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Post by acea on Dec 17, 2023 20:34:25 GMT -5
I finally watched the Stanford vs Texas match and imo we as fans don’t need to sound any alarm bells. Our floor defense actually was pretty good, Rubin and Oglivie were digging BOMBS from Oneal and Skinner. In Texas’ last three matches I think we did the best at containing Skinner’s offense and her serves. We passed really well against serves that other teams mightily struggled with. Unfortunately Skinner just lit us up after we got to 18 and 22 in sets 3 and 4. But, we played them close throughout those sets. I think the biggest concerns as other posters mentioned are: 1. Lack of middle offense (Vicini) and lack of middle blocking (Francis) 2. Hitting smart, Rubin is the only one consistently tooling and tipping at the right moments 3. Inability to win long rallies
Anyways I’m happy with our season and I think Rubin could be a NPOY in the making, and obviously Miner and Oglvie’s talents go without saying
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Post by hammer on Dec 17, 2023 20:58:46 GMT -5
At least we can say we lost to the champions 😅 Texas improved as the season passed, we did not No, Stanford improved but clearly not as much as Texas. I watched a replay of the Texas/Stanford match in Austin several days ago, and Stanford's ball control was weaker and there were plenty of hitting and serve errors. That tells you how badly Texas played if Stanford swept them.
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Post by dokterrudi on Dec 17, 2023 23:30:58 GMT -5
At least we can say we lost to the champions 😅 Texas improved as the season passed, we did not We certainly played Texas tougher than Wisconsin and Nebraska did. right?…at least we took a set with a double digit lead….yikes.
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Post by backsideattack on Dec 18, 2023 1:26:01 GMT -5
We certainly played Texas tougher than Wisconsin and Nebraska did. right?…at least we took a set with a double digit lead….yikes. And Tennessee had a match point in their match vs Texas!
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Post by Cruz'n on Dec 18, 2023 4:00:20 GMT -5
right?…at least we took a set with a double digit lead….yikes. And Tennessee had a match point in their match vs Texas! I was at the Arco in 2007 when we had Penn State on the ropes. We won the 3rd set by 7 points, and won the 4th set by 11 points. We were cruising. It was obvious we were going to win the NC. Then...we lost. It stayed with me a long time, and it wasn't even close in the 5th. But for the Tennessee players...they will have trouble sleeping for months! Up 23-20 in the 4th. Match point at 24-23.. Even in the 5th set they were tied at 14. So many chances squandered. That is tough.
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Post by oldunc on Dec 18, 2023 13:09:10 GMT -5
And Tennessee had a match point in their match vs Texas! I was at the Arco in 2007 when we had Penn State on the ropes. We won the 3rd set by 7 points, and won the 4th set by 11 points. We were cruising. It was obvious we were going to win the NC. Then...we lost. It stayed with me a long time, and it wasn't even close in the 5th. But for the Tennessee players...they will have trouble sleeping for months! Up 23-20 in the 4th. Match point at 24-23.. Even in the 5th set they were tied at 14. So many chances squandered. That is tough. As best I recall it, that 5th set was closer than the score would indicate. I believe Stanford had a lead, and was playing pretty well; what turned it around was some incredible defensive work from PSU; Stanford was getting Foluke shots that had been virtually unstoppable all year long, and she just couldn't get the ball down.
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Post by bigjohn043 on Dec 18, 2023 15:24:16 GMT -5
I finally watched the Stanford vs Texas match and imo we as fans don’t need to sound any alarm bells. Our floor defense actually was pretty good, Rubin and Oglivie were digging BOMBS from Oneal and Skinner. In Texas’ last three matches I think we did the best at containing Skinner’s offense and her serves. We passed really well against serves that other teams mightily struggled with. Unfortunately Skinner just lit us up after we got to 18 and 22 in sets 3 and 4. But, we played them close throughout those sets. I think the biggest concerns as other posters mentioned are: 1. Lack of middle offense (Vicini) and lack of middle blocking (Francis) 2. Hitting smart, Rubin is the only one consistently tooling and tipping at the right moments 3. Inability to win long rallies Anyways I’m happy with our season and I think Rubin could be a NPOY in the making, and obviously Miner and Oglvie’s talents go without saying First, I totally agree on nothing to worry about. We played fine. Texas just got hot at the right moment. Sometimes that happens... You can say Vicini didn't provide enough offense, but she hit 411 for the year. The problem is she only got set 316 times. Francis hit 368 and got set 427 times. And that was on the best passing team in the NCAA. Compare that to 2019. Campbell hit 290 and Gates hit 339. But they got set 379 and 631 times. And that was on a team that was not as good a passing team. At some point you have to look at Miner and he lack of use of her MBs.
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Post by SakiBomb25 on Dec 18, 2023 16:43:33 GMT -5
I finally watched the Stanford vs Texas match and imo we as fans don’t need to sound any alarm bells. Our floor defense actually was pretty good, Rubin and Oglivie were digging BOMBS from Oneal and Skinner. In Texas’ last three matches I think we did the best at containing Skinner’s offense and her serves. We passed really well against serves that other teams mightily struggled with. Unfortunately Skinner just lit us up after we got to 18 and 22 in sets 3 and 4. But, we played them close throughout those sets. I think the biggest concerns as other posters mentioned are: 1. Lack of middle offense (Vicini) and lack of middle blocking (Francis) 2. Hitting smart, Rubin is the only one consistently tooling and tipping at the right moments 3. Inability to win long rallies Anyways I’m happy with our season and I think Rubin could be a NPOY in the making, and obviously Miner and Oglvie’s talents go without saying First, I totally agree on nothing to worry about. We played fine. Texas just got hot at the right moment. Sometimes that happens... You can say Vicini didn't provide enough offense, but she hit 411 for the year. The problem is she only got set 316 times. Francis hit 368 and got set 427 times. And that was on the best passing team in the NCAA. Compare that to 2019. Campbell hit 290 and Gates hit 339. But they got set 379 and 631 times. And that was on a team that was not as good a passing team. At some point you have to look at Miner and he lack of use of her MBs. Vicini may have hit for a good percentage, but she isn’t a terminal hitter. It’s not the case that she needs to get set more - she gets set more and she’ll get dug more and her hitting percentage goes down. Gates and Campbell were more terminal - that’s why they got set more. Gates was an All-American, don’t forget. Vicini and Francis were no where at that level.
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Post by bigjohn043 on Dec 18, 2023 17:51:36 GMT -5
First, I totally agree on nothing to worry about. We played fine. Texas just got hot at the right moment. Sometimes that happens... You can say Vicini didn't provide enough offense, but she hit 411 for the year. The problem is she only got set 316 times. Francis hit 368 and got set 427 times. And that was on the best passing team in the NCAA. Compare that to 2019. Campbell hit 290 and Gates hit 339. But they got set 379 and 631 times. And that was on a team that was not as good a passing team. At some point you have to look at Miner and he lack of use of her MBs. Vicini may have hit for a good percentage, but she isn’t a terminal hitter. It’s not the case that she needs to get set more - she gets set more and she’ll get dug more and her hitting percentage goes down. Gates and Campbell were more terminal - that’s why they got set more. Gates was an All-American, don’t forget. Vicini and Francis were no where at that level. I am not sure what you mean by terminal. Factually, when Vicini was set she had a better chance of putting the ball to the floor. I would agree that with more sets her percentage might have gone down. But she is hitting 80 points better than Gates and 120 better than Campbell. Heck, she was hitting 90 points better than Kipp. At some point we just need to set our MBs. That is not something we have done since Miner has been the setter.....
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Post by volleylbc on Dec 18, 2023 18:28:39 GMT -5
Vicini may have hit for a good percentage, but she isn’t a terminal hitter. It’s not the case that she needs to get set more - she gets set more and she’ll get dug more and her hitting percentage goes down. Gates and Campbell were more terminal - that’s why they got set more. Gates was an All-American, don’t forget. Vicini and Francis were no where at that level. I am not sure what you mean by terminal. Factually, when Vicini was set she had a better chance of putting the ball to the floor. I would agree that with more sets her percentage might have gone down. But she is hitting 80 points better than Gates and 120 better than Campbell. Heck, she was hitting 90 points better than Kipp. At some point we just need to set our MBs. That is not something we have done since Miner has been the setter..... do you know how crazy this sounds? If the MB’s aren’t terminal you don’t set them MORE you set them just enough. Obviously they would hit for a high percentage. If we had to lean on running the offense through MB’s alone we would have Been torched. I think if the 2014 team when Wopat and Inky were the best combo in the NCAA but all our pins were weaker. When we couldn’t set them in that final match vs Penn State we got spanked trying to rely on Howard and Burgess shoulders.
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Post by Cruz'n on Dec 18, 2023 19:30:21 GMT -5
I finally watched the Stanford vs Texas match and imo we as fans don’t need to sound any alarm bells. Our floor defense actually was pretty good, Rubin and Oglivie were digging BOMBS from Oneal and Skinner. In Texas’ last three matches I think we did the best at containing Skinner’s offense and her serves. We passed really well against serves that other teams mightily struggled with. Unfortunately Skinner just lit us up after we got to 18 and 22 in sets 3 and 4. But, we played them close throughout those sets. I think the biggest concerns as other posters mentioned are: 1. Lack of middle offense (Vicini) and lack of middle blocking (Francis) 2. Hitting smart, Rubin is the only one consistently tooling and tipping at the right moments 3. Inability to win long rallies Anyways I’m happy with our season and I think Rubin could be a NPOY in the making, and obviously Miner and Oglvie’s talents go without saying First, I totally agree on nothing to worry about. We played fine. Texas just got hot at the right moment. Sometimes that happens... You can say Vicini didn't provide enough offense, but she hit 411 for the year. The problem is she only got set 316 times. Francis hit 368 and got set 427 times. And that was on the best passing team in the NCAA. Compare that to 2019. Campbell hit 290 and Gates hit 339. But they got set 379 and 631 times. And that was on a team that was not as good a passing team. At some point you have to look at Miner and he lack of use of her MBs. I can't get behind this logic. Miner setting her middles more will not make them better. I think it is a credit to Miner that Vicini hit .411. Miner used her just enough, and put her in good situations. In 2016 Inky hit .407. Very similar to Vicini's .411. The thing is, opponents focused their defense on stopping or slowing Inky, sometimes triple blocking her. Whereas opponents essentially ignored Vicini, never even double blocking her. Opponents this year focused on our pins. I think Vicini's offense this year improved, and it was great to see. But she was never more than a distraction to try to remind opposing MB's that they shouldn't camp on the pins. Francis was wildly inconsistent. She showed moments of greatness, but you couldn't rely on her. Sometimes she would completely disappear. Like another poster said, our middles were not AA's. Miner set them just enough to keep opponents as honest as possible. Miner setting them more would not have improved our situation, would not have made the middles suddenly better than they are. Just to restate: I give a lot of credit to Miner for manufacturing the decent numbers our middles had this year.
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Post by bigjohn043 on Dec 18, 2023 19:33:06 GMT -5
I am not sure what you mean by terminal. Factually, when Vicini was set she had a better chance of putting the ball to the floor. I would agree that with more sets her percentage might have gone down. But she is hitting 80 points better than Gates and 120 better than Campbell. Heck, she was hitting 90 points better than Kipp. At some point we just need to set our MBs. That is not something we have done since Miner has been the setter..... do you know how crazy this sounds? If the MB’s aren’t terminal you don’t set them MORE you set them just enough. Obviously they would hit for a high percentage. If we had to lean on running the offense through MB’s alone we would have Been torched. I think if the 2014 team when Wopat and Inky were the best combo in the NCAA but all our pins were weaker. When we couldn’t set them in that final match vs Penn State we got spanked trying to rely on Howard and Burgess shoulders. But what do you mean by not terminal. Vicini hit for a higher percentage this year than Inky in 2016. This reminds of Moneyball. If the hitter isn't terminal, then why are they terminating at such a high percentage?
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Post by bigjohn043 on Dec 18, 2023 20:10:11 GMT -5
Francis was wildly inconsistent. She showed moments of greatness, but you couldn't rely on her. Sometimes she would completely disappear. If Francis was so wildly inconsistent, then how did she hit for 368? That must have meant Gates was incredibly inconsistent. Campbell was worse. Here are Gates hitting percentages in 2019: 53.8% 64.3% 17.6% 5.3% 45.0% 25.9% 34.6% 25.0% 36.8% 11.1% 29.2% 45.0% 60.0% 44.4% 35.7% 34.4% 26.1% 24.1% 18.8% 35.3% 32.3% 20.0% 42.9% 50.0% 6.7% 36.8% 9.5% 18.8% 41.7% 63.6% 57.1% 73.3% 45.5% 52.9% Here is Francis is 2023: 33.3% 46.7% 46.7% 55.6% 14.3% 58.3% 41.2% 31.3% 42.9% 43.8% 56.3% 54.5% -12.5% 29.4% 22.2% 11.1% 7.1% 35.7% 47.6% 52.0% 20.0% 66.7% 16.7% 43.8% 57.1% 0.0% 30.0% 58.8% 20.0% 0.0% FWIW, the standard deviation for Francis is 202 versus Gates at 172. So her deviation was a bit higher but she also hit for 29 points higher. That is why I am such a huge believer in stats in volleyball. Often your lying eyes aren't really seeing the truth. As an example Baird passed really well this year. Elite level. But last year was way worse and every time she shanked one it reminds us all of that. OTOH, Rubin shanks one and you are just surprised....
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Post by StanfordFan on Dec 18, 2023 21:27:59 GMT -5
Saw that Malia Tufuga entered the transfer portal. Such a great contributor, who seems to always have stepped up whenever the team needed her. Sad to see her go, but hope she gets good playing time somewhere her last year.
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Post by bobbk on Dec 18, 2023 21:45:22 GMT -5
Tufuga will graduate. This has been the plan for awhile. Agree great contributor
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