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Post by The Bofa on the Sofa on Oct 12, 2004 15:52:56 GMT -5
COY is usually determined by how well a team does with what they have returned from the year before. Its when a team exceeds expectations. These two sentances are actually disconnected. You can return everyone from the year before and still have little expectations, whereas you can turn over the whole team and still have high expectations. Hawaii in the original poll was what, 11th? Certainly, no one expected them to undefeated at this point, but most people expected them to be a very good team. Not the second best team in the country, but still very good. OTOH, neither Texas nor the Ohio St were even in the preseason top 25, were they? Talk about exceeding expectations. They weren't even expected to be among the top teams in the country, but both have certainly made their cases. If the question is how good are you compared to what was expected, then Texas and tOSU have to be at the top of the list. Hawaii would be among those that have certainly done more than expected, as would Washington as well as lot of other teams not in the top 10 (e.g. St Marys), but in terms of the biggest surprises, right now its easily Texas and the Ohio State. Personally, I'd go with Texas, because one could argue that you should have high expectations for anyone with Stacey Gordon, but then, tell that to the AVCA voters who didn't.
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Post by TDome on Oct 12, 2004 17:07:26 GMT -5
Stat wise, I'm not so sure Topic is (or will be) the leading candidate from the Big 12. I just looked at Pavan & Topic's stats for conference matches played so far and here's what they look like: - League ranking in ( ) Kill's per game: Topic (1) 6.00 Pavan (3) 4.76 Hitting percentage: Pavan (4) .364 Topic .299 Digs per game: Topic 3.13 Pavan 1.62 Blocks per game: Pavan (T2) 1.71 (Tied with Stalls behind Elmer) Topic 0.65 I don't know that you can say there is much of an advantage (from these statistics) for either player. Pavan looks to be a better blocker and Topic better in the back court. I'm a little concerned that Topic's early season high hitting percentage (against some weaker teams) has dropped now below .300 in Big 12 play. If that continues the rest of the year, I see that as a problem for her case. While Pavan has a potentially killer serve as apparent yesterday with 4 aces in Nebraska's match with Creighton, she's really had a problem this year with service errors where she is high for the team at nearly one per game. As jus4me28 mentioned, no matter how well Pavan ends up this year, I don't think she will be a serious contender for national POY because she is a freshman. But she may have a chance at the Big 12 POY. Pretty hard to compare two players stats that don't play the same position. Topic will dig more balls because she plays middle back and more balls will be hit there, Pavan will block more balls because she plays right side and more attempts will come to the opponents left sides, she also is blocking with Elmer and Stalls, she gets credit for a block if she doesn't touch it. Even comparing hitting percentage is difficult because off a poor pass or dig the ball is going to the left side which always gives them fewer in system swings than right sides.
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Post by BigTen4 on Oct 12, 2004 17:53:32 GMT -5
The "problem" with selecting a POY is in the interpretation of POY itself. Is it "Player of the Year" or "Player of the Year and what your supporting cast has done as you ALL perform as a team?" Last year Stacey Gordon set the Big Ten kills record (6.62) but the team as a whole had little success. She was right up there in aces and digs too and had she given up, the season result could have been worse--believe it or not. Similarly other players have played their hearts out on other teams that had limited success collectively but to believe a POY must carry her team to the Final Four or beyond I believe might be a bit demanding, muchless a true indicator of the individual's talent.
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Post by BearClause on Oct 12, 2004 18:09:23 GMT -5
The "problem" with selecting a POY is in the interpretation of POY itself. Is it "Player of the Year" or "Player of the Year and what your supporting cast has done as you ALL perform as a team?" Last year Stacey Gordon set the Big Ten kills record (6.62) but the team as a whole had little success. She was right up there in aces and digs too and had she given up, the season result could have been worse--believe it or not. Similarly other players have played their hearts out on other teams that had limited success collectively but to believe a POY must carry her team to the Final Four or beyond I believe might be a bit demanding, muchless a true indicator of the individual's talent. You end up making a mess figuring out how the stats work out. Some teams have a very balanced offense where the tendency is for all team members to have better offensive stats because defenses can't or don't key on one particular player. USC last season was a prime example. Other teams have that one star player who oppossing defenses try to stop at all costs, and consequently her hitting may go down. I was looking at Gordon's stats her freshman year (hit .301). I'm assuming that was when they had more offensive options. Her hitting went down in subsequent years. I'm guessing that's because A) the team was giving her far more swings and B) as a result opposing defenses throught stopping her was the game plan and C) thus her hitting average tended to go down.
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Post by StuffU on Oct 12, 2004 18:17:07 GMT -5
The "problem" with selecting a POY is in the interpretation of POY itself. Is it "Player of the Year" or "Player of the Year and what your supporting cast has done as you ALL perform as a team?" Last year Stacey Gordon set the Big Ten kills record (6.62) but the team as a whole had little success. She was right up there in aces and digs too and had she given up, the season result could have been worse--believe it or not. Similarly other players have played their hearts out on other teams that had limited success collectively but to believe a POY must carry her team to the Final Four or beyond I believe might be a bit demanding, muchless a true indicator of the individual's talent. Yes, well the same could've been said in 2001 when we all know was the year that Kim Willoughby should've won it! ... but alas, they didn't make it out of the regional ... but the good ones, the really deserving ones, will get it eventually ... ala Willoughby 2003.
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Post by Makawao on Oct 12, 2004 20:15:32 GMT -5
A. Crimes is awesome. I have watched her play two nights in a row and was amazed...she has got great timing and footwork. Her built at 6'3" looks amazing...with some weight training she is going to just keep improving. I tag her for future olymic material. Seeing is believing...
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Post by SaltNPepper on Oct 12, 2004 20:55:25 GMT -5
Pretty hard to compare two players stats that don't play the same position. Topic will dig more balls because she plays middle back and more balls will be hit there, Pavan will block more balls because she plays right side and more attempts will come to the opponents left sides, she also is blocking with Elmer and Stalls, she gets credit for a block if she doesn't touch it. Even comparing hitting percentage is difficult because off a poor pass or dig the ball is going to the left side which always gives them fewer in system swings than right sides. I agree with everything you say. Just a couple of comments. First, if we aren't going to compare players (which includes looking at their stats) then not really much sense in having a POY award. Elmer leads the Big 12 in blocking at least in part because she is getting credit for blocks that Pavan is making and Elmer isn't touching. Since the middles block all the way across the court, they have more opportunies that the RS, so in some respects, Pavan may be the best blocker on the team because she's getting about as many blocks but is limited to about half of the court. It's a two way street, but you are correct, when you have 3 good blockers, each of their numbers can be padded because of the other two. The point is, they are all three pretty good blockers and all three of them are doing very well blocking so far in the Big 12 conference. (And Topic's blocking numbers would also be padded by some of the blocks she doesn't touch) Pavan does attack from the left side in one of her three front rotations, so the effect of "out of system" sets may not be quite as great a difference as one would think. A larger effect for Pavan was trying to get used to a new setter (for her) when she came to Nebraska - and Busboom was a little shaky early on. Pavan's hitting percentage is higher now during conference play that it was in their early non-conference matches which I think is just the opposite for Topic. That was the point I was trying to make. If Topic is going to make a run from POY in the Big 12 or nationally, then she'll need to turn that around a bit.
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Post by FreeBall on Oct 12, 2004 21:39:34 GMT -5
Pavan does attack from the left side in one of her three front rotations, so the effect of "out of system" sets may not be quite as great a difference as one would think. The issue of "out of system" sets is an interesting one. When Metcalf was at NU I thought they went to her quite often in these situations, and I think this is also true this year with Pavan. The LS attackers still get a fair amount of these sets, but I think that Nebraska is unlike most teams in that their most dominant hitter plays on the RS in most rotations.
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Post by cbrown1709 on Oct 13, 2004 1:19:16 GMT -5
[quote author=BearClause link=board=general&thread=1097528712&start=32#2 date=1097610404]
BTW - are there any setters in contention for FOY? Last year was a very good one for freshman setters.[/quote]
The setters I would add to the ring would be Moriarity and Kehoe.
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