Making a stand without standing

Dunking, splashing, and pushing — not just childhood horseplay but defensive strategy for the men's water polo team.

"The best way to describe water polo defense is to compare it to basketball," head coach Luis Nicolao explained. "You base the strategy on your opponent's strengths — whether they have a strong center or strong outside shooters, or whether they have general speed."

As in basketball, there is a shot clock. The offense can only keep possession of the ball for 30 seconds without taking a shot or getting a member of the defense ejected. Each team has six players and a goalkeeper. The offense will have one center forward, called a hole set, two wings, two drivers and a point man. Everyone but the hole set is a perimeter player, and the hole set usually has the most individual scores. Positions are similar on defense, with the offensive hole set often double-teamed by the defending hole set and point man. The defending point man is called the hole D or two-meter defense. He stays on the two-meter line directly in front of the goal. The two-meter line is a red line beyond which no member of the offense can go without possession of the ball. Only the goalkeeper is allowed to touch the ball with two hands, strike the ball with a clenched fist, or touch the bottom of the pool. He is also the only player who cannot cross the half-distance line.

If the opposing team has strong outside shooters, the defensive strategy is press coverage, or man-to-man defense, where the Tigers "get in their face and keep the pressure all around," Nicolao said.

Alternatively, a team with a strong center forces the defense to play drop, or zone, coverage. And if both of these aspects are strong, "we use help defense — we use team communication to rotate the players around based on where the ball is," Nicolao said.

"Princeton's strategy is to play a really tenacious defense," sophomore utility Alex Edmunds said. "We call it 'Tenacious D'. We try to stop easy ball movement and get a lot of steals. It has worked especially well against the East Coast teams — we've been doing a good job shutting down their offenses and not letting them move. We try to deny the ball side drive, where a lot of teams get ejections, or 'kickouts.'"

"We focus on stopping the ball from getting in the two-meter position," sophomore utility Eric Vreeland added. "Also, if they are able to shoot we want it to be from the right side of the goal to cut off their angle."

Fouls are common in water polo and are part of the defensive strategy to interrupt the movement of the ball. A minor foul committed against the offensive player with possession of the ball forces that player to stop advancing and pass the ball. A major foul results in the defensive player's ejection, forcing the defending team to play man-down for 20 seconds, until a goal is scored or the defensive team regains possession. Minor fouls include swimming on the opponent's back or reaching over his shoulder to hinder his movement, while major fouls include dunking (or "sinking"), splashing or pulling the opponent to keep him from getting the ball.

As is often the case, a good defense is crucial to gaining a win.

"Basically, we want to dictate to the opposing team what they can do on offense," Nicolao said. "We know that if we can play a good defense we will be in every game, because you can't always count on your offense. We try to match size with size and speed with speed and communicate switches to make the match-ups work."