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Post by beachman on May 9, 2005 16:33:14 GMT -5
Those of us at Long Beach State appreciate what happened Saturday night at Pauley. UCLA is as difficult to beat on that floor as the Waves are to beat at Firestone......thanks for a great match.....just wish we could have been your opponent....just loved seeing Scates and Co. LOSE! ;D
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OC4
Sophomore
Posts: 213
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Post by OC4 on May 9, 2005 17:40:02 GMT -5
Those of us at Long Beach State appreciate what happened Saturday night at Pauley. UCLA is as difficult to beat on that floor as the Waves are to beat at Firestone......thanks for a great match.....just wish we could have been your opponent....just loved seeing Scates and Co. LOSE! ;D Beachman... What did you prefer, seeing a great match like Saturday's or having LB be Pep's opponent? Because it's only one or the other. |
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Post by bigfan on May 9, 2005 18:31:21 GMT -5
Beachman... What did you prefer, seeing a great match like Saturday's or having LB be Pep's opponent? Because it's only one or the other. The UCLA/Pepperdine brawl was as good as the 2002 Lewis/BYU final at LONG Beach! |
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Post by sonofbarcelonabob on May 9, 2005 19:07:41 GMT -5
The UCLA/Pepperdine brawl was as good as the 2002 Lewis/BYU final at LONG Beach! There's been a plethora of really good 5-game championship matches in the past 10 or so years. In terms of battles/significance, I'd rank the top 5 like this: 1. 1994 PSU over UCLA - not only was this history made, with that PSU squad being the first non-California, non-West Coast/WIVA/MPSF team to win a championship, but they did it against what many at the time were calling the most dominant collegiate team ever assembled. UCLA had future Olympians Nygaard and Sullivan, along with future AVP stars Stein Metzger and Kevin Wong, 6'9" MB Tim Kelly, and Paul Nihipali. I thought Al Scates really blew it that season by putting Nygaard at OPP to inflate his stats, and leaving Nihipali at MB. Should have been the other way around. 2. 2003 - Lewis over BYU in 5 at LBSU. Lewis wins Game 1 44-42, nuff said. Although this championship was tainted by Lewis' use of ineligible foreign athletes, the match itself was a humdinger. 3. 1997 - Stanford wins its first and only NCAA title over UCLA in 5. From a talent perspective, I thought this Final Four had top-to-bottom some of the best talent ever assembled in a given year amongst the finalists Stanford, UCLA, Penn St., and Ball St. 4. 1996 - UCLA over Hawaii in Pauley Pavilion. Yuval Katz had the single greatest individual performance I've ever seen in an NCAA Final Four. Something like 46 kills on 97 swings against a Bruin team that had geared its entire block and defense against him. Stein Metzger singlehandedly willed what was definetely a less-talented Bruin squad to victory over a UH team that had dominated for virtually an entire season as the undisputed #1, until getting derailed in the post-season by a red-hot UCSB squad in the MPSF semis. 5. 2005 - Pepp over UCLA at Pauley. I think this pretty much signals the nail in the coffin, as far as putting to rest the entire Bruin/Pauley mystique. UCLA has been on a steady decline since their last championship in 2000. Whereas the mighty Bruins were once far and away the most consistently dominant men's volleyball program year-in and year-out, you can pretty say that now they are just another program in the pack fighting it out for the title every year. Still an upper-tier program, for sure, but in no way as dominant as they once were. |
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Post by beachman on May 9, 2005 21:09:55 GMT -5
Seems to me that there was a pretty good final in 2004 in Hawaii as well  |
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Post by sonofbarcelonabob on May 9, 2005 21:31:42 GMT -5
Seems to me that there was a pretty good final in 2004 in Hawaii as well It was alright. Sloppily played match on both sides. The level of play wasn't altogether that good. When you have an overpass sitter on the net for match point, you really should take a swing. |
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Post by banthony2 on May 9, 2005 22:20:19 GMT -5
2. 2003 - Lewis over BYU in 5 at LBSU. Lewis wins Game 1 44-42, nuff said. Although this championship was tainted by Lewis' use of ineligible foreign athletes, the match itself was a humdinger. Actually BYU took that first game. It was physically exhausting to be there because it went back and forth so many times. |
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Post by sonofbarcelonabob on May 9, 2005 23:13:42 GMT -5
Actually BYU took that first game. It was physically exhausting to be there because it went back and forth so many times. Woops. My bad. You're right, BYU did win that game. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2005 1:23:09 GMT -5
That was a crazy ass game to watch in person ;D Rooney's game was on, along with the Pepperdine blocking in game 5. I was talking with Doug Beal about bringing any of these guys up for the olympics, and he wasn't really sure about anyone. maaaybe Sean Rooney, but that would be it. No one else stood out from the crowd.
By the 5th game, Pepp. was able to just read Acevedo's sets and could just anticipate the UCLA offense along with all the K and S errors UCLA put up.. just atrocious. their whole mental game shut down.
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