Post by roy on Oct 30, 2006 2:18:27 GMT -5
Taped the match and just finished watching it. Good match overall, even though Hawaii lost the first game. San Jose State is a great example of coaching to your strengths. They don't have strong hitters so they hit very, very smart. They tool the blocks when they can and if they can't get a strong swing, they simply keep the ball in play and cause enough disruption to let themselves dig the ball. All the players are very good back row players. They can funnel the ball into several areas of the court to allow themselves an opportunity to transition from defense. This only works for a while against stronger teams and San Jose State doesn't have the hitters to match Hawaii. However, that defense was good enough to cause some frustation on Hawaii's side and allow for some points on Hawaii errors when the Wahine were" trying to hard" to get a kill. With one more strong key player, San Jose could be an NCAA tournament team. However, a couple of injuries during the season hurt their record and without a strong push at the end of the season, they probably wont make it.
Hawaii played fairly well. It was a bit sloppy in the first game and a half but they got it going near the end. I think this might have been the first team that Hawaii has seen this season that will continue to return the ball over and over again without making a strong attacking effort. A very different style of play and you could tell the Hawaii hitters needed to get used to it. Once they settled down, the hitters started clicking better. Passing was still bad. Kamanao had to run down a lot of passes but as the night wore on, the passing got better (but not by much). However, they didn't get aced off the court and that is at least better than their last match with San Jose State. Hawaii's serving has really picked up and caused a lot of disruption for San Jose State. Blocking was decent, however, San Jose State really just hit smart and instead of powering through the block, they just kept the ball in play, so you didn't expect a lot of blocks from the Wahine.
Hawaii played fairly well. It was a bit sloppy in the first game and a half but they got it going near the end. I think this might have been the first team that Hawaii has seen this season that will continue to return the ball over and over again without making a strong attacking effort. A very different style of play and you could tell the Hawaii hitters needed to get used to it. Once they settled down, the hitters started clicking better. Passing was still bad. Kamanao had to run down a lot of passes but as the night wore on, the passing got better (but not by much). However, they didn't get aced off the court and that is at least better than their last match with San Jose State. Hawaii's serving has really picked up and caused a lot of disruption for San Jose State. Blocking was decent, however, San Jose State really just hit smart and instead of powering through the block, they just kept the ball in play, so you didn't expect a lot of blocks from the Wahine.