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Post by timduckforlife on Dec 2, 2014 19:54:16 GMT -5
I'm not a complete fan of this years awards.
Karsta Lowe, IMO, should have be POY. She was the best player all season, consistently faced 2 and 3 blockers all season yet maintained her kills per set pretty well, on a UCLA team that did better than expected.
Granted, Krista Vansant was the best player on the best team,no offense meant to Stanford, at the very least they should have been co-players of the year
And in terms of libero, Strickland.... how. I understand she did outplay Gilbert in the head-to-head match. But Benson was the best in the coference, hands down. Oregon doesn't even come close to finishing where they did without her. I do think one of the most telling things about the voting though was in the Wash/Stan game and becasue Gilbert wasn't doing well, they hid her on some serves. I think that alone lost her votes and they went to Strickland.
Though I do give Strickland props, definitely found her groove at the end of the season, and was and will be an amazing libero. And IMO, also one of the most athletic since rivaling Haley Jacobs in that regard.
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Post by geddyleeridesagain on Dec 2, 2014 20:01:52 GMT -5
Are people this upset with Cassie winning LOY or are the husky fans just overreacting and being overdefensive? I dunno, outside of a strong comment here and there, most of the posts have been pretty cordial. If you want an example for overreactions and defense mechanisms in a hair-trigger, check out a Texas thread.
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Post by volleyfan24 on Dec 2, 2014 20:29:06 GMT -5
This whole statement is wrong I don't even know where to begin. You can't discount digs because of the amount of blocks or aces your team has cause that is to suggest that Cassie Strickland was in the backrow everytime UW made a block or served an ace so that is simply immeasurable. Also even if this was your suggestion on the same account Stanford = 3.48 blocks + aces so its not like Gilbert was just getting balls pounded at her for her to easily pick up. You said Strickland was demolished on serve reception. Well that is good for a laugh. .965 Strickland while Gilbert is at .944. That is a difference of .021. Not much by comparison on conference season Strickland averages 4.07 digs per set. Gilbert averaged 4.89 digs per set that's certainly demolishing Strickland by .82 digs per set. In my opinion Cassies serving shouldn't even be considered yes when her serve is effective it is lethal but more often than not she serves errors her error count more than doubles her aces. She has I believe one of the worst serve percentages on her team. I don't believe Cassie is the best libero in the conference I do believe it is Gilbert but I would even say Benson is better. She is very good the only justification I could say is maybe they felt the need to give the award to her because it is very impressive how she stepped into the role after not ever previously played the position. How am I discounting digs? I just think that digs/set, by itself, is a pretty meaningless stat, for the reasons mentioned. UW is #11 in the conference in digs/set - they must be pretty bad defensively, right? Funny, they're #2 in Opp. Hitting Percentage (2nd to Stanford by .001). You can have multiple digs in a rally, by the way, but only one ace or block. As to whether serving should be considered in deciding the LOY award, I don't see why not. Liberos serve. I see the award as for the player's play at the position, including passing, digging, serving, setting, and leadership, rather than just part of their play. Everyone is taking what I said out of context or it could be my fault for not being more clear. Yes serving statistics should be considered but Cassie Strickland is not a good server. Her errors are greater than her aces. So that say vs. Gilbert in determining who the better libero is no contest in my opinion neither are that great sure Cassie gets you aces but the cost of those aces are also reflected in the amount of points she gives to the other team in errors. The difference between great servers like Bricio and Hancock vs Cassie is they score aces while not sacrificing a ton of errors. You are discounting digs like you mentioned again the stat is meaningless why because you have a good blocking team that is a logical fallacy. To suggest that Strickland was in a less of a position because of points scored on aces and blocks isn't taking a ton of other factors into consideration. In any case this is beating a dead horse was Cassie the best Libero in the PAC-12 this season I certainly don't think so and I think other posters would agree not just Stanford fans.
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Post by mikegarrison on Dec 2, 2014 20:48:23 GMT -5
pac-12.com/article/2014/08/06/volleyball-coaches-vote-stanford-2014-preseason-favoriteArizona picked 9th, Utah 10th, and OSU 12th. The list of players picked as pre-season all-conference looks OK, mostly. Clearly Sybeldon was missed. Probably Marshall too. Maybe Lutz (perhaps in place of Howard?). Maybe Nelson or Scambray? Definitely Holt and Higgins won't be on the final list. Likely not Brenner either, I would guess. Probably not Nwanebu. Here's who I predict as the 14 All-PAC first teamers, I don't see 6 of the 15 from pre-season making it. Kingdon, ARIZ Gardner, ASU T-Simp, COLO Bettendorf, OREG Marshall, OSU Ajanaku, STAN Bugg, STAN Burgess, STAN Lutz, STAN Lowe, UCLA Bricio, USC Dalton, UTAH Sybeldon, WASH Vansant, WASH By the way, you did get all 14 right among the 18 that were eventually selected. I guess we'll never know if they were to take four names off the list, which ones they would be.
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Post by mikegarrison on Dec 2, 2014 21:03:44 GMT -5
All in all, it was a very interesting year in PAC-12 volleyball:
1) Two teams were undefeated until almost the very end, and they were not scheduled to play each other until the last week. 2) Eight teams were within a couple matches of 0.500; every time someone tried to make a move away from 0.500 someone else would beat them. 3) Ten teams made it into the tournament, including 2 of the top 4 seeds. 4) Only one team (Washington) beat every other team in the conference at least once, and yet they didn't win the conference. 5) Only one team (WSU) was winless on the road. (They did finish last in the conference.) 6) Two teams went undefeated on their home courts. One team didn't even get to play on its home court for most of the season. 7) A PAC-12 match was the highest-attended regular-season match in NCAA volleyball this year. 8) A coach from OSU won COY for the first time since 1990.
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Post by tomclen on Dec 2, 2014 21:15:09 GMT -5
I'm not a complete fan of this years awards. Karsta Lowe, IMO, should have be POY. She was the best player all season, consistently faced 2 and 3 blockers all season yet maintained her kills per set pretty well, on a UCLA team that did better than expected. Granted, Krista Vansant was the best player on the best team,no offense meant to Stanford, at the very least they should have been co-players of the year . Lowe may have lost the award in the two matches vs. UW. UW won both, and in one match it was pretty much a beat-down and Lowe wasn't a major factor. Vansant, on the other hand, was dominant in both matches. But, I would not have been shocked, nor would I feel it was a slight, had Lowe been picked. Especially since, I don't particularly put too much stock in the individual awards. It's nice for the players and families, and I guess for the team...but winning is what counts. And the real award in the Pac this year goes to Stanford.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2014 21:20:51 GMT -5
Huh. So there are now 18 players on the all-conference team. I just started reading this thread, but if no one else has offered an explanation, there are 18 because several women tied for the last inclusion.
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Post by mikegarrison on Dec 2, 2014 21:22:22 GMT -5
Huh. So there are now 18 players on the all-conference team. I just started reading this thread, but if no one else has offered an explanation, there are 18 because several women tied for the last inclusion. Did they say that somewhere? Or did you get that info through back channels?
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Post by ay2013 on Dec 2, 2014 21:30:02 GMT -5
I'm not a complete fan of this years awards. Karsta Lowe, IMO, should have be POY. She was the best player all season, consistently faced 2 and 3 blockers all season yet maintained her kills per set pretty well, on a UCLA team that did better than expected. Granted, Krista Vansant was the best player on the best team,no offense meant to Stanford, at the very least they should have been co-players of the year And in terms of libero, Strickland.... how. I understand she did outplay Gilbert in the head-to-head match. But Benson was the best in the coference, hands down. Oregon doesn't even come close to finishing where they did without her. I do think one of the most telling things about the voting though was in the Wash/Stan game and becasue Gilbert wasn't doing well, they hid her on some serves. I think that alone lost her votes and they went to Strickland. Though I do give Strickland props, definitely found her groove at the end of the season, and was and will be an amazing libero. And IMO, also one of the most athletic since rivaling Haley Jacobs in that regard. that's not a compelling reason to give conference LOY to Benson. If Oregon doesn't even come close to finishing where they were without her, then she should be MVP of Oregon. Now, that's not to say that Benson isn't a fine candidate, I would choose both her and gilbert over Strickland, for the season, just pointing out the flawed argument. IMO the whole "such and such team would be nothing without such and such player" is, IMO, not a strong argument when it comes to conference POY. POY should be about what players do in relation to other players around the conference, not about who's the best player on each team.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2014 21:35:55 GMT -5
While I can appreciate the outpouring of love (and take-over of this thread) by Washington fans, congratulations to all! And also a shout out to the Pac 12 CONFERENCE CHAMPIONS, Stanford, for having all the other conference coaches select all 7 Cardinal starters to the All-Conference team, and congratulations to each of them.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2014 21:40:38 GMT -5
I just started reading this thread, but if no one else has offered an explanation, there are 18 because several women tied for the last inclusion. Did they say that somewhere? Or did you get that info through back channels? The latter.
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Post by redbeard2008 on Dec 2, 2014 23:16:13 GMT -5
Yes serving statistics should be considered but Cassie Strickland is not a good server. Her errors are greater than her aces. Having more errors than aces does not mean she's not a good server. The goal of UW's serving is to get opponents out-of-system - aces are merely a side-benefit, and errors a side-cost. If UW had backed off on their serving, to cut down on service errors, Stanford almost certainly would have won, in that good passes would have allowed Bugg to set Ajanaku and Lutz at will. Ultimately, it was Stanford that ended up having both fewer aces and more service errors than UW. I'm not discounting digging - digs/set as a comparative measure is pretty meaningless, however, for the reasons I already stated. Generally, the more aces (and service errors) and blocks, the fewer digs. You're perfectly welcome to your opinion. The coaches thought otherwise.
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Post by volleyfan24 on Dec 3, 2014 0:59:38 GMT -5
Yes serving statistics should be considered but Cassie Strickland is not a good server. Her errors are greater than her aces. Having more errors than aces does not mean she's not a good server. The goal of UW's serving is to get opponents out-of-system - aces are merely a side-benefit, and errors a side-cost. If UW had backed off on their serving, to cut down on service errors, Stanford almost certainly would have won, in that good passes would have allowed Bugg to set Ajanaku and Lutz at will. Ultimately, it was Stanford that ended up having both fewer aces and more service errors than UW. I'm not discounting digging - digs/set as a comparative measure is pretty meaningless, however, for the reasons I already stated. Generally, the more aces (and service errors) and blocks, the fewer digs. You're perfectly welcome to your opinion. The coaches thought otherwise. The fact that Jim trusts his players to serve tough is nice but there is no arguing Cassie isn't a good server. Over the course of this season she has successfully managed to score more points for her opponents than for her team. It is a real gamble. I agree when on like it was in the Stanford game it is a real game changer but when its off it does more harm than good. I wasn't referring to UW as a team. No one and I don't even think you thought Cassie was in the running for the libero of the year. What's so disappointing to me is that I feel the coaches looked at the Stanford/UW game as a tiebreaker to who should get the award. It's not an award for who had a better game but who has had the better conference season. The answer is Gilbert. The stats say that and I believe her play shows that. More than anything I think it is unfortunate because Its Gilbert's a senior and won't have a shot at it again. We can agree to disagree the site would be no fun if everyone had the same opinion what I was hoping for was a UW fan to convince me of why Cassie won the award but no one has yet to do that. If its her serve well I say her serve percentage isn't great or better than Gilbert's and to say she gets less digs because UW is the best blocking and serving team isn't a valid argument because there is no way to successfully measure whether the block or ace prevented Cassie from getting a dig. Those things are intangible and immeasurable. Her serve reception is better but barely and not enough to make up the difference in digs per set.
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Post by jetblocked on Dec 3, 2014 14:59:53 GMT -5
Strickland won Libero of the Year? She improved leaps and bounds over the season but this award seems wrong.
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Post by jetblocked on Dec 3, 2014 15:16:29 GMT -5
I think it was a toss up between strickland and formico for libero of the year. Strickland has an awesome serve and I believe that is the reason she got the award because she adds another dynamic to the libero position. Unfortunately, when looking at libero statistics there is no serve receive statistic to tell how well a libero is at passing. The reason I put Formico and Strickland together is because Strickland had a dynamic serve which is a huge asset for that UW team, but Formico is the best serve receive libero in the Pac-12 which is why I believe she got honorable mention. It is a difficult position to judge because normally digs per set doesn't really portray how good the libero actually is. How well you keep a team in system (serve receive) and your communication skills is what I believe make a great libero.
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