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Post by arizonafan on Oct 17, 2014 19:58:11 GMT -5
does anyone, on vt, know who the 6-8(2015/2016)recruits that are in town this weekend for visits? i sure wouldn't mind seeing them on the broadcast this evening so i can see who's thinking about coming to Tucson. i believe there should be some opportunity for playing time with the loss of key players to graduation (MK,TA,RL,RR & KW). Let's hope these prospects are good enough to keep the train rolling and have the ability and desire to be impact players for the U of A. Have heard nothing about this being a "visit" weekend, but could be a great weekend to have recruits there. If I can get some names, will post them here.
Washington State match, live streaming, starts in about 5 mins, and Wash on Sunday - BIG, BIG weekend for Arizona VB. GO CATS. Will check back later on UA/WS match.
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Post by logcabincoach on Oct 17, 2014 22:14:31 GMT -5
the Cats pulled this one out. Mac made a difference in the 4th set. nice coaching move to bring her back in as the young bigs brought it down the stretch. nice job by rl too. now on to Sunday and another test for the ladies. ASU falls in 3 and didn't take Washington to 5 as I was hoping.
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Post by arizonafan on Oct 18, 2014 7:59:41 GMT -5
I had hoped to see the UA/Wash. St. match via live stream last night but, if it was on, not sure where, as all I could get on PAC12 Arizona, was ASU/Wash. match. SO, "watched the paint dry" via "live stats", and can only give my impressions of the match via moving numbers, which may or may not lead to an accurate assessment of the match, itself. Please keep that in mind as you read the following.
Cats win 25-19, 25-21, 23-25, 25-17. Match hitting %s were Cats .155, WS .089 (both not very good). Just following the hitting stats, with 29 hitting errors by Cats, indicates to me that "we" certainly didn't have our best night and might have been a bit sloppy, but a WIN none-the-less. Thankfully, WS had what appears to be an absolutely horrible night, judging by their very poor match hitting % of .089, and other stats.
Negatives (thru stats only) that stood out to me for Cats - 29 hitting errors, 10 service errors, and low hitting percentages throughout the match, with a few exceptions.
Positives (thru stats only) - We had 11 team blocks (WS had 13). Ashley, 11 kills, hit .250; Madi, 18, .131, & Taylor 8.
Wanted to make an additional comment concerning Madi, our obvious team leader. Followed her hitting thru all 4 sets and, while having 18 kills, with 61 swings, she "appears" (remember, I ONLY followed stats, and saw nothing live) to be struggling with an exceedingly high number of hitting errors. Beginning to wonder if this young lady, who has meant everything to this team all season, could be tiring a bit. Not sure about last night, but in all the matches I have seen live, she is basically on the court 100% of the time. I'm thinking that, now that Rachael is back from her concussion and producing, Ashley & Mckenzie are getting better each and every match, and Taylor, Halli & Penina are producing points, if it might not be time to give this young lady a moment or two sideline time, and let her get her breath back. The number of swings she is taking, each and every match would wear any great athlete out, and maybe might be taking her hitting edge off. We have a great offense (defense looked good on paper also last night), and it just seems to be getting better as our younger players become more and more experienced and comfortable. Just wondering. Madi is such an essential part of our team, but IF she is tiring, that certainly would not be of benefit to the team, as the season progresses. Realistically, however, the Washington match tomorrow, probably wouldn't be the time to pull her too often.
Please understand, ALL of the above is drawn mainly from watching the numbers change on the computer last night, and I saw NOT ONE MINUTE of actual action. Hopefully, PAC Arizona will carry OUR match tomorrow for those of us that cannot see it live. GO CATS!!!
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Post by logcabincoach on Oct 18, 2014 17:12:01 GMT -5
arizonafan, i wasn't able to access the match video until half way through the 2nd set for whatever reason. maybe it was better you didn't get to view it. The coaches had to be going crazy inside. it seems to me the Cats are playing to the level of their competition... so if my hypothesis is correct, they should play pretty well tomorrow. Let's hope so
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Post by arizonafan on Oct 18, 2014 21:34:34 GMT -5
arizonafan, i wasn't able to access the match video until half way through the 2nd set for whatever reason. maybe it was better you didn't get to view it. The coaches had to be going crazy inside. it seems to me the Cats are playing to the level of their competition... so if my hypothesis is correct, they should play pretty well tomorrow. Let's hope so Sounded (stats) sort of sloppy and coach confirmed. While it wasn't our best effort, I think that at times when a club comes in, no conference wins, expected to lose, they come in calm, with really not much at stake, and give some better opponent everything they can handle. I know this shouldn't be the case, but these players are basically just kids, and wouldn't be surprised if the Cats were looking "just a little bit" past WS, to Sunday, when another Stanford appears. They certainly weren't sharp. I just finished watching the Illini beat Nebr. AT Lincoln, and played very well, that coming off an "almost loss" to Iowa, also a club expected to lose, this past mid week. Illinois played poorly, but eeked out the win. Came to Lincoln, and didn't appear to be the same team. Hopefully, the same thing will happen with the Cats tomorrow. +
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Post by arizonafan on Oct 18, 2014 21:46:42 GMT -5
When I came on here, I looked at this site as the Arizona VB site, and assumed that, if you were an Arizona VB fan, THIS is where you would come to follow comments of fans of the team both before and after matches, AND share anything else you might find interesting on Arizona volleyball. I plan to continue to post MY personal comments, match overviews, etc., as it relates to our team and their season. It seems, and not sure why, that there are either very few Arizona fans out there, OR they just have no interest in a site like this and don't post, OR they are posting elsewhere. I know that someone always creates a separate thread for each match - personally, I avoid them, as haven't seen much discussion on any of them so far regarding OUR team. I would love to see more comments here on ARIZONA VB from ARIZONA fans. I am going to continue to use THIS thread, exclusively, for my comments on OUR Arizona club. Would love to see more fans join the few of us that presently post here.
GO CATS!
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Post by logcabincoach on Oct 19, 2014 23:35:04 GMT -5
The Cats aren't that far away from being able to defeat anybody, no matter how highly ranked said team is. It appeared the coaches had the team prepared and amped up to play as evidenced by the ladies attitude in the first set. i hope the players desire to compete continues to grow because their swagger was evident during periods of really good play. the announcers even mentioned how noticeable it was during some key times but they didn't sustain it for the entire match. i was disappointed with the serving game in general. The number of SEs at key moments and a lack of a power server made our overall serving lackluster. imo, a player with a nasty jump serve would provide a much needed change of pace(i'm hoping one of the recruits they had in this weekend can fill this void in the future). PS played well and made some amazing athletic plays. Mac continues to improve but Harris wasn't as productive as she has been. These Bigs have a lot of upside and if i were a perspective Cat i would be licking my chops to have the opportunity to play with them. The team travels north for matches on Wed & Fri so it's a short prep week. The quick turn around for preparing for another top 10 ranked team is always tough. correct me if i'm wrong but i believe Arizona is the only vb program, to this point, who has played the 3 current top ranked teams. good luck playing the 2 teams from Oregon and Bear Down.
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Post by mikegarrison on Oct 20, 2014 10:22:33 GMT -5
When I came on here, I looked at this site as the Arizona VB site, and assumed that, if you were an Arizona VB fan, THIS is where you would come to follow comments of fans of the team both before and after matches, AND share anything else you might find interesting on Arizona volleyball. I plan to continue to post MY personal comments, match overviews, etc., as it relates to our team and their season. It seems, and not sure why, that there are either very few Arizona fans out there, OR they just have no interest in a site like this and don't post, OR they are posting elsewhere. I know that someone always creates a separate thread for each match - personally, I avoid them, as haven't seen much discussion on any of them so far regarding OUR team. I would love to see more comments here on ARIZONA VB from ARIZONA fans. I am going to continue to use THIS thread, exclusively, for my comments on OUR Arizona club. Would love to see more fans join the few of us that presently post here. GO CATS! Well do as you like, but IMO there is no point to coming on volleytalk unless you want to interact with the volleyball fans from other schools. If you only exclusively want to talk volleyball with Arizona fans, you might as well post on an Arizona-focused forum. I'm sure those must exist. There is no reason you can't have a topic like this one, all about Arizona, and yet also participate in match threads with fans of both teams (or even anybody who happens to be watching that match).
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Post by arizonafan on Oct 20, 2014 11:55:06 GMT -5
Mike - basically agree with you AND I do go thru the actual game posts, and comment periodically. I look at this thread AS that "Arizona-focused" thread you referenced, and was basically addressing my comments to what appears to be only a "few" Arizona VB fans out there. For some reason, they just don't seem to post much, even on a particular match tread. Check those out, and most of the comments seem to come from fans of the Arizona opponent. I'm just hoping that more Arizona fans will see some benefit and have an interest in sharing their thoughts, ideas, glorifications, and criticisms of Arizona VB, and join "us" (only a very few so far) here.
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Post by volleytology on Oct 20, 2014 12:00:39 GMT -5
Mike - basically agree with you AND I do go thru the actual game posts, and comment periodically. I look at this thread AS that "Arizona-focused" thread you referenced, and was basically addressing my comments to what appears to be only a "few" Arizona VB fans out there. For some reason, they just don't seem to post much, even on a particular match tread. Check those out, and most of the comments seem to come from fans of the Arizona opponent. I'm just hoping that more Arizona fans will see some benefit and have an interest in sharing their thoughts, ideas, glorifications, and criticisms of Arizona VB, and join "us" (only a very few so far) here. In the history of vtalk there are about 6 or 7 schools who actually have fans that post regularly. Arizona is not one of those, so if you actually see someone posting as an Arizona fan, it's an improvement.
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Post by arizonafan on Oct 20, 2014 12:47:55 GMT -5
This is a late "Wash/UA" post, as I had to sit back and reflect a bit on what I saw last night, before posting. Lost 3-1, 26-24, 20-25, 20-25, & 17-25. Basically, I believe that to beat an exceptional team, of which Washington obviously is, you have to play exceptionally, from start to finish. In a nut shell, the Cats didn't.
Some pertinent stats - hitting %s, Cats .200, Wash. .295; Service errors, Cats 10, Wash. 11; Blocks, Cats 6, Wash 10; Kills, Madi 17(51 attempts) .137, Taylor 10(26) .269, Mac 9(14) .500, & Ashley 7(31) .032.
While 1st set was a win, it was disappointing that the things we did to Wash in 1st 2/3rds of that set, in keeping them on their heels and out of system, with US applying the pressure, disappeared immediately in last third, when Washington started dominating the set. I felt the 1st set win and the manner in which we almost didn't, forecast, unfortunately, the balance of the match. Didn't see a set by set breakdown on blocks, but I would guess most of our successful "6" came in the 1st set. Obviously Wash made some changes, but we seemed to find it impossible to respond. What happened to our front line defense?
Overall, I felt our setting was spotty and inconsistent, defense in back line/libero was lacking, leading to poor passing, compared to what we have shown there in many past matches, but to ME, what hurt us the most was our service errors (yes, know Wash. had 11), as they seemed to come at the absolute most critical points in each set, setting us back when we were on a roll, and firmly believe they led to at least one and possibly 2 set losses. In both instances we were close to making up Wash. leads, and would have a SE. That and the fact we just generally served poorly, giving Wash. EVERY opportunity to set up and get an easy point. My guess is that Coach Rubio will make some arms weary in practices this week on serves. We are not "daunting" in that phase of the game at all, right now.
None of the above is attempting to take anything away from the overall quality of the Washington Husky VB team - I am in agreement with coach that they well may be, not only the best in the conference, but #1 team overall. BUT, I know, as have seen often, how good OUR club can be when we are hitting on all cylinders. I think that we could have (and possibly should have?) beaten the Huskies last night, IF we could have maintained some of the drive, skills, and intensity we exhibited during a good portion of that 1st set. But, once the wheels came off initially, it seemed other aspects of our game as a team - one of the best in the country, I think - fell by the wayside as the match progressed, and we could never get it back together. Will say again, to beat a great team, we have to play like a great team - we didn't last night.
I continue to see some pretty exciting progress, match to match, by our two young OHs, both offensively and defensively. Also, more and more of our bench talent is being fed into the mix - successfully, is my take.
Another big week is coming up - is there ANYTHING but big weeks in this tremendously talented VB conference - with the annual trek to Oregon, with Oregon on Wed and O. State on Friday. I'm looking for the Cats to "right the ship", and bring back 2 wins. GO CATS!
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Post by mikegarrison on Oct 20, 2014 13:09:52 GMT -5
Washington does some things to try to pressure the other team into making mistakes, mainly by serving tough and throwing up a very effective block, forcing them to try low-percentage attacks. When AZ was able to spread the offense around, they had some success. When forced to run through Kingdon or Harris, it was tough sledding, as those hitting percentages show.
Plus, the Huskies have Vansant. She carried an even heavier load than Kingdon (58 attacks) but still hit 0.293, 24 kills to only 7 errors.
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Post by tomclen on Oct 20, 2014 13:34:45 GMT -5
Serving was the big difference in this match, IMO.
Washington's serves frequently had UA with an initial bad pass. UA's serves seldom presented a problem for anyone on the UW side.
While UA might have been able to pull out this match with tougher serving, the other reality is had UW not made so many sloppy service errors in the first set this would have been a relatively easy 3-set yawner sweep for the Huskies.
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Post by alwayslearning on Oct 20, 2014 14:20:01 GMT -5
I agree with Mike that Vansant was again a huge difference-maker. Personally, I'd like to see UW's setters distribute the ball to more UW hitters, especially the middles. The passing and defense is starting to tighten up to the point where the middle is a viable option a good percentage of the time. But if I'm a setter and the match is close, it's awfully tempting to just keep feeding Krista.
I didn't think UW's serving was necessarily all that great yesterday. But I agree that the Wildcats serving was probably worse -- they really needed to be aggressive and I just didn't see it. Yes, the Wildcats made some bad service errors at bad times, but I fault their lack of good, tough serving overall and believe that had more to do with the defeat.
I DO believe that Arizona is a good team that could give some teams fits in the tournament. I love Snuka's athleticism and defensive play and think she will continue to mature into a really fine setter. Kingdon is a fantastic hitter. Just a few more offensive weapons and I could see AZ contending for the Pac 12 title.
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Post by logcabincoach on Oct 20, 2014 15:44:33 GMT -5
"alwayslearning" which brings me back to my question about "who" they have coming in over the next several years? like the posts
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