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Post by elevationvb on Aug 22, 2015 15:13:08 GMT -5
As someone mentioned on the Scrimmage thread, players' names on the back of the uniforms (where "TEXAS" has always been). So, where is "TEXAS" lettering, on front above number? Mini Longhorn Logo - no "Texas" lettering unless it was near the bicep, but according to these old eyes, don't think so.
Of course the Longhorn Logo is iconic, but uniform needs to have "Texas" on it. Loved when uniform has script Texas lettering.
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Texas 2015
Aug 22, 2015 17:32:53 GMT -5
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Post by Hookemhasbeen on Aug 22, 2015 17:32:53 GMT -5
As someone mentioned on the Scrimmage thread, players' names on the back of the uniforms (where "TEXAS" has always been). So, where is "TEXAS" lettering, on front above number? Mini Longhorn Logo - no "Texas" lettering unless it was near the bicep, but according to these old eyes, don't think so.
Of course the Longhorn Logo is iconic, but uniform needs to have "Texas" on it. Loved when uniform has script Texas lettering.
linkYes completely agree. The scripted lettering seemed much classier and like a tradition. I'm not a huge fan of the names but hopefully it will grow on me
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Post by southie on Aug 23, 2015 17:22:53 GMT -5
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Post by southie on Aug 24, 2015 9:31:51 GMT -5
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Post by southie on Aug 24, 2015 9:35:51 GMT -5
Statesman post-scrimmage write-up: www.statesman.com/news/sports/college/with-starting-spots-at-stake-ut-volleyball-scrimma/nnPd4/With starting spots at stake, UT volleyball scrimmage is competitiveThe Texas volleyball team’s annual Orange-White scrimmage is scheduled to give fans their first look at the squad and allow the players a little taste of the big-game atmosphere that will surround them throughout the season. But the third-ranked Longhorns played Saturday’s match, which means nothing in the grand scheme of things, with a midseason intensity. That’s because in the competition for playing time, Texas coach Jerritt Elliott is always keeping score. For the record, the White team, which featured mostly players expected to be starters, beat the Orange 25-23, 25-18, 27-25 at Gregory Gym. Each of the three sets was contentious throughout, though concentration waned a bit toward the end. “I always say that we want the competition in our gym to be as fierce as we will see in actual matches because our talent is deep and everyone wants to show they can contribute,” Elliott said. “What we saw out there in this scrimmage is what we’ve been seeing all fall, especially in the first two sets.” The Longhorns return starters or part-time starters at every position but are working to find the leadership lost to the graduation of middle blocker Khat Bell — who ruled the locker room — and outside hitter Haley Eckerman, one of Texas’ go-to player for kills and big serves the past three years. Middle blockers Chiaka Ogbogu and Molly McCage, a junior and a senior, anchor the front line, and junior outside hitter Paulina Prieto Cerame — whom Elliott has lauded for her improvement since last season — is set to take plenty of big swings for the Longhorns, both as a focal point of the offense and behind the baseline. “I like the overall feel of this team and the way we work together and nurture each other,” McCage said. “Yes, it’s competitive, but it’s different. No one is afraid to step on someone else’s toes.” Senior outside hitter Amy Neal, a Lake Travis High School product, showed off an improved serve and looked comfortable in the offense, leading the White with 15 kills, three aces and eight digs. Junior setters Chloe Collins and Nicole Dalton, who played just the first set as she works her way back from a left knee injury, set the flow and direction of the Longhorns’ attack. Junior outside hitter Ebony Nwanebu, a transfer from USC, was held out of the scrimmage to rest a “nagging injury,” Elliott said. Eckerman, who plays professionally in Turkey, and former Texas standout Juliann Faucette, a pro player in China, joined volunteer assistant coach Evan Sanders, a former pro, in suiting up for the Orange team to add a degree of difficulty for the scrimmage. The Longhorns will open their regular season Friday when they host Rice at 5 p.m. as part of the American Campus Classic. Texas will play two matches Saturday against Cal-Irvine at 12:30 p.m. and LSU at 7:30 p.m.
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Post by elevationvb on Aug 26, 2015 14:42:24 GMT -5
Hope all Texas volleyball fans with access to the Longhorn Network are keeping up with Longhorn Extra each night. Small segments with previews of the volleyball season have begun. Last night's show had upperclassmen talking about the new freshment and two of the freshmen were interviewed - Yaasmeen Bedart-Ghani & Morgan Johnson. Micaya White was not in the interview. Seniors Amy Neal, Kat Brooks and Molly McCage were interviewed on Monday's show. Here's the interview from the Texas Volleyball website. Volleyball seniors talk about 2015 season
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Post by elevationvb on Aug 26, 2015 14:52:01 GMT -5
Also Charlie Strong's radio / tv show begins on September 2 at 7pm. The show is televised from Pluckers west of campus. Each week Coach Strong provides a segment for another coach from the athletic department. My understanding is Coach Elliott may be the coach for the September 2nd show.
The show will be televised on the LHN.
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Post by southie on Aug 26, 2015 18:25:46 GMT -5
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Post by southie on Aug 27, 2015 8:46:15 GMT -5
Watched Yaz and Morgan Johnson being interviewed on LHN the other night; both very well-spoken. They were showing clips of them during the scrimmage, and Morgan Johnson hits with a lot of confidence; glad to see that. She mentioned that her older sister plays soccer at Oklahoma. Not sure exactly how her recruitment went, but it couldn't have been easy with a sibling at one of our rival schools; but, Morgan did commit relatively early, so perhaps here decision came prior to that of her older sister.
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Post by elevationvb on Aug 27, 2015 10:34:46 GMT -5
Here's the interview with the two freshmen televised on Longhorn Extra. Bedart-Ghani and Johnson in studio Again, I recommend all Texas fans watch Longhorn Extra. Last night there was an excellent segment on former Texas Basketball Player DJ Augustin and remembering Hurricane Katrina. Tonight remembering Hurricane Katrina continues with a segment featuring former Texas Football player Derek Lewis. Texas fans will always remember Derek and Roll Left against Nebraska in the first Big 12 Championship Game in St. Louis. Yea Baby!
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Post by elevationvb on Aug 27, 2015 11:22:36 GMT -5
Article from today's Austin American Statesman with updates on Ebony Nwanebu and Tiffany Baker. Volleyball’s Nwanebu gets her wish, transfers back homeJune 5 was an eventful day in the life of Ebony Nwanebu.
On her 20th birthday, Nwanebu announced she was coming home to finish her volleyball career at Texas.
“I wanted my birthday to be memorable,” she said.
Years earlier, Nwanebu — who played at Lovejoy High School in Lucas — couldn’t wait to leave the Lone Star State, and let coaches know as much. The nation’s No. 7 recruit in 2013, Nwanebu never gave Texas much of a look and signed with USC.
“She was one of the few that got away,” Longhorns coach Jerritt Elliott said. “When we got information she was coming back, we were excited.”
The 6-4 Nwanebu will replace All-American Khat Bell at opposite hitter when Texas opens Elliott’s 15th season this weekend in the American Campus Classic. The third-ranked Longhorns play Rice on Friday, then UC-Irvine and LSU on Saturday. All matches are at Gregory Gymnasium.
Nwanebu, who was born in Austin, said she wants to show fans “a better version of Ebony than from my freshman year.”
Tall order. She was named the country’s top freshman, hitting .358 and garnering first-team All-America honors. Nwanebu kept USC afloat in the regional finals, registering 30 kills on 53 swings with no errors in a five-set loss to Washington.
“She’s got the ability to take over a match,” Elliott said.
Things couldn’t have been going much better, but the glow of LA soon faded. Nwanebu’s sophomore year was compromised by a lower back injury, and her hitting percentage dipped to .226. Missing her family back home, she went shopping for a new school and chose Texas over Wisconsin.
“Great for us, and hopefully great for her,” Elliott said. “We want her to be successful and we want her to be happy, but it’s great for us because it puts us in a position to have another big piece for us to be successful.”
Baker coaching: Due to injuries, Tiffany Baker never got a chance to show her volleyball potential at Texas and called it quits in the offseason.
Baker, who had one year of eligibility remaining, never envisioned coaching, but that’s exactly what she’s doing as a graduate assistant at Texas State under Karen Chisum.
“The hours are long, but it’s pretty cool just being out of playing and seeing the other side of things,” Baker said. “It’s cool to see the coaches’ point of view.”
Baker, of Lewisville Hebron, was the nation’s No. 4 recruit, but couldn’t get healthy long enough to live up to the billing. She started her career at Tennessee, but didn’t play for much of her sophomore season due to a lingering knee injury. Baker transferred to Texas and had surgery, but never returned to her old form. Compounding matters was a back injury she suffered last November.
Baker played in just seven matches and didn’t suit up for most of the season.
“I used to feel bitter about it,” Baker said. “I cry a lot about it, especially this spring. I just wasn’t ready for my career to end. I realize God has a plan and everything works out.”
Baker said she expects Texas to keep winning despite losing All-Americans Haley Eckerman and Bell.
“That’s how that programs works,” she said. “They get the best of the best year in and year out. There’s been a lot of times where they’ve won big games, obviously the national championship a couple years ago, with freshmen on the court. I don’t have any doubts.”
Baker’s new team should be good, too. Texas State was 22-12 last season and finished second in the Sun Belt.
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Texas 2015
Aug 27, 2015 17:15:04 GMT -5
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Post by Hookemhasbeen on Aug 27, 2015 17:15:04 GMT -5
So who are we thinking will start tomorrow? 5-1 or 6-2? Are Ebony and Nicole going to play? Will the freshman start? I have so many questions.
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Post by southie on Aug 27, 2015 18:44:21 GMT -5
I'm gonna assume everyone but Micaya will play; 6-2 offense to open the match; maybe one set in a 5-1 to give Nicole some rest as there are two more matches on Saturday. Amy and Paulina at OH. Ebbs and Yaz at Opposite.
Now, in the event they need to rest Dalton and Nwanebu tomorrow, then the 5-1 with Collins setting.
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Post by elevationvb on Aug 28, 2015 8:18:46 GMT -5
From the local paper this am, Texas Volleyball Season PreviewTexas volleyball preview: Ogbogu aims for new heights
Before they took on Texas in last year’s NCAA volleyball tournament, Northwestern State practiced against snow shovels.
Coaches raised the shovels high above the net to simulate the disparity in length their hitters would face against the stretched-out Longhorns.
+Texas volleyball preview: Ogbogu aims for new heights photo TOM MCCARTHY JR. Chiaka Ogbogu, the preseason co-Big 12 player of the year, should be the centerpiece of Texas’ volleyball season. The Longhorns are ... Read More Chiaka Ogbogu has a chilling effect on opponents.
Texas recently measured the vertical jump of each of its players, and no one was surprised when Ogbogu reached higher than anyone. By a lot. At 10 feet, 8 1/2 inches, she came out on top by a whopping four inches.
“She’s always jumped that high,” opposite hitter Ebony Nwanebu said. “She was 16 and could jump to the roof.”
The sky’s the limit for Ogbogu, who opens her third season on Friday as one of three team captains — Molly McCage and Nicole Dalton are the others — as well as a national player of the year candidate. Rice awaits the Longhorns, who are ranked No. 3 in the country, on the first day of their American Campus Classic. Host Texas plays UC-Irvine and LSU on Saturday.
There is some level of concern that the Longhorns could struggle early on as they find their way after the losses of All-Americans Haley Eckerman and Khat Bell. Both will someday be in the women’s hall of honor at Texas. Still, there’s a case to be made that Ogbogu was the team’s top player in 2014 when the Longhorns advanced to the NCAA national semifinals for the third straight year.
Ogbogu, who’s 6 feet, 2 inches, ranked second on the team in points and blocks, and third in kills. Her .420 hitting percentage ranked ninth nationally.
“She was our most consistent player night in and night out,” coach Jerritt Elliott said.
Ogbogu, the Big 12’s preseason co-player of the year, has emerged from the shadows of Eckerman and Bell to assume a bigger role, though she’s not willing to say the team now belongs to her.
Since Texas’ season-ending loss to BYU, Ogbogu has been busy tightening the weaker areas in her game. For the first time, she can now elevate off one foot, increasing a vertical leap that was already quite springy. She’s also done maintenance on defense, which is important because McCage, the team’s other middle blocker and the more defensive-minded of the two, also will spend time at opposite hitter.
“I think defensively I’m going to have to get better,” Ogbogu said. “The coaches talk to me about how I’m more of an offensive middle, but in order to get more well-rounded, I’m going to have to get better on my defensive game. I need to track the other hitter better and make sure I’m not reaching too high and they’re not hitting underneath me.”
What a twist. Ogbogu’s greatest strength — her ability to jump and scrape the ceiling — can make her vulnerable to attacks.
As best as Elliott can recall, only one player in his 15 seasons at UT has recorded a higher vertical leap than Ogbogu’s: Destinee Hooker, whose leap of 10 feet, 10 inches stretched one-and-a-half inches higher than Ogbogu.
Ogbogu should be able to dunk a basketball on a standard rim, which measures at 10 feet. Yet for whatever reasons, she can’t get the technique down and always comes up short.
In volleyball, though, she’s doing just fine.
“I have really long limbs, so I guess that helps,” Ogbogu said. “My whole life I’ve trained to have a strong lower body and to have that jumping ability.”
TEXAS’ ROSTER Gone are two key All-Americans from last year’s NCAA semifinalists team (Haley Eckerman and Khat Bell), but the No. 3-ranked Longhorns hardly have an empty cupboard. Middle blockers Chiaka Ogbogu and Molly McCage return up front, Amy Neal returns on the outside and USC transfer Ebony Nwanebu, an outside hitter, should make an immediate impact — she was that nation’s top freshman two years ago. Micaya White, the preseason Big 12 freshman of the year, is out with a stress fracture in her leg, but she hasn’t been ruled out for the season.
TEXAS’ SCHEDULE
The first chance to scope out this year’s team is this weekend, at the American Campus Classic at UT. The Horns open the season Friday against Rice, which is picked to finish third in Conference USA. Other highlights — there’ll be early-season tests against top-five teams Nebraska and Florida at the VERT Challenge (Sept. 4-5); a Texas-Colorado State rematch from last year’s NCAA regionals will be part of the Texas Classic lineup (Sept. 11-13); the Big 12 opener is Sept. 23, against TCU; and No. 21 Iowa State comes to town on Oct. 3.
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Post by vbprisoner on Aug 28, 2015 15:47:59 GMT -5
So Nel Fortner and Sunderland are announcing the LSU/UCI match and sounds like they will be doing the Texas / Rice match later. I thought the old HC from MSU was hired as an announcer for 2015 for Longhorn volleyball. Did that change already?
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