Where's the defense this year?

[Kit Gerhart]

Basically, we have "played to win" this year, and let the points fall where they may. If you end up 10-0-0, or 9-1-0 in the Q matches, you are going to be in good shape, even if your opponents' ave score is zero. Our primary offence has been to hang every match, and we have used various bits of defense to reduce ball scoring and hanging by our opponents. So far, though, we have not faced alliances capable of scoring 200+ points in a match, as will be the case at Atlanta.

It is now going to be a more complex thing to come up with a winning strategy, when we will start seeing super ball scorers. When 210 and 220 points are scored, as in some matches at Cleveland and Evanston, two robots hanging and a few balls in an uncapped goal obviously isn't going to get it. If two robots like our very good hanger, but without ball collecting capability, are on the same alliance, we will have to have a very offensive defense to beat teams who can score and cap 15 balls and whose partner can hang.