Carleton has been one of the most dominant programs in any sport ever, winning the last five national championships, going undefeated in OUA competition this year, and winning 18 straight games at the nationals to tie UVic's record. Acadia barely made it into this tournament, squeaking in from the wild-card slot in a somewhat contested decision over Brandon: as Mark Wacyk of cishoops.ca noted on the SSN broadcast, "Some people didn't even think they should be here." I for one, picked Brandon by a nose for the wild-card berth. The Halifax Chronicle-Herald's Chad Lucas now looks like a genius for his post defending the inclusion of the Axemen over the Bobcats and the overall strength of the AUS conference.
As Masters commented, it's tough to grasp the significance of this upset. "You try to wrap your head around the magnitude of what just happened here," he said. "It's a game that will go down in the history books as one of the best all-time games in national history." The Globe and Mail's Michael Grange captured the significance perfectly in the lede of his article. "The Acadia Axeman chopped down a giant," he wrote. "It took two overtime periods, countless lead changes and surviving a controversial reversal of a basket that may well have decided the game with 21 seconds to play, but they will be playing Brock University Sunday afternoon after an 82-80 win that not only ended Carleton University's remarkable five-year run of CIS dominance but will likely stand as one of the most remarkable games in CIS history."
It certainly wasn't an easy win. Acadia held the lead most of the way through, but Carleton wasn't ready to give up on their dreams of a sixth straight championship and kept fighting back, forcing first one overtime, then a second, and even having a chance to win at the end buzzer. Acadia might have been able to pull further away if not for a controversial overturn of a call near the end: they airballed a long jumper, but Sean Berry grabbed the rebound, hit the shot and got the foul. After extensive consultations, the referees overturned the basket and gave Carleton the ball, though, determining that a shot clock violation had occurred. Acadia coach Les Berry was furious, but the SSN guys agreed that it was the right call, and I'm in a mind to agree. The nice thing is it didn't wind up making a difference: it would have been bad if Carleton had won off that call, and it would have been worse if Acadia needed the call to complete this upset. This way, there's no asterisk, and nothing to cast a shadow on their triumph.
The key to victory for the Axemen was a solid defence. As Masters noted,
"When it counted the most, the Ravens just could not hit a shot." Wacyk agreed, citing the defensive play of the Axemen as explanation for the Ravens' abysmal 33% field-goal percentage. "Carleton did not get a lot of open looks," he said. Acadia also pulled off the rare feat of beating the Ravens on the glass, outrebounding them 38-33.
Acadia got a particularly great performance from Achuil Lual, who did a fantastic job of shutting down CIS Player of the Year Aaron Doornekamp. Wacyk attributed Luau's performance as the top factor that let Acadia win, and I'm of a mind to agree: Carleton is tremendously deep, which is why they were able to hang around for so long, but minimizing the impact of a star like Doornekamp is vital for an upset. Lual told the SSN guys in a post-game interview that his defence is the main reason he’s on the squad. “Since I started playing ball, I wasn't really a big offensive threat,” he said. He recognized Doornekamp’s talent, but wasn’t intimidated. “All I was thinking was play my hardest and try to stop him.” Acadia coach Les Berry also had high praise for Lual. "He matches up against the best player on every team," he said. "His intensity is through the roof. He's the most intense player in our league."
Offensively, the key for the Axemen was Peter Leighton, who poured in a game-high 23 points on 60 per cent shooting, including making four of seven attempts from deep. As Wacyk noted, "Leighton played the game of his life." Leonil Santil also had a great game for Acadia, chipping in 22 points and adding nine rebounds.
Lual cited historical precedent, where UVic's reign of 18 straight victories at the nationals─which Carleton tied with Friday's quarter-final win over the Alberta Golden Bears─ended at the hands of an underdog. "Nobody thought we were going to do it," he said. "We used that as motivation and went from that."
Wacyk also made a good comment about how Acadia still needed to excel, even with Carleton having trouble from the floor. "1985, everyone had Georgetown and Villanova played a perfect game," he said. "Tonight, Acadia played as close to a perfect game as you'll see."
CIS Coach of the Year Mike Katz of the University of Toronto Varsity Blues told the SSN guys the victory should be properly appreciated for its uniqueness, rather than rationalized. "It's just the beauty of sport," he said. "You can't overanalyze it, just enjoy it and move on." As Dale Stevens wrote on CIShoops.ca, "The reign is over!" Carleton's dynasty has been good for the coverage of CIS competition, as dominance is always interesting. There's a limit to the amount of times one can expound on that theme, though, and it's good to see that this isn't just a one-horse league. The kings are dead: long live the kings.
One interesting thing that may come out of this win is a strengthening of the push for a 16-team tournament, which Wayne Kondro of the Ottawa Citizen reports already enjoys significant support. If the wild-card team can knock off a five-time defending champion, it suggests that CIS parity is very strong. This is further evidenced by the quality of several of the teams that missed out, such as Brandon, Katz' Blues, and the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees. If there's a way to make a 16-team tournament work around school commitments and expenses, I'd be all for it. I'm not as big of a fan of the scheme Kondro outlines though, where the tournament is split into four regional ones and only the four champions play. That essentially is a contraction, rather than an expansion, of the nationals, as there already are regional tournaments in the lead-up to the CIS championships. This also won't necessarily lead to the best teams playing at the end, as is evidenced by tomorrow's finalists: Brock finished third in the OUA playoffs, while Acadia picked up silvers at the AUS tournament. One final point against regionalizing the nationals is that most Canadian papers can't afford to send four people to cover university basketball in different locations, so your quality of coverage will be greatly decreased. This isn't just a newspaper issue, either: it would be pretty hard to convince the Score to pay for four different camera crews and commentary teams to fly to different cities and be billeted there for most of a week, in addition to the technical issues with broadcasting from that many arenas. If the nationals go to 16 teams, it should be a full-week tournament in one central location: now that would get some significant coverage.
Regardless of expansion, as Wacyk rightfully concluded on the SSN broadcast, this sort of match bodes well for Canadian university basketball. "Any time a team loses for the first time in six years its a big story, but I think the bigger story is the incredible excitement generated by this ball game," he said. "CIS basketball is a tremendous product, and tonight we got one of the greatest games in the history of the CIS. It just shows you how great CIS basketball can be."
Update: Some new links on this: Neate has good pieces at Out Of Left Field and The CIS Blog, and Chris Stevenson of the Ottawa Sun has a very impressive deadline story.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Don't stop believing: they still might be Giants
Today's astonishing New York Giants win over the heavily-favoured Green Bay Packers sets the stage for what could potentially be a fantastic Super Bowl. I must admit I was hoping Brett Favre and the Packers would triumph, setting up the old era-new era clash between Favre and Tom Brady, two of the all-time greats. For a while, it looked like they had a shot, especially at the end of regulation when there was a distinct chance "Wide Left" could enter the sports lexicon (it would have been nicely symmetrical, too). However, Favre threw an overtime pick, the Giants hit a field goal, and the rest is history.
The next act could be even more epic, though: Giants - Patriots II. As MSNBC's Mike Celizic pointed out after the original clash in the last week of the regular season, the Giants showed that beating the Patriots is indeed possible. "The Giants haven’t been accused of being the best team in the NFL," Celizic wrote. "Nor, for that matter, were the Eagles or the Ravens. But all three teams followed the template, and all pushed the Patriots to somewhere that might be near the limits of their extraordinary abilities. All had chances to beat the team that remains — so far — unbeatable. ... . Just because the Patriots have not been beaten doesn’t mean they’re unbeatable. It’s not easy, but nobody ever said it would be or should be. It requires a perfect game. Nothing more and nothing less."
Celizic is absolutely right here: beating the Patriots is still possible. The Patriots are far superior on paper, in every stat imaginable, and in roster depth, but the Giants still have a chance. As previously mentioned, this is why they actually play these games out instead of simulating a season on computers. Sure, a Patriots win may seem almost inevitable, but the Giants' chance for success still is there.
It would be so right on so many levels if the Giants were somehow able to come up with a win. The team that made a heroic effort but failed to stop 16-0 gets a shot to stop 19-0. It would be perfect to see the much-maligned Eli Manning do what his famous brother couldn't this year. It's David versus Goliath (but with the Giants as underdogs), 300 Spartans against a Persian horde, a small group of colonials rebelling against the might of Britain in her prime, the Rebel Alliance against the Galactic Empire. The sporting world proves that such events do happen from time to time: see the Miracle on Ice, Man O'War's loss to 100-to-1 underdog Upset (an appropriate name, to say the least), or more recently, Appalachian State v. Michigan.
The underdog appeals to much of humanity, just because it's so contrary to how things normally play out: we like to see the 97-pound weakling take down the 300-pound bully, the Luton Towns of this world able to compete with the Liverpools. Sure, most of the time it doesn't happen outside of the cinema, but when it does, it's magical.
Underdogs like the Giants represent all of us who have been kicked around by the world in some way or another: those passed over for jobs or promotions, those cut from the team, those told they weren't up to snuff for whatever reason. They can't compete with the big boys for supremacy over the long haul of a regular season, but they don't need to. On any given Sunday (or Saturday, or whatever day games are played on), anything can happen.
Sometimes, nice guys do finish first, empires can be stopped in their tracks, and you don't need secret video tapes to win a Super Bowl. It can't be that way all of the time, of course, as that would diminish the value when the unexpected does happen. Still, hope remains: sometimes it works out, and the tiny snubfighter blows up the battle station, the cold backup goalie stops Iceland's best shooter, or a pair of unknown journalists bring down a presidency. For all those who like to see the little guy come out ahead, as Journey famously wrote, don't stop believing. After all, they still might be Giants.
The next act could be even more epic, though: Giants - Patriots II. As MSNBC's Mike Celizic pointed out after the original clash in the last week of the regular season, the Giants showed that beating the Patriots is indeed possible. "The Giants haven’t been accused of being the best team in the NFL," Celizic wrote. "Nor, for that matter, were the Eagles or the Ravens. But all three teams followed the template, and all pushed the Patriots to somewhere that might be near the limits of their extraordinary abilities. All had chances to beat the team that remains — so far — unbeatable. ... . Just because the Patriots have not been beaten doesn’t mean they’re unbeatable. It’s not easy, but nobody ever said it would be or should be. It requires a perfect game. Nothing more and nothing less."
Celizic is absolutely right here: beating the Patriots is still possible. The Patriots are far superior on paper, in every stat imaginable, and in roster depth, but the Giants still have a chance. As previously mentioned, this is why they actually play these games out instead of simulating a season on computers. Sure, a Patriots win may seem almost inevitable, but the Giants' chance for success still is there.
It would be so right on so many levels if the Giants were somehow able to come up with a win. The team that made a heroic effort but failed to stop 16-0 gets a shot to stop 19-0. It would be perfect to see the much-maligned Eli Manning do what his famous brother couldn't this year. It's David versus Goliath (but with the Giants as underdogs), 300 Spartans against a Persian horde, a small group of colonials rebelling against the might of Britain in her prime, the Rebel Alliance against the Galactic Empire. The sporting world proves that such events do happen from time to time: see the Miracle on Ice, Man O'War's loss to 100-to-1 underdog Upset (an appropriate name, to say the least), or more recently, Appalachian State v. Michigan.
The underdog appeals to much of humanity, just because it's so contrary to how things normally play out: we like to see the 97-pound weakling take down the 300-pound bully, the Luton Towns of this world able to compete with the Liverpools. Sure, most of the time it doesn't happen outside of the cinema, but when it does, it's magical.
Underdogs like the Giants represent all of us who have been kicked around by the world in some way or another: those passed over for jobs or promotions, those cut from the team, those told they weren't up to snuff for whatever reason. They can't compete with the big boys for supremacy over the long haul of a regular season, but they don't need to. On any given Sunday (or Saturday, or whatever day games are played on), anything can happen.
Sometimes, nice guys do finish first, empires can be stopped in their tracks, and you don't need secret video tapes to win a Super Bowl. It can't be that way all of the time, of course, as that would diminish the value when the unexpected does happen. Still, hope remains: sometimes it works out, and the tiny snubfighter blows up the battle station, the cold backup goalie stops Iceland's best shooter, or a pair of unknown journalists bring down a presidency. For all those who like to see the little guy come out ahead, as Journey famously wrote, don't stop believing. After all, they still might be Giants.
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