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Post by sunsuphornsup on Nov 27, 2014 10:33:29 GMT -5
I'm a Texas fan and even I don't see how this is even up for debate that Stanford won't be #1 in the polls.
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Post by midnightblue on Nov 27, 2014 10:44:55 GMT -5
What an electric atmosphere! Wow. Congrats to Washington. They simply outplayed Stanford in every phase of the game. What an incredible effort for them.
Stanford's strengths were neutralized in a really big way. They didn't handle the UW serve well enough to give their offense the good looks it needs to be efficient. Their serving was rather abysmal as well.
@uw is the toughest match in the entire country this season. I'd like to see someone argue differently. Unfortunately for at least one title contender, they'll have to go through the Huskies is Seattle to reach the FF. OUCH, and good luck!
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Post by Pirate VB Fan on Nov 27, 2014 11:19:06 GMT -5
@uw is the toughest match in the entire country this season. I'd like to see someone argue differently. Unfortunately for at least one title contender, they'll have to go through the Huskies is Seattle to reach the FF. OUCH, and good luck! Not necessarily. If you assume the real title contenders are the "Big Five" - Stanford, UWa, UWi, PSU and Texas - then if Uwa is the #3 seed (which is based more on RPI) - then two of the five can be sent to a neutral site to battle it out and UWa gets NC or FSU. Alternately, if the Committee leans too much on RPI, since PSU could be as low as #10 they could be matched up anywhere.
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Post by ay2013 on Nov 27, 2014 11:44:54 GMT -5
That Seattle regional will be a death sentence whoever gets to be sent there. Washington is extremely lucky to be playing in their own regional with a senior Vansant and Nelson. Definitely a sure trip to the National Semis. I'm looking at UW as the 4th seed (behind Stanford, Texas and Wisconsin)...with PSU possibly as the 5th. That will really be very interesting. If Wisconsin is seeded above Washington the committee is NOT doing their job, according to the rules. Wisconsin has no primary criteria advantage over Washington, NONE! Meanwhile, Washington will have a better overall SOS, many more significant wins, AND probably most importantly, a win head to head. I fully expect Washington to be above Wisconsin, if not, the committee has a lot of explaining to do seeing as how Washington is either equal to or wins all of the primary criteria.
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Post by johnbar on Nov 27, 2014 11:49:13 GMT -5
Some good UW teams have lost tournament matches in Hec Ed: to BYU (in round 2); to Nebraska after being up 2-0 and big 5th set lead; and to Cal in their NC year. When did Cal win a national championship? Or are you talking about 2010, when they made it the championship match, but got swept by PSU?
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Post by alwayslearning on Nov 27, 2014 12:28:10 GMT -5
It was cardvbfan who said "Strickland has more potential, more raw talent; she could be the best in the country next year. She just needs to be consistent." Given how fast Cassie has learned this position, this is a pretty reasonable statement. Strickland is a better athlete than the vast majority of liberos out there and she still has considerable room to continue to grow into the position. Volleyfan24 says this was a "career performance" but overlooks the fact that she has been playing at this level for a month or so now. Most UW fans were not "upset" and most were not "complaining" about Strickland's play earlier in the season. If you go back and read the comments, most of us were saying be patient, she's learning a new position, she's got great potential, etc. We were right. I haven't been ignoring her performances I know she was the first PAC libero to win DPOW this season and has made great strides at the position don't make assumptions. She has been impressive and showed a great effort tonight, but to say best in the country next year means she would have to surpass several others that are already ahead of her she is a hard worker but I have a hard time she will beat out the likes of Amanda Benson, Justine Wong-Orantes, Brandi Donnely, Taylor Morey, and Cat McCoy. I think the libero is the most underrated position in Women's college volleyball but to suggest that with just a season under her belt and coming back next year that she can be the best in the country isn't giving enough credit to others who are better from what I have seen. Only time will tell but I wouldn't bet on it. You make some fair points, but the cardvbfan's statement that Strickland "could be" the best is not some wild prediction without any foundation. In light of her improvement, her work ethic, and her natural athletic gifts, it is not a stretch to say that she "could be" in the same company you describe above next year. One thing for sure is that she will be one of the most fun volleyball players to watch.
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Post by alwayslearning on Nov 27, 2014 12:34:48 GMT -5
Interesting quote in the UW Daily article regarding the third set: “We knew we beat ourselves in that set, more than they beat us,” Vansant said. “We just knew we had to stay composed and confident through and through the rest of the match.”
When they look at the film, the Huskies will see that they made a bunch of very preventable errors in that set, especially in the first half of the set. Kudos to the Cardinal for coming out of the break and taking the set, but if UW had played to their potential, this one could have and should have been a sweep. Of course you can cay that Stanford never really played to its potential the whole match.
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Post by Cruz'n on Nov 27, 2014 12:38:46 GMT -5
So far UW's serving making a big difference Four Husky players have at least one ace and Strickland has three in the first set alone. Stanford has done quite well all season against tough servers which was a pleasant surprise because with Stanford's serving it doesn't give them much in practice to work with unless they bring in tough serving males we aren't aware of. When is the last time Stanford has been known to be a strong serving team? I'm not asking with any sarcasm and I'm genuinely interested, but every time I have asked I have never received a response. Surely they were a strong serving team some time in the memory of fans here.Stanford was a strong serving team in 2001. Case in point: National semifinals against the favored, and defending national champions, Nebraska. The Huskers were up 29-25 in set one--four set points. Ashley Ivey, with her crushing lefty jump serve, served 6 in a row to take the set. And she wasn't even the best server on the team: Logan Tom was. They had other tough servers, as well.
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Post by alwayslearning on Nov 27, 2014 12:49:34 GMT -5
I'm thinking: #1 Stanford, #2 Texas, #3 Washington, #4 Wisconsin... Makes the most sense to me.
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Post by alwayslearning on Nov 27, 2014 12:58:17 GMT -5
What difference does the poll make... at this point, RPI matters, not the coaches' opinions. As I said earlier in the thread, the Cardinal will still be tops in RPI and will still be the number one seed in the tournament. Stanford passed poorly and repeatedly gave up long runs on serve receive... that cost them the match. If they do it again, their season will be over. At this point, I am so unhappy with history repeating itself in crunch time I cannot judge how likely they are to fail... but my gut says Wisconsin and Washington will be in the national final because they want to win. As Don Shaw said years ago, you do not prepare for such matches: you recruit players who want to be in situations like last night and win. Rival coaches have been saying for years that Stanford is the place to go to lose well and I saw too bloody much of that last night on the court. Gilbert should have been benched because she repeatedly choked, serving out... a problem of hers all season... and shanking balls left and right on serve receive. A team should NEVER have to hide their libero on serve receive, as the Cardinal tried to do last night. I had been wondering if her poor serving were mental or not: now, I am sure of it. One time at Maples, I saw Mike Sealy turn an outside hitter in set 1 into his libero for the rest of the match. Too bad that Stanford didn't have Sidney Brown ready to take over at L2 so they could have put the libero jersey on Brittany Howard and remove Gilbert, who was almost as bad as she was in her first attempt to be a libero several years ago. Hey, jgrout, chill out! Your Cardinal team is a great team that ran into a buzz saw last night with a big home court advantage. There is no question in my mind that Stanford had the best season of any team out there and should be the #1 seed in the tournament. You are absolutely correct that the serve receive and passing killed them last night (along with a lot of offensive firepower by the Huskies). But that's the way some matches go; it's hard to stop momentum once it builds. Ask the Huskies about the mountains road trip. Gilbert had a tough night but she's had a great season, bailing the Cardinal out in the Arizona five-setter. I'm betting she bounces back and has a great tournament.
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Post by dawgnerd on Nov 27, 2014 13:00:48 GMT -5
Some good UW teams have lost tournament matches in Hec Ed: to BYU (in round 2); to Nebraska after being up 2-0 and big 5th set lead; and to Cal in their NC year. When did Cal win a national championship? Or are you talking about 2010, when they made it the championship match, but got swept by PSU? I expect he is talking about the UW NC year, 2005. Nevermind. He did say tournament.
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Post by tomclen on Nov 27, 2014 13:07:49 GMT -5
Some good UW teams have lost tournament matches in Hec Ed: to BYU (in round 2); to Nebraska after being up 2-0 and big 5th set lead; and to Cal in their NC year. When did Cal win a national championship? Or are you talking about 2010, when they made it the championship match, but got swept by PSU? You're correct...I should have been more clear. It was their year playing in the NC...not winning it.
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Post by alwayslearning on Nov 27, 2014 13:23:05 GMT -5
Stanford's strengths were neutralized in a really big way. They didn't handle the UW serve well enough to give their offense the good looks it needs to be efficient. Their serving was rather abysmal as well. Although I've described Stanford's serving as merely "adequate" in the past, I actually thought it was pretty good last night, with the exception of too many missed serves. Howard had a very nice run, Bugg's serves made the Huskies sweat, and Boukather did a nice job. Neither McGehee nor Burgess were very good, however. Your perception that the serving was "abysmal" may have more to do with the Huskies, who had one of their best serve receive games of the year.
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Post by tomclen on Nov 27, 2014 14:21:57 GMT -5
Updating a totally meaningless statistic:
Stanford has now lost 16 sets in conference.
UW has lost 14.
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Post by sportsfun on Nov 27, 2014 14:29:03 GMT -5
Four Husky players have at least one ace and Strickland has three in the first set alone. Stanford has done quite well all season against tough servers which was a pleasant surprise because with Stanford's serving it doesn't give them much in practice to work with unless they bring in tough serving males we aren't aware of. When is the last time Stanford has been known to be a strong serving team? I'm not asking with any sarcasm and I'm genuinely interested, but every time I have asked I have never received a response. Surely they were a strong serving team some time in the memory of fans here.Stanford was a strong serving team in 2001. Case in point: National semifinals against the favored, and defending national champions, Nebraska. The Huskers were up 29-25 in set one--four set points. Ashley Ivey, with her crushing lefty jump serve, served 6 in a row to take the set. And she wasn't even the best server on the team: Logan Tom was. They had other tough servers, as well. Thank you. I was certain they had been a tough serving team but I didn't know when the last time was. 2001 - I'm not mistaken that was the first year Dunning took over the program and we're talking about players he didn't recruit and only partially trained, correct? I'm yet to see one of Dunning's teams be a tough serving team but I wasn't watching back then and so I didn't know. Thanks again!
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