Whoa guys - I never said anything bad about any team or would dream of insulting anyone. The POINT of the post is to stress passing is more important than having three high shot teams that can't pass. Also, I am guessing at what the criteria for the third picks were - only the alliance captains know, and when you're the 8th to 3rd alliance - you probably haven't really got a handle on who to pick. It is probably: "OMG who is left that I've seen make one good play during the day." While scouting is important, any team ranked 10 or lower hasn't really expected that they need to have a deep pick list. Say if you are a 10 seed moved up to or 8 and you don't have a high shot, your first pick will be the best high shooter out there. Then you third pick is whoever best left who complements the alliance, and at that point your best bet is someone who can pass and run defense.

I used the alliance picks at Sacramento as an example to make the point. I really do believe that the assists score is a better indicator of performance then rank. The ability to pass in a third alliance pick is more important then rank or the ability to do a solo 10 point shot. Maybe the assists score doesn't reflect passing ability accurately, but is the best indicator I have. I backed up this hypothesis by showing the relative ranking and assists of team in my local area that I am familiar with. How the heck is showing the stats of a team putting them down? It is public information that everyone can see.

Any FIRST team is terrific. I expect to see the the Space Cookies, TKO, Wildhats, MA Bears, Spartans, MVRT at SVR in 3 weeks and have my team play with and against them along with the Poofs and many other legendary teams. I expect they all will be working at top efficiency, having learned the importance of passing, and expect to have a blast.

Perhaps some statistician can analyse the the strength of alliances based on rank vs. assist scores to prove or disprove my hypothesis.