Inbounders!
 

I haven't seen any posts on how successful the inbounders are doing so I decided to make this one. Hitting the rim is no problem for me, it's just the when the ball curves that throws me off. :ahh:

Re: Inbounders!
 

I was quite surprised to see the balls curve myself, but it's definitely there. I observed that, when people threw the balls in a sort of quarterback style (giving it a "spiral" spin), the ball would curve right quite a bit (a couple inches? More than enough to make a difference) if thrown by a right-hander.

Re: Inbounders!
 

How successful an inbounder is, has nothing to do with making baskets in the last 30sec of the match.

It has everything to do with how accurately he can feed a robot that is shooting 90% during the rest of the match.

Re: Inbounders!
 

A challenger (to the OP) appeared!

Anyway, i quite agree with Adam. The inbounders who can consistently feed basketballs to their bots on the other side of the bump will be a MUCH LARGER factor in matches than the ones that can make the occasional shot during the last 30 seconds. I'm not taking anything away from the masters of the hail mary shots, but 90 seconds of consistent feeding will outscore 30 seconds of Hail Mary shots.

Re: Inbounders!
 

I have seen some skillful inbounding across the field. Something not mentioned explicitly is accurate end position. Placing the ball by the robot so it doesn't have to chase saves vital seconds. I have seen balls roll in to an awaiting robot's intake system. Be able to vary the path of the inbounded ball. Being predictable allows the other alliance's robot to steal or block balls easily.

My $0.02 on inbounding.

Re: Inbounders!
 

We have found that having an inbounder who is both completely aware of the game and can get a ball over the bump in many ways to be a great benefit. The inbounder needs to know if the other alliance is playing defense on them, must predict that robot's actions and correctly get a ball through them. Therefore it helps if you can accurately bounce a ball over the bridge, over the coopertition bridge, and over the bump.

Did you see Queen City F-2? 781's inbounder scored a 2pt shot that (well, kinda) won the regional. That's definately something I can see happening more often on Einstein.

Re: Inbounders!
 

That was quite an awesome match, but to say that same situation will happen on Einstein is a bit much. There's way too many variables to measure there. Assuming all alliances are balanced, then it will all come down to strategic execution. It's VERY HARD to have a tie in this game, going into the last 15 seconds.

Re: Inbounders!
 

Oh, sorry this post was for all-around success. I guess feeding balls has come to ease to me on our practice field.

I meant HPs making baskets in the last 30s. I think that the teams destined for Einstein are going to try to be making at least 2-3 HP baskets per game. That will win games. 9-4 pts is not a little, especially if they starve the field of balls and make HP shots be almost the only shots taken.

Re: Inbounders!
 

It's an interesting theory, we'll see how Einstein goes. Will ball starving be existent though? You could argue that if a human player is good enough to pass a ball directly to their robot, then starving won't be needed, and the difference in the match won't be decided by hail mary shots. However, if starving is rampant, or one team starves the other, those hail mary shots might be really important.

Re: Inbounders!
 

I think you're going to see a lot of inbounder blocking in elims.


I hope they start calling hoarding fouls again.

On the robots or the human players?

Re: Inbounders!
 

Our inbounder actually had shoulder surgery right before the season started so he has trouble throwing the ball down through the slot normally.

Instead he uses a full-body-thrusting motion(Sort of like a "drop it") - that while fun to mock - makes him the most accurate of any inbounder Ive seen.

In 2 events hes only ever missed getting 2 balls over the fender. And both times it was because a robot drove in the way.

Re: Inbounders!
 

Human players. Drives me crazy when we're blocking the inbounder slot.

Has the GDC ever clarified if human players hoarding balls in this fashion is "against the spirit of the game"? I'm pretty sure that's what they meant when they said something along the lines of human players are there to put the balls in play as soon as possible.

Re: Inbounders!
 

They don't have to. They set a maximum the Inbounders can hold, two apiece, and a rule that the corral has to be emptied as soon as possible.

So question, if they empty the corral holding two balls and don't feed the balls onto the field, is that hoarding or..?

Re: Inbounders!
 

It's a perfectly sound game strategy - one that a team like 45 may be wise to employ. Check out this thread - especially post #12 and on.

Re: Inbounders!
 

You're welcome to keep up to 6 balls [5 is safer] behind the glass at any one time. I have no problem with this (totally within the game spirit), we and do it quite a bit ourselves. I'm talking about hoarding, i.e. inbounders deliberately holding more than 6 balls or deliberately keeping balls in the corral: G31. It's a crazy difficult call catch consistently with reffing this year (I know it), but it drives me crazy as a coach, even in quals. I've lost track of the number of alliances I've seen hoarding just while walking past the field.

The setup for HP foul calling this year is my biggest problem with this game. It kills a lot of strategy.

Thanks for the link! I can't say we haven't been discussing this. ;)



Is there refs behind the wall that aren't also watching the field? If so, that should be their primary thing to watch, am I wrong?

Sorry for all the questions, I haven't been following CD this season as much as last.

Re: Inbounders!
 

There are no refs stationed behind the alliance station walls this year. (Feel free to also check match videos if positions are unclear.)

That makes it really dificult to judge. I don't see any way to fix it without taking judges away from field judging or the possibility of falsely incuring dogma penalties from 2010.

Re: Inbounders!
 

Disclaimer - I have not served as referee.
My friends who are referees said each one is assigned to a quarter of the court. My experience has been one usually pops back behind the alliance station during hybrid to see if anybody touches the scored basketballs before teleop begins; after that, they're primarily watching the robot interactions. I've anecdotally seen quite a few <G31> and <G33> calls missed.

So problem: Refs are currently (from experience) unable to call g31 and g33 penalties.

Possible solution: Do you think it would be possible for FIRST to instruct the refs to pay more attention to that area, be it even just a poke every 20-30s or so without impacting the game on the field?

Re: Inbounders!
 

That's exactly the problem. It's not the referees' fault, it's simply the setup of the game. My complaint is that the game is setup to make calling critical penalties difficult.

...Suffice to say that many a drive team at different early events can tell you how refs tried to overcome the problem (some I personally really liked), head refs have contact with the GDC, and there is currently no officially sanctioned solution.

EDIT: Actually, it's been mentioned publicly to drive teams before, so the answer is that the GDC does not want to do so, and specifically instructed the opposite some weeks ago.


I think I should end my input on this discussion now. Maybe before now.

Re: Inbounders!
 

If I recall correctly, some events had "extra" refs--a 7-person crew instead of a 5-person crew--with the "extras" watching the humans. Apparently, HQ shut that down, though.

If you're going to make something a foul, why not enable the enforcement of such a foul? (In this case, it is actually enforceable. Unlike some other competition rules that are not.)

Re: Inbounders!
 

Getting the ball over the bump has been no problem save for the occasional robot getting in the way. The real difficulty is the shots at the end. Especially if you haven't thrown in a while since hitting these shots is pretty much all about muscle memory.

In the eliminations in Wisconsin I hit three in a row (not all on the same hoop level actually: 3,2,3) but mainly because I had thrown so many within the past hour I pretty much had the motion down. When practicing at home however it really varies depending on how worn out the walls are.

Re: Inbounders!
 

Which fender are you talking about, the near one or the far one? Getting past the near fender doesn't seem to be much to brag about, but getting all the way over the far fender would not be as useful as getting the ball close to a robot near the key.

Unless you're talking about throwing over the alliance station wall during the last 30 seconds, which it doesn't sound like you meant.

That is what he meant.

Re: Inbounders!
 

When I am reffing I try and make it a point to try and know how many balls have been scored and how many have been returned to the field.

It's not hard to know when it's time to start watching the inbounders more closely.

If this is true than its a non-issue, which, apparently, FIRST agrees. I can see inbounders being extremely important on Einstien if the strategies are anything similar to the psuedo-hoarding strat.

Re: Inbounders!
 

Also I have never had to call a foul (in three regionals) against teams employing this strategy. Teams that understand the rules enough to do this also understand that they need to get rid of the balls.

The only time I have called a foul for more than six were on teams that either didn't understand the rules or simply weren't paying attention.

Re: Inbounders!
 

Wow, you're lucky. I have reffed two events and coached 3. In two reffed events, I have called something like 3-4 instances of G31 (~10 balls total). I suspect most refs keep track the same way IndySam and I do.

In the 3 coached events, I have clearly seen* well over 10 separate instances--probably close to 25 balls--not called (and others that were called). On webcasts especially, I have seen teams loose matches due to non-calls multiple times. It's a constant issue I've heard numerous other drive team members, spectators and volunteers comment on.


Some of these cases were simply teams not understanding the rules that didn't affect much, but others very clearly provided a strategic advantage (whether or not they understood the rules). This makes FIRST's rationale very difficult for me to swallow.


*I cannot see opposing inbounders well enough when I'm coaching to spot G31s (with all the baskets, diamond plate, drivers, robots, etc in the way). Please don't take this as a slight against teams we've "blocked the slot" on. My mental count certainly never got over 6.

Re: Inbounders!
 

Team 1219 and I had a little bit of fun in Q-25 at GTR west. They would park infront of the barrier between the coopertition bridge and our bridge. They seemed to know that I could bounce it over both bridges and the barrier, and would drive infront of whatever I seemed to be aiming for, so I must say a lot of fake throws(on my part) and fake moves (on their part) were happening. To make it better, their drivers were directly across from the inbound slot. I remember after their first block, I looked up at them, their coach smiled at me, and I smiled right back. Kudos to them for making my job that much more annoying.

I must say that was my most enjoyable match to inbound :D

Re: Inbounders!
 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan Anderson View Post
Unless you're talking about throwing over the alliance station wall during the last 30 seconds, which it doesn't sound like you meant.

He means getting it over the bump in the middle. I also understand what he means about a full upper body movement. I do something similar, and I do very well, as the balls actually go faster, and bounce higher.

Funny point about hoarding- in Arizona semi - finals, the human players did not take any balls out of the corrall, and got 45 PENALTY POINTS!!!!

Re: Inbounders!
 

That is pretty classic. I have had something like that, but they usually give up after 10 seconds, when i dont throw a ball.

Re: Inbounders!
 

ive had a robot park dirrectly infront of the inbound slot for the entire match but i got lucky and they left a big enough oppening for the ball to be thrown through

Re: Inbounders!
 

Man that's annoying. Luckily when that happened only 3 balls were scored on us, so...30 seconds :yikes:

What an interesting number...

Re: Inbounders!
 

No, that's the barrier. Amadinerjohn was talking about the fender (unless he just used the wrong word, which is certainly possible, and which would make my question totally irrelevant).

Re: Inbounders!
 

It's no big deal, but just think logically about throwing the ball over the fender. It is impossible, as there is no way to get over the one on the far side, and you are right beside the one that the other alliance is scoring on. It seems pretty obvious that he just mixed up the words. The way he wrote it made it seem like he meant the barrier.

Re: Inbounders!
 

I did mean barrier. That was a huge typo on my behalf and I'm embarrassed about it.

Re: Inbounders!
 

Check GTR West finals 1, I'm pretty sure a human player scores a ball into the low basket (off 2056) passing through the slot. We also are fortunate enough to have a full practice field and I have hit the rim a few times through the feeder slot.