Volleyball Honda Award

[beachman]

kolohe said:

What "off the court problems" are you speaking of? Because as far as I know, none of these issues you speak of went public. Therefore, how would the Honda committee know about them?

Sounds to me like you know about some "issues" that "didn't go public"?

[gobows]

Hints please!!!!

[USAFAN]

GatorVball said:

I did watch them all play just 2 weeks ago. April and Aury were both better than Kim and Lily. None played particularly well, but if I was a newcomer to the sport, there's no way I'd have believed Kim was the POY, not from that match. And if you can't perform against the best in clutch situations, what does that say? Kim's passing was not very good and she had way too many errors. Lily was shut down in game 4 by the Florida block(more Kanoe's fault than Lily, but she gets the stats). Defensively she played very well, but her offense got worse as the match went on. Again, what do you do when the game or match is on the line? Neither Kim nor Lily stepped it up, Aury did, she single handedly won game 1 for the Gators, scoring the final 4 points. Stats don't always tell the story. How a player plays in big matches is much more indicative of how good they are. I mean, if you play your worst in the biggest matches, does it really matter what you did against the other teams? Nope.

And really, no Hawaii fan should be complaining about Lily not making 1st team or not on the CSTV team, when Kamana'o made 3rd team AA and the CSTV team and sorry, but she was not deserving.

If you are going to judge Kim on her match against Florida and say that she doesn't perform in the clutch you are wrong. She has played big time in big matches and put up tremendous stats throughout the NCAA's. If you watch the Florida/USC game USC completely shut down Aury, and Aury hit below .200 in both the Hawaii and USC match. Kim nor Aury had a great final four.

[roy]

USAFAN said:

If you are going to judge Kim on her match against Florida and say that she doesn't perform in the clutch you are wrong. She has played big time in big matches and put up tremendous stats throughout the NCAA's. If you watch the Florida/USC game USC completely shut down Aury, and Aury hit below .200 in both the Hawaii and USC match. Kim nor Aury had a great final four.

Let's face facts here. The three top outside hitters in Willoughby, Ross, and Cruz all did not perform exceedingly well in the Final Four. Everyone hit for lower than .200 except for Ross in the semi-final. All did well in the back row defense but all of them got a little shaken in their passing. It is not fair to argue that anyone of them is not clutch because at that high level, you are expected not to perform as well as you normally would.

[kolohekeiki]

Beachman said:

Is it possible that some of Kim's "off the court" problems will prevent her from getting this award?

And what would Kim's off the court problems have to do with this anyway.

What ever Kim goes through off the court is her business and shouldn't play into the choice for the Honda Award.

[kolohekeiki]

roofed! said:

I was expecting greater things from Lily this season, especially after reading how Dave was raving on her improved hitting, to the extent that she was able to consistently hit over the Hawaiian blocks and demoralizing the Hawaiian MBs (looking back, Hawaiian blocks were not big, anyway). And as such, I was surprised at how easily Lily was blocked out of the court by USC at the NACWAA, despite her early looks at the USC blocks at the spring match. Between Lily and Kim, Lily was easier to block because she tends to go for seam shots and hit a lower ball than Kim. Having said that, and watching the Florida/Hawaii tape, I must say that Mary Wise did a great job scouting Hawaii and preparing her team to neutralize both Kim and Lily. Her defenders, both blockers and back row, were ever ready for one of those monster hits coming across the net. I must say that I really like Florida approach whereby they practice all year like they were destined to meet USC and thus trying to put up bigger blocks (which worked to dampen Hawaiian attacks). Certainly, that all-business approach is reflected in their NCAA consecutive games won streak. On the other hand, I can see that Hawaii was still taking a relax-easy attitude. Even after a mistake, Melissa Villaroman was still smiling; maybe that is her way to encourage her teammates but to me, it showed lack of mental focus (on the other hand, the USC team has been criticized for too workman-like on-court attitude) and sense of accountability for your mistakes -- like, it's okay, we will try to do better on the next play.

Anyway, back to the main topic, I don't think that Lily is better than April Ross. Ross is definitely a better server and blocker. She also has all the shots in the books, and able to use them wisely (Lily has the tendency to keep hitting into the blocks without making sufficient adjustment). And Ross played great backrow defense as well.

April Ross is a great all-around player, while Lily is a very streaky hitter, but her backrow defense is always solid.

I agree that Lily gets blocked over and over again and does not make the neccessary adjustments, because my friends and I use to get frustrated seeing Lily hit into the blocks over and over again.

But when Lily is on she is one of the most dominate hitters in the game. She also has been known to pick up the slack when someone else is down. She mostly always came through in clutch when they needed her most.

But like I said before, I was a little disappointed at her play this season, after Dave Shoji hyped her up a lot during pre-season. If anything, she had a better year last year then she did this year. She seemed to be getting dug a lot this year.

In my mind Lily is still a great player as is April Ross.

[Gorf]

roy said:

Let's face facts here. The three top outside hitters in Willoughby, Ross, and Cruz all did not perform exceedingly well in the Final Four. Everyone hit for lower than .200 except for Ross in the semi-final. All did well in the back row defense but all of them got a little shaken in their passing. It is not fair to argue that anyone of them is not clutch because at that high level, you are expected not to perform as well as you normally would.

Or you could look at "the facts" in a slightly different light since Kim was touted by many as being "by far" the best player in the country and most deserving of the POY award.

If she is indeed truly so far ahead of all the other players (let alone just the other OH's) in the country for receiving the POY award then it can easily be seen as being more disappoiinting for her have such an "off" match than it was for any of the other players at the final four.

[roy]

Gorf said:

Or you could look at "the facts" in a slightly different light since Kim was touted by many as being "by far" the best player in the country and most deserving of the POY award.

If she is indeed truly so far ahead of all the other players (let alone just the other OH's) in the country for receiving the POY award then it can easily be seen as being more disappoiinting for her have such an "off" match than it was for any of the other players at the final four.

Yes, but the same argument can be made about a lot of players. Tom didn't perform well during her freshman year in the championship game along with Kerri Walsh.

Was it disappointing to see Willoughby play that badly. Yes. Was it disappointing to all three candidates not play as well as they normally do? Yes. But it expected to see these teams slow down the opposing teams best player.

[brybry]

roy said:

Let's face facts here. The three top outside hitters in Willoughby, Ross, and Cruz all did not perform exceedingly well in the Final Four. Everyone hit for lower than .200 except for Ross in the semi-final. All did well in the back row defense but all of them got a little shaken in their passing. It is not fair to argue that anyone of them is not clutch because at that high level, you are expected not to perform as well as you normally would.

Ross did not play all that well in the Final Four but she also did not break down. Her passing stayed solid as it always has. She won't have those type of lapses like some of the other touted OHs. Florida did a really good job keying in on her but luckily that opened things up a bit for Burdine and Candelas.
I thought Cruz played pretty well considering SC always had 2 big blockers on her plus Davis digging her cross-court. Her passing was really good in the first half of the match. She did so much for Florida.
I think being clutch says so much about a player. That's why I've always been huge on Ogonna because up until this season, I would say she has always played her best against the top teams in the biggest matches. I think this season, injuries have played a big part in her success.

[kolohekeiki]

brybry said:

Ross did not play all that well in the Final Four but she also did not break down. Her passing stayed solid as it always has. She won't have those type of lapses like some of the other touted OHs. Florida did a really good job keying in on her but luckily that opened things up a bit for Burdine and Candelas.
I thought Cruz played pretty well considering SC always had 2 big blockers on her plus Davis digging her cross-court. Her passing was really good in the first half of the match. She did so much for Florida.
I think being clutch says so much about a player. That's why I've always been huge on Ogonna because up until this season, I would say she has always played her best against the top teams in the biggest matches. I think this season, injuries have played a big part in her success.

I agree that Ogonna does play her best in the biggest matches, because in all the matches she played against the Wahine she played some awesome ball.

Especially last years match in the Stan Sheriff Center, if I'm not mistaken she had 19 kills and had only 1 error and hit over .500. She is one of those players that comes through in the clutch.