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Post by Deleted on Sept 7, 2019 15:49:29 GMT -5
I really enjoyed last night's match after the first set, which was a sloppy mess from BYU, but well-fought by Sam Houston, who had twice the fire and energy. Sam Houston is a really nice defensive team. They have a great attitude on the court. I was surprised they didn't win a set against Weber State, but I didn't see that match, so I don't know what the difference was.
BYU has three good outsides and no true opposite--again. Grimmer isn't ready to start yet, so they are sticking with Ballard-Nixon at this point. They could play Miller there and I think she'd do pretty good, but after watching Taylen Ballard-Nixon last night, I'm seeing some progression from her and think she may be able to get up to speed with time. She was just starting to shine on the left; I hope she can do the same on the right, just as she looked like she might do in her freshman season before the injury. Then again Robinson has played really well on the left so far, and if she can keep that up, they won't have lost anything on the left. They've actually gained from the switch in the last three matches, as Robinson has been very good there.
W. Bower sets the middles really well in transition, and overall the middle connection is starting to click. Her back sets were also better last night. I don't like her dump technique, but maybe it's the best she could figure out considering she hasn't got much of a vertical. I don't think her blocking technique or timing is really that bad; she simply doesn't have much lift or spring on her jump and so she's slow into the air at times and obviously isn't able to penetrate well. I wonder if she'll be able to improve her vertical much. She doesn't have the spring that LHE did. She distributed the ball really well last night--34 sets to both Miller and Robinson, 19 to Eschenberg, 16 each to Gneiting and Ballard-Nixon. It was fun to watch. They'll have some really bad moments and sets, just as they did yesterday, and they'll have difficulty beating teams that execute well, but it's satisfying to see everyone involved and doing what they can to help the team recover from those rough patches.
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Post by bbg95 on Sept 7, 2019 23:33:49 GMT -5
I really enjoyed last night's match after the first set, which was a sloppy mess from BYU, but well-fought by Sam Houston, who had twice the fire and energy. Sam Houston is a really nice defensive team. They have a great attitude on the court. I was surprised they didn't win a set against Weber State, but I didn't see that match, so I don't know what the difference was.
BYU has three good outsides and no true opposite--again. Grimmer isn't ready to start yet, so they are sticking with Ballard-Nixon at this point. They could play Miller there and I think she'd do pretty good, but after watching Taylen Ballard-Nixon last night, I'm seeing some progression from her and think she may be able to get up to speed with time. She was just starting to shine on the left; I hope she can do the same on the right, just as she looked like she might do in her freshman season before the injury. Then again Robinson has played really well on the left so far, and if she can keep that up, they won't have lost anything on the left. They've actually gained from the switch in the last three matches, as Robinson has been very good there.
W. Bower sets the middles really well in transition, and overall the middle connection is starting to click. Her back sets were also better last night. I don't like her dump technique, but maybe it's the best she could figure out considering she hasn't got much of a vertical. I don't think her blocking technique or timing is really that bad; she simply doesn't have much lift or spring on her jump and so she's slow into the air at times and obviously isn't able to penetrate well. I wonder if she'll be able to improve her vertical much. She doesn't have the spring that LHE did. She distributed the ball really well last night--34 sets to both Miller and Robinson, 19 to Eschenberg, 16 each to Gneiting and Ballard-Nixon. It was fun to watch. They'll have some really bad moments and sets, just as they did yesterday, and they'll have difficulty beating teams that execute well, but it's satisfying to see everyone involved and doing what they can to help the team recover from those rough patches.
Thanks for the report. I'd like to watch the match myself, but it still isn't up online yet (someone has already put up the Weber State match, so I guess I'll watch that instead). I agree that Bower's dump technique is pretty unorthodox and not as effective as LHE's (Bower is currently hitting .131, so I think she should probably focus more on setting instead of looking to attack, at least for now), and she isn't the blocker LHE was at this point. Bower is averaging .45 blocks/set. LHE barely played at all as a freshman, but she was averaging .71 blocks per set her sophomore year. She actually really improved as a blocker between her sophomore and junior years, increasing to .92 blocks per set. Of course, Bower is three full years younger than LHE was as a junior and two years younger than she was as a sophomore. As for whether she can improve her vertical, I wouldn't count on it too much this year, as she's in the middle of the competitive season. But I would imagine that she'll improve in the offseasons with a good weight training program. Most people who lift seriously are a lot stronger at 21 than they are at 17, and even just one year of weight training can make a difference. We'll see. On the bright side, while she trails LHE in most areas right now, she's probably a better server than LHE ever was. She has 15 aces already, which is the same number LHE had all last season.
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Post by pelagius on Sept 8, 2019 12:59:42 GMT -5
Some thoughts and impressions from the last three matches: - It seems to me that the major response to the Marquette loss by Olmstead was to focus on aggressive serving. I do think think the team served better this week than last (although it's hard to know for sure given the quality of opponents this week). It looked to me that the team was serving better and going for more on their serves. One of the changes Olmstead made was to use Ballard-Nixon as a server instead of Abbey Dayton. To my eyes at least Ballard-Nixon served better than Dayton. Olmstead also used Tausinga a lot for Robinson as a serving sub. I think that worked pretty well too.
- Olmstead experimented a lot with the passing alignments. By my count we saw the following as backrow players: Lake, Robinson, Dayton, Riley, M. Bower, and Wee. By the Weber St. match, the backrow players were back to Dayton, Riley, and Robinson. It will be interesting to see what it is next week. I continue to be surprised that one of the DS (Bower or Wee) hasn't separated themselves enough from either Dayton or Riley to lock down one of those spots (particularly given Olmstead is not using either as a server right now). Olmstead also experimented with 2 or 3 person passing alignments. In the rotation where Robinson and W. Bower are backrow, and Miller and Ballard-Nixon are front row, sometimes during the week Olmstead went with two passers (Lake and Robinson) and sometimes she went with a three passer alignment pulling either Miller or Ballard-Nixon to the back for passing. I thought the three passing alignment with Ballard-Nixon as the third passer worked the best. Of course, trying all these various alignments just underscores that passing is the major weakness of this team right now.
- It was nice to see BYU run the BIC to Robinson a few times this week (three by my count). In those rotations with only a middle and a LS, BYU really needs the possibility of a BIC. BYU is getting stuck in those rotations quite a bit right now
- As other have noticed, teams are just going over the top of Bower a lot when she's a blocker. Any team that plays BYU should try to exploit that as much as possible. Weber St. hitters made the mistake of tipping over her sometimes (even when the set didn't force them to tip), and that just gives BYU's middles a chance to make a play given the reach of those middles.
- I tend to think the ceiling for this team is much higher with Grimmer playing than without. But putting both Bower and Grimmer through a baptism of fire at the same time may not be a good idea.
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Post by bbg95 on Sept 8, 2019 14:00:29 GMT -5
Well, the Sam Houston State match still isn't up, so I guess I'll just never get to that one. I did watch the Weber State match. Overall, I thought the team played pretty well, though they only hit .245 for the match. They got off to pretty big leads in the first and third sets only to let Weber State crawl back into it before putting them away (BYU dominated the second set). I generally agree with what Pelagius said, particularly about using Tausinga as a server. Her serve is really good also, nearly as good as Bower's.
There were a few highlights from this match that I enjoyed. First, Gneiting blocked a tip while she was on the way down from her jump, which is something I don't see much. Second, toward the very end of the match, Robinson had an RJP-esque kill out of the back row that genuinely surprised me because we haven't seen much of that this season at all. And third, Bower had a rolling dig where she made the initial dig with her hand and then deflected the ball up into the air with her foot while she was rolling. BYU eventually won that point after a long rally. Speaking of Bower, this may have been her best all-around match yet. In addition to 30 assists, she had nine digs, three blocks, and two more aces. She also had two kills and no errors on three attacks, and both kills were perfectly placed (I don't remember the third attack).
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Post by pelagius on Sept 8, 2019 17:56:45 GMT -5
The post-match stuff from Weber St. Olmstead interview:
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Post by pelagius on Sept 8, 2019 17:57:41 GMT -5
More: Heather Gneiting interview:
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Post by pelagius on Sept 8, 2019 17:58:26 GMT -5
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Post by pelagius on Sept 9, 2019 16:28:40 GMT -5
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Post by pelagius on Sept 9, 2019 21:44:07 GMT -5
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Post by azvb on Sept 12, 2019 21:25:17 GMT -5
Of course I miss RJP and LHE. But I’m really missing Martindale and Stetler on serve receive.
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Post by Brutus Buckeye on Sept 12, 2019 21:27:15 GMT -5
It's Miller time! ![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EET1u-rUUAA8VXf?format=jpg&name=large)
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Post by azvb on Sept 12, 2019 21:28:43 GMT -5
Has anyone ever seen Bower hit it over on two? She is a leftie.
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Post by bbg95 on Sept 12, 2019 23:34:23 GMT -5
So this is the third match in a row in which BYU played poorly in the first set before cruising to victory. I took a look at the hitting stats by set in the last three matches, and there is definitely an enormous difference between the first set and the rest of the match. BYU hit just .122 in the first sets of those matches, but they have bounced back to hit .348 over sets 2-4 (averaging between .343 and .352). In particular, there’s a big difference in the number of errors. BYU has had as many errors in the first sets (8 per set on average) as they have in the second and third sets combined (4 errors per set in both on average). They've also increased their kills per set from 13.33 in the first set to 15.38 over the subsequent sets, and their attacks per set have dropped from 38.67 to 32.00.
I’m not exactly sure what to make of this. It’s a sample size of only three matches, but it does seem to be a trend recently. I’m not sure why BYU has been coming out flat lately. Perhaps it’s just inexperience. Whatever the case, they need to stop spotting opponents a set, as that will cost them against better teams. On the other hand, their performance in the subsequent sets suggests that they’re a pretty resilient bunch, that the coaches are making good adjustments as the matches go on, or both. At any rate, it will be interesting to see how they perform against Texas. Win or (probably) lose, I think it will be good for the young players to play against a team as good as the Longhorns.
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Post by bbg95 on Sept 13, 2019 10:22:03 GMT -5
I watched a replay of the match, since I couldn't watch it live. After shaking off a poor first set, I thought the team played very well with a pretty balanced attack. Miller, Eschenberg, and Gneiting all had double-digit kills while hitting over .300. Robinson also had 13 kills but had seven errors and hit .158. I will say, though, that most of the issues were early. She was pretty deadly down the stretch, especially when she got the ball in system.
I thought Bower had a nice match overall. She was a little attack happy with 6 swings and no kills (though at least no errors), and she surprisingly had no aces. On the other hand, she quietly had a team-high 16 digs, and I thought she did a really good job from a setting standpoint. She had a career-high 51 assists and made some nice sets off less-than-ideal passes. I was particularly impressed with her back sets. She also has some deception in there. At one point toward the end of the second set, she got into position for what looked for all the world like a back set. Much to my (and seemingly just about everyone else’s) surprise, the ball instead went to the left where Miller had basically the entire court to hit to uncontested. I was so impressed that I had to rewind it and watch it several more times.
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Post by ilikecorn on Sept 15, 2019 20:21:06 GMT -5
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