Wisconsin @ Minnesota 10/8 7pm

[Deleted]

Michael Moore is speaking at Williams Arena (attached to the Pavilion, for those of you who don't know), so parking will be a nightmare (and pricey).

See you there, BiK? ;D

Stats:

www.gophersports.com/Sports/stattemplate.asp?stat_id=153&Ac_Yr=2004-2005&sport_id=wvoll

www.uwbadgers.com/sport_news/vb/stat_poll/2004_09_04_23_49_38_vb.pdf

Links to coverage:

www.gophersports.com/sports/sport.asp?option=fr&sport_id=wVoll&sport_name=Volleyball

[GatorVball]

Michael Moore was at UF on Monday night. 12,000 people showed up, parking was a pain in the butt on campus, traffic sucked.

[JT]

On the plus side, Moore is upset w/ the UofM. He claims that they've made it tough for the sponsors to rent Williams, and that it only left two days for ticket sales. So maybe Williams won't have 12K people.

What's your prediction on parking, R uffda? $9, or $10?
(I'm guessing $10. They charged $9 for "important" events last year.)

(And what the hell's with the conversion of his name to (R)uffda in large font?)

[GopherBob]

The Wisconsin Volleyball team arrived at the Radisson lastnight as I was getting a 'pop' from the Harvard Market around 10:40 PM.

I abstained from shouting any dirty comments, as I know wiscvball would get mad at me.

Hope all you Gopher fans cheer extra loud tonight in my absence, I'm heading to Ann Arbor for Ruffda!'s hated and my loved Gopher Football!

[LuckyVB]

GopherBob,

I hope you wear your "Ann Arbor is a Who*e" t-shirt. Cheer on the Gophs. Watching a football game at Michigan Stadium is an experience.

[Deleted]

We can only hope we are treated to another entertaining 4th quarter meltdown by the pigskinners. Last year's Michigan game was a hoot!

Back to VB. MN Daily:

www.mndaily.com/articles/2004/10/08/10600

[wiscvball]

Nice to see Hebert give the Badgers some "props":

"To me, Wisconsin is a very, very — put two verys in there — strong team,” he said. “They are a group that’s ready to break out. It’s not a match we can take lightly."

Unfortunately, I don't think that "break out" will come against the Gophers defense. Their offense doesn't really scare me, but I think the gophs could give the Badger hitters fits with the Gophers tenacity on the defensive side.

If the Badgers pass well throughout the match to spread the ball around to all their guns (which is a BIG if) -- and get inside the heads of the Minnesota leftsides with some big blocks early -- then I think it will be a pretty close and competitive match.

[Gorf]

I'll predict triple doubles for both Kelly Bowman and Lindsey Taatjes tonight if the match goes 4-5 games - which is fairly common for matches between the Gophers and the Badgers.

I expect attendance to be lower than for a normal match at the Pavilion between Minnesota and Wisconsin because of the Michael Moore in Williams Arena next door, the Twins game against the Yankees, and the 3nd debate between GWB and JFK.

[Deleted]

Minnesota sweeps: -22, -26, and -29. Most surprising stat? Paula Gentil with 10 digs.

[huskervbfan]

publius said:

Minnesota sweeps: -22, -26, and -29. Most surprising stat? Paula Gentil with 10 digs.

Here's another surprising stat. That third game must have been reeeealy ugly because Wisconsin only hit .019 and Minnesota only hit .043. Between the two teams that game, they had only 5 blocks included in the 24 hitting errors.

[wiscvball]

It was a great match for the Badgers at times, and a horrible one at others. As the stats show, it really was a pretty close match. I think in games 1 and 3 Wisconsin had 4 or 5 point leads that were decimated after Minnesota Timeouts, but in game 3 Wisconsin really clawed back in there.

The reason Wisconsin lost was because they made way too many unforced errors. Balls hit into the antennae, missed serves, hits out of bounds (including the over-rule call at 29-29 in game three that odenthal hit) all contributed. At various points in the match, both teams looked like top 10 teams, and then at others, they looked like they don't deserve to be ranked. The difference was in the gophers experience and lack of unforced errors. (Badgers had 4 more blocks, but 6 more service errors, 3 fewer aces, and 5 more hitting errors).

Overall though, the badgers dug a lot of balls they wouldn't have last year, and the setting was better than I expected it to be - with all of the changes at setter this year. It's a really young team... they only senior that was on the court for the majority of the match was odenthal. I think they have a bright future in coming years, and they can probably give teams problems later in this year, especially at home.

[wiscvball]

As a side note... Minnesota's middles were great tonight, and their leftsides were pretty neutralized by the badger block... I thought Wisconsin would block the slide better than they did, but I guess outblocking Minnesota 10-6 isn't that bad overall.

I was surprised to see Gentil with only 10 digs, but the badgers really served away from her, and I guess hit away from her too during the match. Taatjes and Bowman both made some great digs on crosscourt rockets from the middles on slides and from odenthal especially.

Minnesota has to be one of the most consistent serving teams I have seen in a long time... I kept wishing for service errors, but they NEVER came. 2 errors in a 3 game match is pretty darn good.

[Gorf]

I thought it was a pretty ugly match overall.

Both teams played very well at times and both also made key strings of consecutive errors at times.

The referee seemed to be pretty inconsistent on what he was going to call in terms of ball handling errors.

I don't know if the 29th point that he gave the Gophers by over-ruling the line judge was really out, but it was a tough way to kill Badgers final attempt at regaining momentum to take the game.

[Deleted]

I thought the Badgers played pretty well for a team which was swept. The biggest difference was that the Gophers were just the better team from 20 points to 30 points in each game.

Gentil's 10 digs had a lot to do with the Badgers hitting slides cross court--and with Odenthal taking 31 swings from the right side. She passed really well.

OTOH, Wack had 21 digs but was pretty shaky on serve receive.

Waite pulled Lorenzen for Simpson 15-19 in game 3. She (Simpson) and Reineke had a lot of problems connecting, but it was a 29-31 game, so there were some good elements to the move.

Taatjes had a solid game, I thought. They had her playing LB when Nelson was serving, with KBow setting out of the front row. This paid off with several Taatjes digs and some points--6 for the night (which is probably more than the usual output in that rotation). The Gophers are trying some interesting stuff in some of their more troublesome rotations.

Byrnes was very good offensively.

In short, the Badgers shut down 3 of the Gophers primary offensive weapons (the OHs and Bowman), held Gentil to 10 digs, outblocked the Gophers, and were very close on digs--and were swept. That's a very good sign for the Gophers.

Wisconsin's going to keep getting better, however. A win at Madison is far from guaranteed.

3,800+ in attendance!

[Deleted]

The said:

The referee seemed to be pretty inconsistent on what he was going to call in terms of ball handling errors.

Really? I thought it was one of the better reffed matches I've seen this year.

I don't know if the 29th point that he gave the Gophers by over-ruling the line judge was really out, but it was a tough way to kill Badgers final attempt at regaining momentum to take the game.

The ref made the call and he was obviously confident it was out. It was right there in front of him. All you want is a ref who takes charge. He did.

Game 3 was sloppy. But the first 2 games weren't bad. There were a fair # of errors, but I give credit to Wisconsin's block and Minnesota's defense.