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Post by The Bofa on the Sofa on Apr 14, 2007 19:41:46 GMT -5
The 8 teams advancing to the Gold bracket are Georgia Tech, Virginia, Marquette, Creighton, Michigan State, Michigan, Dayton, and K-State. As someone that follows the Valley and the Big 12 glad to see the Jays looking good. Jays did look good in the AM, not so good in the PM. I see no one has mentioned the schocker of the day: Texas won the bronze group. Not a surprise they won, but a surprise they were IN the Bronze group. They finished third in their pool, after getting swept by Ga Tech, and beating Iowa 2-1. Interestingly, IA beat Ga Tech in three, but Ga Tech got the #1 based on games, IA was second, and Texas third. Yeah, I know its spring, and no, Destinee Hooker was not there (bummer for me, I wanted to meet her), but still, it was a major shock for them to not even make the Silver bracket. Also somewhat disappointing from the fan standpoint, because it would have been interesting to see them against some of the other top teams. They went to the Bronze and blew out North Carolina, and then handily beat Mississippi St. Michigan won the championship in the Gold bracket, beating Mich St in 3 (sorry, I didn't pay enough attention to who was playing for Mich St). The pleasant surprise of the day was Kansas St, who won the consolation of the Gold, and was probably the second best team there today. They have a couple of players who they didn't have in the fall (including a tough 6'4" lefty from Russia - basically, a Mel Ukovich but 4" taller). They had Purdue on the ropes in pool play, but Purdue pulled it out (and then turned around and lost to Mississippi St in an ugly match), but KSU made the Gold bracket on the tie breaker. Purdue and Northwestern made the finals of the Silver, and then both agreed to leave and not play it. After their poor performance against Miss St, Purdue turned it around in the afternoon, and handled both West Michigan and Tennessee. They are a different team when they serve tough, which they didn't do against Miss St. Northwestern beat Bowling Green and Notre Dame in the afternoon. I'm going to do a Pablo run on the results tomorrow (I have all the scores) just for the fun of it. Overall, I wouldn't be surprised to see Kansas St as the second best team, especially considering that they killed Ga Tech in the consolation. The semi-final match between Mich and Kansas St was pretty close, as Mich won 25-20, 21-25, 16-14. Closest match of the day was probably Virginia/Ga Tech in the first round of the gold division, where Ga Tech won 21-25,25-19,21-19. The biggest blowout was game three of Iowa/Bowling Green, where BGSU won 15 -3. Iowa was exceedingly up and down all day. The three games of that BGSU match were 19-25, 25-13, 3-15. Same thing in Iowa/Notre Dame. Iowa won game 1 25-10, and then lost game 2 15-25. Complete turn arounds. Just to let you know how close that Iowa/Texas/Ga Tech pool was, after Ga Tech beat Texas, Iowa was sitting at match point in game 2 25-24, and got a free ball. They run a slide, but the ball is set just a bit too wide and she hits the antenna on the attack. Probably would have been successful, had they connected. If they had, it would have meant that Texas could have still made the Gold. However, when Ga Tech won game two, it sent Texas to at least the silver (where they could have gone if they swept Iowa - when Iowa took a game, though, that was the end) Similarly, if Purdue could have taken one game against Miss St, they would have made the Gold division. Pretty disappointing, there.
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Post by doc on Apr 15, 2007 11:56:23 GMT -5
Good up-dates P-dub. I heard the Jays didn't look good at times in the afternoon but apparently had Michigan on the ropes in the first match of the gold bracket and couldn't close them out. It's a strange game. It will be interesting to see K-State in the fall. I'm expecting them to be very good and very motivated after last fall. What happened that Marquette and Creighton didn't play their last match?
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Post by The Bofa on the Sofa on Apr 15, 2007 12:10:49 GMT -5
The Jays took the first game from Mich, and were up (IIRC) 24 - 20 in game 2. Michigan ran 6 straight there, and then won game 3 15-6. After that they lost to Dayton 22-25, 15-25.
I'm guessing Creighton and Marquette didn't see any use in playing for the 7/8 place. Creighton had a hefty drive ahead, so they took off.
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Post by vbfanatic on Apr 15, 2007 14:08:27 GMT -5
I would venture that 2 outsides and 3 middles is about par for spring ball. Often, teams will play defensive specialist in the front row. What about the Buckeyes? I thought they were in this tournament. TOSU only loses a senior setter and outside hitter. Looks like Texas will walk through this thing. Texas walking through...hardly...winning the Bronze bracket is a poor showing even for Spring without Hooker. K-State was definitely the class of the Big 12 as Kansas was in the Bronze as well. K-State should make a significant impact in the Big 12 next Fall if they stay healthy.
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Post by The Bofa on the Sofa on Apr 15, 2007 16:26:53 GMT -5
For what it's worth, here is Pablo's take on the overall play on Saturday. Keep in mind that this can't be taken too seriously in terms of evaluating teams overall, but it does give a perspective of how things broke down yesterday:
1 Kansas State 10000 2 Michigan 9935 3 Purdue 9760 4 Texas 9460 5 Dayton 9420 6 Northwestern 9345 7 Michigan State 9315 8 Mississippi State 9160 9 Notre Dame 8935 10 Georgia Tech 8850 11 Creighton 8820 12 Virginia 8720 13 Iowa 8675 14 UConn 8615 15 Bowling Green 8555 16 Tennessee 8505 17 TPC 8200 18 North Carolina 7940 19 Marquette 7885 20 Western Michigan 7625 21 Clemson 7455 22 Kansas 7210
I'm not surprised to see Kansas St #1. Yeah, they lost to Mich in a close 3 game match, and also lost two close ones to Purdue, but Michigan dropped games to Creighton, UConn, and Michigan St. Moreover, KSU was helped significantly by its big (points wise) win over Ga Tech. Despite bouncing to the Bronze division, Texas still rates 4th overall. Purdue gets to #3 in large part due to its win over Kansas St.
Interesting to see Dayton in at #5. In the AM, they won two games against Virginia and split two games with Notre Dame and West Mich (that pool played 2 games against the other three teams). In the PM, they lost to Kansas St, but then beat Creighton and VA again.
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Post by doc on Apr 15, 2007 21:44:03 GMT -5
good stuff p-dub.
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Post by caljr on Apr 16, 2007 6:08:30 GMT -5
Only because Pablo is such a keen observer of the sport of volleyball, I ask him - or anyone else who was at the GLC - to confirm that Georgia Tech was not playing their setter in the front row during the day. A coaching friend of mine who was their watching seemed to think that GT's setter stayed in the backcourt all the time and that this had something do do with their ability to compete with the big boys. Anybody know if this actually happened.
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Post by The Bofa on the Sofa on Apr 16, 2007 8:32:04 GMT -5
I didn't pay that close of attention to them. With 6-8 matches going on at once, I didn't spend a lot of time looking at details for any one team (outside of Purdue). I was just watching scores from the railing above whatever court Purdue was on.
Worth noting, though, that outside of beating Texas, Ga Tech didn't didn't really "compete with the big boys." They lost to Iowa, squeaked by VA, got swept by Mich St, and then steamrolled by KSU.
Even against Texas, I think it was more that Texas came out dead flat on Sat (they lost their first three games). I kind of wonder if they they didn't go into the day with the attitude similar to that expressed here, they were going to walk through the day. After losing a game to Iowa, they realized that were actually going to have to play it seriously. Unfortunately, by then it was too late. Really too bad, I think everyone would have liked to see Texas play three good teams in the afternoon, not North Carolina.
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Post by BoilerUp! on Apr 16, 2007 17:37:11 GMT -5
If someone gives me some Michigan State updates (i.e. who is setting and playing libero) then I will give them a partially eaten gummy bear. I took pictures of the first MSU vs MI game. #2 was very nice - she bonked me with the ball and was soooo apologetic! #16 was the libero 2, 4, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17 were there? It looks like the setter was #4? Can you recognize the setter's face from this picture? (this is at 4-4, game 1)
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Post by abcd098 on Apr 16, 2007 18:19:12 GMT -5
BoilerUp: Thanks for the updates!
VanderMeer is setting for the Spartans (#4). Glad to hear that they did decently with a new setter in this tournament. VanderMeer is pretty short (5'8"), I hope she won't be a liability in the front row next season.
To Purdue fans: I watched the Michigan state finals and got to see Kristen Aurthers in action. She is an excellent player, you are getting an awesome middle blocker next season. She can hit hard from the middle and it quick. She was running the slide a lot as well and was really effective.
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Post by ripcord on Apr 16, 2007 18:25:46 GMT -5
Hey P-dub, I know that you said that this is a loose work-up, but how can your formula have ANY crediblity when you have K-State ranked first and they lost TWICE. Your formula needs to be changed to account for a team going UNDEFEATED. Go crunch some more numbers.
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Post by BoilerUp! on Apr 16, 2007 18:32:43 GMT -5
BoilerUp: Thanks for the updates! VanderMeer is setting for the Spartans (#4). Glad to hear that they did decently with a new setter in this tournament. VanderMeer is pretty short (5'8"), I hope she won't be a liability in the front row next season. To Purdue fans: I watched the Michigan state finals and got to see Kristen Aurthers in action. She is an excellent player, you are getting an awesome middle blocker next season. She can hit hard from the middle and it quick. She was running the slide a lot as well and was really effective. Wow - here I was kicking myself for putting up a picture of MSU before I even processed the Purdue pictures - but in the end I got rewarded! THANK YOU for that update on Kristen Arthurs!!!
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Post by The Bofa on the Sofa on Apr 16, 2007 19:41:10 GMT -5
Hey P-dub, I know that you said that this is a loose work-up, but how can your formula have ANY crediblity when you have K-State ranked first and they lost TWICE. Your formula needs to be changed to account for a team going UNDEFEATED. Go crunch some more numbers. The accuracy of Pablo rankings are adequately established. While KSU did lose 4 games to Mich and Purdue, they also didn't lose games to UConn or Creighton or Mich St. As I said, it doesn't surprise me in the least to see KSU come out as having the best performance of the day. So KSU lost 4 games to the #2 and #3 teams of the day, whereas Mich lost 3 games to 7, 11, and 14. In the volleyball season, a team with KSU's type of performance will more often do better than a team with Michigan's performance. That's an empirical fact.
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Post by AntennaMagnet on Apr 17, 2007 10:41:24 GMT -5
I don't know what is in the 2007 pipeline, but it seems as if a couple of Big 10 programs are going back to a small setter, perhaps giving up the block for better ground defense ?
PS, BoilerUp, Wolverine players practice bonking Boilermakers all the time !
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Post by BoilerUp! on Apr 17, 2007 11:08:27 GMT -5
I don't know what is in the 2007 pipeline, but it seems as if a couple of Big 10 programs are going back to a small setter, perhaps giving up the block for better ground defense ? PS, BoilerUp, Wolverine players practice bonking Boilermakers all the time ! Ha, ha, very funny. Purdue's 2007 setter recruit (Jaclyn Hart) is 6'1 and our 2009 setter recruit (Rachel Davis) is 6'0. So, you are not talking about us...
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