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Post by c4ndlelight on Jul 30, 2015 11:07:22 GMT -5
It seems like everything about Team USA gets reduced (for blame or credit) to the "fast offense" instead of all the other factors that contribute to what goes on in a match. I don't buy that whether Lowe would be able to adjust to the tempo of USA's offense was a serious concern. It's not THAT much faster, she's always thrived in opportunities to hit with tempo, and definitely has the attributes (quick arm, high contact point, quick approach) to succeed with it. The question marks about Lowe wouldn't have been adjusting to speed, they would have been with whether her ancillary skills (defense, block, serve) were prohibitively weak for her to stay on court, or whether more disciplined block-defenses would clamp down on her favorite shots. What we actually saw was a bit of a the same effect that Sander benefitted from in his rookie season with the men last year, where significant improvement in setting and availability of other offensive options offset the increased difficulty of playing at a higher level. Well said. If agree with this. Hugs.
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Post by redbeard2008 on Jul 30, 2015 12:11:42 GMT -5
I was saying, "Love Lowe!", when she was a sophomore (and I'm a Husky fan). She took UCLA up 2-0 on UW at Hec Ed last fall, but then just ran out of gas as Vansant and Sybeldon caught fire in the last three sets.
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Post by bownlovingfreak on Jul 30, 2015 13:22:49 GMT -5
Random question, because I'm also a fan of women's gymnastics where the USA women are unbelievably dominant and deep atm (not saying the USA volleyball team), but how do people outside of the USA react to our team? Does it freak them out that Kim Hill, Karsta Lowe, and Krista Vansant came from nowhere to perform at extremely high levels? Normally one can potentially see players develop, but these three seemingly appeared from nowhere.
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Post by Longhorn20 on Jul 30, 2015 13:57:18 GMT -5
Random question, because I'm also a fan of women's gymnastics where the USA women are unbelievably dominant and deep atm (not saying the USA volleyball team), but how do people outside of the USA react to our team? Does it freak them out that Kim Hill, Karsta Lowe, and Krista Vansant came from nowhere to perform at extremely high levels? Normally one can potentially see players develop, but these three seemingly appeared from nowhere. Kim Hill and Krista Vansant were top 10 recruits and First Team AA. Krista was actually the top recruit in her class.
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Post by joetrinsey on Jul 30, 2015 16:05:16 GMT -5
I wonder what Karsta's hitting percentage was on her crossing plays. Seemed like she got a kill pretty much every single time she came out of the middle this week. 0.620
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Post by MTC on Jul 30, 2015 17:11:39 GMT -5
Lowe was considered a "project" early in her club career. A 6-3 lefty, she attacked with great range and just needed to get physically stronger. Needless to say she made significant improvements there.
Jelena Novakovic reminds me of Lowe with her range but needs to get stronger in my opinion.
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Post by kro2488 on Jul 31, 2015 18:24:16 GMT -5
Ehh- I've seen Lowe play in person on both teams. USA is running it considerably faster. It seems like everything about Team USA gets reduced (for blame or credit) to the "fast offense" instead of all the other factors that contribute to what goes on in a match. I don't buy that whether Lowe would be able to adjust to the tempo of USA's offense was a serious concern. It's not THAT much faster, she's always thrived in opportunities to hit with tempo, and definitely has the attributes (quick arm, high contact point, quick approach) to succeed with it. The question marks about Lowe wouldn't have been adjusting to speed, they would have been with whether her ancillary skills (defense, block, serve) were prohibitively weak for her to stay on court, or whether more disciplined block-defenses would clamp down on her favorite shots. What we actually saw was a bit of a the same effect that Sander benefitted from in his rookie season with the men last year, where significant improvement in setting and availability of other offensive options offset the increased difficulty of playing at a higher level. and it was against other teams at full strength that she had more trouble terminating and was blocked more as I also predicted. Our pin hitters just don't do well at all if we can't get enough attempts to the middle. Our success in Rio will depend how often we can get the ball to our middles more than what the pins can do I feel like. When we play Brazil, China etc, it gets harder for us to do that as often as we'd like and then you see the results. Aslo none of the outsides when they were caught solo tried to dive far into her angle or back to the line, which better teams will do more of, especially Brazil, add in the backcourt digging prowess and we will see what happens down the line.
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Post by c4ndlelight on Jul 31, 2015 19:29:37 GMT -5
It seems like everything about Team USA gets reduced (for blame or credit) to the "fast offense" instead of all the other factors that contribute to what goes on in a match. I don't buy that whether Lowe would be able to adjust to the tempo of USA's offense was a serious concern. It's not THAT much faster, she's always thrived in opportunities to hit with tempo, and definitely has the attributes (quick arm, high contact point, quick approach) to succeed with it. The question marks about Lowe wouldn't have been adjusting to speed, they would have been with whether her ancillary skills (defense, block, serve) were prohibitively weak for her to stay on court, or whether more disciplined block-defenses would clamp down on her favorite shots. What we actually saw was a bit of a the same effect that Sander benefitted from in his rookie season with the men last year, where significant improvement in setting and availability of other offensive options offset the increased difficulty of playing at a higher level. and it was against other teams at full strength that she had more trouble terminating and was blocked more as I also predicted. Our pin hitters just don't do well at all if we can't get enough attempts to the middle. Our success in Rio will depend how often we can get the ball to our middles more than what the pins can do I feel like. When we play Brazil, China etc, it gets harder for us to do that as often as we'd like and then you see the results. Aslo none of the outsides when they were caught solo tried to dive far into her angle or back to the line, which better teams will do more of, especially Brazil, add in the backcourt digging prowess and we will see what happens down the line. No.
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Post by aps987 on Jul 31, 2015 20:55:00 GMT -5
and it was against other teams at full strength that she had more trouble terminating and was blocked more as I also predicted. Our pin hitters just don't do well at all if we can't get enough attempts to the middle. Our success in Rio will depend how often we can get the ball to our middles more than what the pins can do I feel like. When we play Brazil, China etc, it gets harder for us to do that as often as we'd like and then you see the results. Aslo none of the outsides when they were caught solo tried to dive far into her angle or back to the line, which better teams will do more of, especially Brazil, add in the backcourt digging prowess and we will see what happens down the line. No. Kro - Clearly you have a bias against Karsta Lowe and an affinity for Kelly Murphy. Anytime anyone says anything positive about Karsta Lowe you have to bring her down in an attempt to bring Murphy up. Your bias is so strong that a couple of times during Grand Prix matches I wanted to post something positive about her play and I knew immediately you would post something in rebuttal that was negative. I can prove this by looking at your posting history. Her STATISTICS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES and math is the most finite language in our universe.
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Post by huskerjen on Jul 31, 2015 21:05:46 GMT -5
Kro - Clearly you have a bias against Karsta Lowe and an affinity for Kelly Murphy. Anytime anyone says anything positive about Karsta Lowe you have to bring her down in an attempt to bring Murphy up. Your bias is so strong that a couple of times during Grand Prix matches I wanted to post something positive about her play and I knew immediately you would post something in rebuttal that was negative. I can prove this by looking at your posting history. Her STATISTICS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES and math is the most finite language in our universe. Murphy is a good player, and I'm not a world class expert on talent, but having seen both in person, it's hard not to favor Lowe. She's such a presence on the court. Her armswing is so fast and heavy, there were times during the WGP that you could see opponents tense up or brace themselves when the ball was set to he right. They knew the hammer was coming. She's so impressive.
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Post by kro2488 on Jul 31, 2015 21:15:48 GMT -5
Kro - Clearly you have a bias against Karsta Lowe and an affinity for Kelly Murphy. Anytime anyone says anything positive about Karsta Lowe you have to bring her down in an attempt to bring Murphy up. Your bias is so strong that a couple of times during Grand Prix matches I wanted to post something positive about her play and I knew immediately you would post something in rebuttal that was negative. I can prove this by looking at your posting history. Her STATISTICS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES and math is the most finite language in our universe. Murphy is a good player, and I'm not a world class expert on talent, but having seen both in person, it's hard not to favor Lowe. She's such a presence on the court. Her armswing is so fast and heavy, there were times during the WGP that you could see opponents tense up or brace themselves when the ball was set to he right. They knew the hammer was coming. She's so impressive. I'm sorry im jaded. Give it a year and she will come back down to earth. It's sorta annoying how everyone is going crazy over her right now. I'm telling you teams WILL adjust. Especially when they have their best players, which is why we will need a good spread out offense or we will be screwed. Go back and watch the loss to China it speaks for itself.
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Post by chisovnik on Jul 31, 2015 21:41:54 GMT -5
Lowe was considered a "project" early in her club career. A 6-3 lefty, she attacked with great range and just needed to get physically stronger. Needless to say she made significant improvements there. Jelena Novakovic reminds me of Lowe with her range but needs to get stronger in my opinion. OMG here we go... It's amazing how the PSU and Texas fans on this board put so much stock in things like crappy Youtube videos and misleading (and also crappy) action shots when evaluating incoming recruits.
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Post by USAFAN on Aug 1, 2015 5:32:26 GMT -5
What I was particularly impressed with with Lowe was the ability for her to hit high and hard with a very short approach and quick set. Her blocking can still be improved and I have no doubt that it will.
My only "concern" and it's not much of one is how will she perform now that teams have played against her and have footage to review and go off of. While undoubtedly talented, there are numerous cases of new players immediately having success because of their novelty and other teams not having the opportunity to have studied their tendencies. Going into the World Cup and other tournaments, opposition defenses will undoubtedly center their defensive strategy around defending her. How will this affect her performance? Time will tell.
I initially had my doubts, but they were precisely centered around "would have been with whether her ancillary skills (defense, block, serve) were prohibitively weak for her to stay on court, or whether more disciplined block-defenses would clamp down on her favorite shots." The WGP demonstrated that her ancillary skills aren't glaring weaknesses and can most certainly be improved and her shot selection was better than I would have anticipated. I am looking forward to Lowe and Vansant's development at this level.
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Post by MTC on Aug 1, 2015 13:23:19 GMT -5
Lowe was considered a "project" early in her club career. A 6-3 lefty, she attacked with great range and just needed to get physically stronger. Needless to say she made significant improvements there. Jelena Novakovic reminds me of Lowe with her range but needs to get stronger in my opinion. OMG here we go... It's amazing how the PSU and Texas fans on this board put so much stock in things like crappy Youtube videos and misleading (and also crappy) action shots when talking about incoming recruits. Let's not put any weight on her multiple MVP tournament awards either. But they do have similar tendencies.
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Post by kro2488 on Aug 1, 2015 19:07:11 GMT -5
What I was particularly impressed with with Lowe was the ability for her to hit high and hard with a very short approach and quick set. Her blocking can still be improved and I have no doubt that it will. My only "concern" and it's not much of one is how will she perform now that teams have played against her and have footage to review and go off of. While undoubtedly talented, there are numerous cases of new players immediately having success because of their novelty and other teams not having the opportunity to have studied their tendencies. Going into the World Cup and other tournaments, opposition defenses will undoubtedly center their defensive strategy around defending her. How will this affect her performance? Time will tell. I initially had my doubts, but they were precisely centered around "would have been with whether her ancillary skills (defense, block, serve) were prohibitively weak for her to stay on court, or whether more disciplined block-defenses would clamp down on her favorite shots." The WGP demonstrated that her ancillary skills aren't glaring weaknesses and can most certainly be improved and her shot selection was better than I would have anticipated. I am looking forward to Lowe and Vansant's development at this level. Her tendencies aren't hard to figure out. It's more about having players that can deal with it. When we played China at full strength they did an excellent job slowing her down, stuffing her many times etc. The same will happen when we play other teams at full strength. I would like to see Lowe hit back cross her body to the other side on the crossing pattern for example, 90% of the time she just goes with the natural cross court left swing to left back, hitting it there that often doesn't fly against teams that have their best players on the court, and they will make her hit other shots. That's something she can change obviously. But bascially i'm saying i've learned to hold off being so high on a newcomer just, let it play out. She will do well in Italy etc, then we will see when we are playing teams with their best players what they do to slow her down and contain.
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