disappointed with Penn State

[vballrules]

I was surprised to see how poorly PSU did against UCLA. They couldn't pass to save their lives. UCLA did bring some awesome serves, I will give them that, but to get aced so many times is ridiculous. How did Vogel's performance tonight compare to his usual game? I was not impressed with the 1st team EIVA libero's passing. Proper should not hit low into the block; with his vertical he should be going over the block. Again, not a good showing by the EIVA Player of the Year. And where was PSU's block tonight??? I guess Pepperdine will have to stop the Bruins.

[simplycurious]

Agreed! I'm really getting tired of seeing the same thing from Penn State each year. They show up, can't pass, make a ton of service errors, play like they're scared (or don't belong) and then go home. The next year it's the same thing - ARGH!! All I kept hearing was that "this year would be different" and that this was "one of the most talented teams PSU has ever had". Yech, what a waste!

[roy]

[quote author= [glow=red,2,300]simplycurious[/b][/color][/glow] link=board=menvb&thread=1115357991&start=1#0 date=1115362744]Agreed! I'm really getting tired of seeing the same thing from Penn State each year. They show up, can't pass, make a ton of service errors, play like they're scared (or don't belong) and then go home. The next year it's the same thing - ARGH!! All I kept hearing was that "this year would be different" and that this was "one of the most talented teams PSU has ever had". Yech, what a waste! [/quote]

Yes, but you can't blame Penn State for that. They try their best to schedule tough competition, but they just cant get it going. A team that sees its weaknesses exploited gets better than a team that can't get the competition it rise to their level. It's like blaming Hawaii or Florida on the women's side for not performing in the NCAA tournament because of the conference they are from. After going through the WAC or SEC without breaking a sweat (aside from last year), facing a Pac 10 or Big 10 team gets hard when they have seen their weaknesses and had time to work on them.

Ideally, we would get more parity where all 3 conferences have a mix of strong and weak teams. The EIVA would be more powerful so a team that has talent like Penn State can develop as a team. And the MPSF would be a bit more diluted so we don't run into a problem like seeing #2, 3 and 4 knocked out of the conference tournament in the same weekend.

[Keystonekid]

On the website, Mark Pavilik said, "I thought we passed pretty well"? I'd hate to see them pass poorly.

[sistahsledge]

Keystonekid said:

On the website, Mark Pavilik said, "I thought we passed pretty well"? I'd hate to see them pass poorly.

I got a good chuckle out of that comment, too.

The media guide says that record for kills in one match is still held by Chris Chase, 49, in a match against USC in 1987. The amazing thing is that he was an MB who never hit out of the back row so all those kills came on quick sets...though the sets that Javier Gaspar delivered were more like 1.5-2. PSU's passing must have been pretty good back then to give an MB that many swings.

[bigfan]

UCLA played very well. Penn just folded after the 1st match. Al Scates was on his feet almost the entire match; he wanted this one real bad. Pepperdine played well; Rooney in particular showed why he is player of the year; a real joy to watch. Ohio St after geeting spanked in game 1 said to heck with it and played great. A very entertaining match to watch. Of couse this being L.A. half the crowd was gone by the end of the second game.

[Keystonekid]

When Chase hd the 49 kills the primary passers were Robert Pierce and Dave Bittner. They were as good as any two passers in college volleyball. The only passing team that was better was USC, Adam Johnson passed the whole court.

[akbar]

Keystonekid said:

When Chase hd the 49 kills the primary passers were Robert Pierce and Dave Bittner. They were as good as any two passers in college volleyball. The only passing team that was better was USC, Adam Johnson passed the whole court.

The USC team also had Dave Yoder who was a pretty good passer when he wanted to be,.....not close to the skills of Johnson but to say that Johnson pass the whole court is an exaggeration of sorts.

The 1.5 that you speed of to Chase was indeed correct. He rarely if ever played back row and had this stupid round-house serve that was never consistant. The passing on the '86-'88 teams was key to their success as Gaspar was an offensive weapon and demanded high and tight passes. These players from these years still hold numerous records for this program which I find a testament to their abilities.


I was very dissapointed in the PSU showing last night but SOBB did nail it on the head ....twice in fact...... PSU suffers terribly from 2 months of cruddy to mediocre competition and cannot progress compared to the advantage the MPSF teams have of beating on each other to get better as the playoffs near. The UCLA program does have such an advantage playing at home. The expectation here does have an impact....hate to admit.

It would be nice if Pav could get them out to the Westcoast for some or a weekend deep into April.

That PSU team this year WAS very good and I still feel could play with any top 5 team in the country but they were in quicksand last night just when you think they finally could get something going the whells fell off. kudos to UCLA for not giving an inch and congrats to Acosta for showing his ability

[gobears]

not that he was the only who had ball control errors for PSU, but I understand that the passer/libero was a freshman.
Having him pass UCLA's serves is like nigh on to impossible it would seem. "Deer in the headligts" for starters, and when things go bad, they go really bad fast in such games.

PSU needs to come to the opening Sta B tourney plus a couple others out west during the season. Gotta gear up the donor $$ to get their travel budget up.

[sistahsledge]

Could their problem be with the unorthodox training methods of their OPP?

www.personal.psu.edu/users/m/w/mwp137/col1.jpg

[simplycurious]

sistahsledge said:

Could their problem be with the unorthodox training methods of their OPP?

www.personal.psu.edu/users/m/w/mwp137/col1.jpg

AHHH - what the HELL is THAT!?!

_{That's going to take about seven years of therapy to remove from my head...thanks a lot sistahsledge!}

[puwave]

bigfan said:

UCLA played very well.

I think it was definitely more a case of Penn State being pathetic than UCLA being great.