Thank you for posting. This is the first 2014 WCH match I've been able to watch. Some observations:
- The team is looking more comfortable with the faster offense. I'm still not sold on it being a good choice overall, but it's not the mess it was at the WGP.
- That said, the middles seemed much more involved.
- Jordan L-B did not look good in that first set. she doesn't look fully back yet. Robinson looked better. Hill was very impressive, the best I've seen her and much improved over last year. Banworth was very solid and felt more reliable than Davis typically does.
- I'm not a fan of the "everybody jump float". I have a hard time believing that Fawcett jump float rotation with Murphy setting is a good choice. Her jump float isn't significantly better than Glass' and the weaker defender, hitter and setter combination is ugly.
- Why is rotation 1 with Murphy in left front? It pretty clearly creates difficulties for them.
- Glass is the best setter in America. Yes, she sometimes makes "easy" mistakes, but for every one of those, she'll make about 4 plays look easy that can't be made by other setters. I think many critics just don't realize she does this and take those plays for granted.
- Maybe I didn't see it, but I don't think Karch challenged any calls, including a couple that looked like obvious misses to me (first set, they interfered with a ball that didn't make it to the net, second set had a phantom net violation called). Challenging calls doesn't really cost anything and could gain points.
- Have to give Karch credit for recognizing that Turkey was going high hands early in the 3rd set and for getting his team to adjust. In general, his timeouts were much more productive and engaging than last year's. Nice to see that improvement.
- Kind of cool to hear the USA chants
- The quality of the universal replay is awesome. Does anyone know how to fast-forward through it, though? I'm not a fan of watching the time-outs.