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Post by SportyBucky on Oct 30, 2014 8:13:38 GMT -5
It was a really nice win for the Badgers after they were down 21-14 in the first set. It was really nice to see Chapman having a huge match. I knew she would go off on someone, and I am glad it was in a big match like this one. Bates also had a really good offensive night that demonstrates how she is coming along as an attacker, knowing when to go with the power and when to mix it up more. Thompson was pretty much money and seemed to have the connection on the slide that she did at the end of last year, which is a very good thing. Those performances (and the huge kills from Carlini to end the first set) made up for slower nights from Nelson and Thomas. I would not have expected the Badgers to win with the Purdue middles getting more attempts than theirs, but they were able to get it done. In addition to the usual defenders, I would also like to compliment Morales and Workman on their defense. Those two seemed to be all over the place in the time they were in the match, and I have to give them credit for going out and giving it their all to help their team win even though their roles aren't as big as they were in the past. Also, I have to credit the Badgers for their improved block; the time they are putting into it is clearly paying dividends. As for Purdue, Drews is really impressive offensively, as I thought the Badgers made a lot of nice plays against her, but she still got her share of kills at a pretty high efficiency. Jones is just hard to stop when the pass is there, and I think Cuttino is going to be a star in this league even though she had some growing pains tonight, especially on the block. The Boilers also made some great digs and won some long rallies that were just impressive to watch on both sides. They were a lot better offensively than they were in their tough night at Illinois in this match, so I can see them being able to do some damage down the line, and I don't think anyone will take the rematch in Madison as anything other than another challenge for the Badgers. Still, I have to give the Badgers credit for pulling out the first set and then coming up with some answers to close out the match after Purdue won a great rally to close it to 22-19. Good teams have answers. The Badgers didn't for a long time. They seem to now. Anyone else shout when they saw Courtney's fast temp slide on a Lauren dig that isolated Dom (good thing because it was tight) for a monster kill?!?!?
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Post by volleytology on Oct 30, 2014 8:30:26 GMT -5
Wisconsin's playing like the veteran team that they are. Their losses have been against physical teams who handle the ball as well as they do. I believe they'll still struggle to kill the ball vs the ELITE teams, but luckily there are only a handful of those. They can win the B1G though and that would be really cool and with the right draw make it all the way back to the FF again. Fun team to watch !
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Post by rainbowbadger on Oct 30, 2014 8:52:11 GMT -5
It was a really nice win for the Badgers after they were down 21-14 in the first set. It was really nice to see Chapman having a huge match. I knew she would go off on someone, and I am glad it was in a big match like this one. Bates also had a really good offensive night that demonstrates how she is coming along as an attacker, knowing when to go with the power and when to mix it up more. Thompson was pretty much money and seemed to have the connection on the slide that she did at the end of last year, which is a very good thing. Those performances (and the huge kills from Carlini to end the first set) made up for slower nights from Nelson and Thomas. I would not have expected the Badgers to win with the Purdue middles getting more attempts than theirs, but they were able to get it done. In addition to the usual defenders, I would also like to compliment Morales and Workman on their defense. Those two seemed to be all over the place in the time they were in the match, and I have to give them credit for going out and giving it their all to help their team win even though their roles aren't as big as they were in the past. Also, I have to credit the Badgers for their improved block; the time they are putting into it is clearly paying dividends. As for Purdue, Drews is really impressive offensively, as I thought the Badgers made a lot of nice plays against her, but she still got her share of kills at a pretty high efficiency. Jones is just hard to stop when the pass is there, and I think Cuttino is going to be a star in this league even though she had some growing pains tonight, especially on the block. The Boilers also made some great digs and won some long rallies that were just impressive to watch on both sides. They were a lot better offensively than they were in their tough night at Illinois in this match, so I can see them being able to do some damage down the line, and I don't think anyone will take the rematch in Madison as anything other than another challenge for the Badgers. Still, I have to give the Badgers credit for pulling out the first set and then coming up with some answers to close out the match after Purdue won a great rally to close it to 22-19. Good teams have answers. The Badgers didn't for a long time. They seem to now. Anyone else shout when they saw Courtney's fast temp slide on a Lauren dig that isolated Dom (good thing because it was tight) for a monster kill?!?!? I think they could have heard Rainbowspouse and me in West Lafayette. Certainly the neighbors wondered what was up.
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Post by rainbowbadger on Oct 30, 2014 8:53:28 GMT -5
Haleigh seemed to be really off tonight, attacking wise. I don't know if they chose to target her, which would seem odd, but she also seemed a little slow. Possibly under the weather a bit. They did choose to target her. Shondell was mic'd up for at least part of the match, and I heard him telling the middles to stay on Nelson. Was Purdue's RS block just not that great, or did we find ways to work around it?
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Post by badgerbreath on Oct 30, 2014 9:20:10 GMT -5
Yes...I heard that too. I guess people are scared of the middles now, and thinking the outsides aren't that dangerous.
In his comments after the match, Shondell felt they didn't play great defense, and he complained specifically about their right side and their right back. He felt they were disjointed in the middle of the court and didn't get to their middles enough, but also felt that had a lot with UWs approach, as the badgers identity is basically a defensive team. He conceded that they simply had not come across a team that played at that high a level yet this year.
Personally I'm with others in thinking that Purdue had a much smarter, more efficient match from their hitters than they did against Illinois. Far, far fewer "unforced" errors -- only 8 outside of the blocks. Nonetheless, they only hit ~0.150 in the last two sets. That's a testament to good defense across the backline.
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Post by badgerbreath on Oct 30, 2014 10:05:45 GMT -5
Wisconsin's playing like the veteran team that they are. Their losses have been against physical teams who handle the ball as well as they do. I believe they'll still struggle to kill the ball vs the ELITE teams, but luckily there are only a handful of those. They can win the B1G though and that would be really cool and with the right draw make it all the way back to the FF again. Fun team to watch ! I think you are seriously underestimating the badgers if you don't think they are one of the ELITE teams right now.
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Post by SportyBucky on Oct 30, 2014 10:15:45 GMT -5
Wisconsin's playing like the veteran team that they are. Their losses have been against physical teams who handle the ball as well as they do. I believe they'll still struggle to kill the ball vs the ELITE teams, but luckily there are only a handful of those. They can win the B1G though and that would be really cool and with the right draw make it all the way back to the FF again. Fun team to watch ! I think you are seriously underestimating the badgers if you don't think they are one of the ELITE teams right now. So we struggled to put the ball down against Texas? PSU in the championship? I think we did well on both accounts. Same team, with an upgraded terminator at the OH2. Oh, by the way, we demolished FSU last year. They have essentially the same team as last year. You may say "what about this year?" To that, we hung in with the number 2 team in the country, early in the season, in their gym. lost in a very close 5. All freshman have gotten better, but since WA and PSU losses, Kelly Bates is night and day. I am a homer, but her numbers the past two weeks don't lie. I was skeptical she'd do it against big blocking teams, but exceeded my expectations against Purdue.
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Post by trampas on Oct 30, 2014 10:47:56 GMT -5
Just watched the match on replay--absolutely fantastic performance by Wisconsin. One of the best performances by a defense I've seen all year, and amazing effort by Chapman on the left-side. If there is one thing I thought Wisconsin could do better it would be to not pass the ball so high to Carlini, particularly in serve receive, but the way she delivers the ball when it reaches her hands is so in tempo that the offense speeds up quickly, despite the moonball first contact. Purdue still a solid team, but I think the other teams have a good scouting report on them and they look like they're not able to adjust.
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Post by volleytology on Oct 30, 2014 10:53:36 GMT -5
Wisconsin's playing like the veteran team that they are. Their losses have been against physical teams who handle the ball as well as they do. I believe they'll still struggle to kill the ball vs the ELITE teams, but luckily there are only a handful of those. They can win the B1G though and that would be really cool and with the right draw make it all the way back to the FF again. Fun team to watch ! I think you are seriously underestimating the badgers if you don't think they are one of the ELITE teams right now. Who said I didn't ?
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Post by austintatious on Oct 30, 2014 10:57:08 GMT -5
Wisconsin's playing like the veteran team that they are. Their losses have been against physical teams who handle the ball as well as they do. I believe they'll still struggle to kill the ball vs the ELITE teams, but luckily there are only a handful of those. They can win the B1G though and that would be really cool and with the right draw make it all the way back to the FF again. Fun team to watch ! I think you are seriously underestimating the badgers if you don't think they are one of the ELITE teams right now. I would augment the statement to say "they'll still struggle to kill the ball vs the OTHER ELITE teams." They have earned the right since last December to be labeled elite, but agree they may be overmatched at the net by some big blocking teams.
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Post by badgerbreath on Oct 30, 2014 10:57:31 GMT -5
Your sentence implies it. You don't say the other ELITE teams, and your capitalization of ELITE suggests that you are emphasizing that distinction. My apologies if I read it incorrectly. (I did say "if..."!)
EDIT: Austintatious beat me to it.
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Post by volleytology on Oct 30, 2014 10:58:49 GMT -5
I think you are seriously underestimating the badgers if you don't think they are one of the ELITE teams right now. So we struggled to put the ball down against Texas? PSU in the championship? I think we did well on both accounts. Same team, with an upgraded terminator at the OH2. Oh, by the way, we demolished FSU last year. They have essentially the same team as last year. You may say "what about this year?" To that, we hung in with the number 2 team in the country, early in the season, in their gym. lost in a very close 5. All freshman have gotten better, but since WA and PSU losses, Kelly Bates is night and day. I am a homer, but her numbers the past two weeks don't lie. I was skeptical she'd do it against big blocking teams, but exceeded my expectations against Purdue. Texas can't dig or pass at an elite level; and I wouldn't talk about last year right now. I'm talking about the elite teams that can dig and pass at Wisconsin's level AND kill the ball better. Not many like that, but they've lost to two teams THIS year that can. I don't think Purdue is a nationally elite team, so wouldn't put too much stock in how they did there. I think Wisky will go far and hopefully don't meet up with those kinds of teams until the final.
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Post by volleytology on Oct 30, 2014 10:59:53 GMT -5
Your sentence implies it. You don't say the other ELITE teams, and your capitalization of ELITE suggests that you are emphasizing that distinction. My apologies if I read it incorrectly. (I did say "if..."!) EDIT: Austintatious beat me to it. No, Wisconsin is definitely elite; sorry if that didn't come through
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Post by badgerbreath on Oct 30, 2014 11:51:23 GMT -5
So we struggled to put the ball down against Texas? PSU in the championship? I think we did well on both accounts. Same team, with an upgraded terminator at the OH2. Oh, by the way, we demolished FSU last year. They have essentially the same team as last year. You may say "what about this year?" To that, we hung in with the number 2 team in the country, early in the season, in their gym. lost in a very close 5. All freshman have gotten better, but since WA and PSU losses, Kelly Bates is night and day. I am a homer, but her numbers the past two weeks don't lie. I was skeptical she'd do it against big blocking teams, but exceeded my expectations against Purdue. Texas can't dig or pass at an elite level; and I wouldn't talk about last year right now. I'm talking about the elite teams that can dig and pass at Wisconsin's level AND kill the ball better. Not many like that, but they've lost to two teams THIS year that can. I don't think Purdue is a nationally elite team, so wouldn't put too much stock in how they did there. I think Wisky will go far and hopefully don't meet up with those kinds of teams until the final. Let me explain why I think the Washington coaches will probably be worried about a rematch, so you understand I'm not being a simple minded homer. That match was tight and went to 5 sets in Seattle. Washington won that match on the block, basically, and on our error prone hitting, especially by our freshman left in set 4. You may not be aware, but this badger team is like night and day compared that one with respect to blocking and hitting errors. The badgers have since rather mind-bogglingly become the best blocking team in the big ten, as well as the hardest to block...and they did that during a stretch when they faced each of the other top big physical blocking teams. In fact, you are on a thread where we are discussing a match where UW outblocked one of those big good blocking teams 10-1. Purdue had 15 against Illinois, who, granted, don't seem to feel the need to avoid a block. We've outblocked Nebraska and Minnesota, really good blocking teams that have given PSU fits. Those teams were nowhere near their typical numbers. Sheff learned from that Seattle match and has somehow found a way get our relatively undersized front line to block well against much larger teams...and to avoid being blocked. I realize that Washington has also gotten better, but they have not seen a sea-change like this. Another big difference. We were plagued by hitting errors early in the season in certain sets. Heck, we lost sets to Northern Colorado, FAMU and Missouri St. In this match we had only 2 hitting errors per set -- even better than the 4/set that we average in the B1G, which is well below all other teams. We have become progressively better and more consistent than every other team in the conference in this respect through the season. Purdue is a decent defensive team, but we hit 0.150 better than they typically allow in their own gym. We held them 0.50 under their typical average. Once we decided the clamp down half way through the set we held them 100 points under their typical percentage, and they hit smarter than I remember seeing them. Remember, Purdue took PSU to 5 at Holloway. I can't explain what happened in the PSU match. I think PSU just played better than they have all season, and the badgers let expectation get the better of them until it was too late. But, it feels like that match just kicked a sleeping badger awake, and it is now very grumpy. (OK that was a homer thing to say)
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Post by c4ndlelight on Oct 30, 2014 11:56:54 GMT -5
^ Well, you also have to remember that the R2 position gave the Huskies 0 kills in the first match, and now Jones has settled in and is hitting over .300 in PAC-12 play. Vansant hit .185 on 3.4 kps and Strickland is also playing much better. It won't be the same UW team on either side in an eventual rematch.
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