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Post by hawkfan on Dec 22, 2019 18:03:29 GMT -5
Wow! This truly is extraordinary work! Thank you for the effort and time put into this. I will take some time to read through each one of these. I am sure many of us will.
One quick but important note about this part of the Iowa summary: "Before the season started, redshirt senior and major contributor Meghan Buzzerio went down with a season-ending injury. Despite this, Iowa managed to pick up a 3-0 sweep over Washington State on opening weekend. Things got tougher, though, as Colorado and Washington both defeated the Hawkeyes to atone for their fallen Pac-12 comrade. Iowa then added non-conference losses to South Dakota, Coastal Carolina, and Iowa State."
Meghan actually went down during the South Dakota match, not before the season started. She was absolutely dominant in those first 7 matches (including the promising win against Washington State you cited), both as a go-to terminator (23 kills against Washington, for example) and as an on-court leader with a very young team. So, her injury was devastating to the team in so many ways. Then add in Orr's injury and you're right: these significantly altered the landscape of the entire season.
Very optimistic about 2020. Go Hawks! Thanks again for this great work!
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Post by Kingsley on Dec 22, 2019 18:06:07 GMT -5
Wow! This truly is extraordinary work! Thank you for the effort and time put into this. I will take some time to read through each one of these. I am sure many of us will. One quick but important note about this part of the Iowa summary: "Before the season started, redshirt senior and major contributor Meghan Buzzerio went down with a season-ending injury. Despite this, Iowa managed to pick up a 3-0 sweep over Washington State on opening weekend. Things got tougher, though, as Colorado and Washington both defeated the Hawkeyes to atone for their fallen Pac-12 comrade. Iowa then added non-conference losses to South Dakota, Coastal Carolina, and Iowa State." Meghan actually went down during the South Dakota match, not before the season started. She was absolutely dominant in those first 7 matches (including the promising win against Washington State you cited), both as a go-to terminator (23 kills against Washington, for example) and as an on-court leader with a very young team. So, her injury was devastating to the team in so many ways. Then add in Orr's injury and you're right: these significantly altered the landscape of the entire season. Very optimistic about 2020. Go Hawks! Thanks again for this great work! Ah, my mistake! Must have had my mind on a different player! Will fix. Iowa's got a much better year ahead!
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Post by Kingsley on Dec 23, 2019 12:23:24 GMT -5
I've added AVCA postseason honors in OP. Some notes:
Penn State had the most all-Americans in the Big Ten in 2019 with five.
Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Penn State return the most honorees with four. Wisconsin and Nebraska have no honorees departing.
The Big Ten had four first-team All-Americans in 2019, and all four of them return in 2020.
In all, 18 out of the 23 Big Ten all-Americans return in 2020!
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Post by Kingsley on Dec 23, 2019 18:18:31 GMT -5
With the final AVCA rankings plugged in, I've got all the preliminary information in OP that I wanted to have for this preview. This all comes before the wild and crazy portal season, of course. There's a lot of updates coming, and I'll have them all on this thread. We've also got two coaching positions to fill. There's an additional thing that I considered adding to OP, but I decided to wait until official word gets passed down. It's about scheduling. Following Nebraska's victory over Maryland on November 29th, head coach John Cook went on the radio for his regular post-match interview. During this time, Cook gave some very interesting remarks about the future of Big Ten volleyball scheduling. You can click here to listen to the audio recording of this interview, as the Husker Sports Network archives all of their radio broadcasts. The scheduling discussion in question starts at 2:16:00. For those that don't want to fidget with the audio, I'll provide my own transcript here: John Cook: I think what's going to happen next year, John [Baylor] (HSN play-by-play guy), is we are going to have a mini tournament. So, I don't want to get you too going on this right now, because Lauren [Cook] is rolling her eyes, but I think, let's say it's going to be in Chicago, and it'll be one match. Everybody will play one match. So, it'll be a series of matches on Friday, a series of matches on Saturday, and basically 1 and 2 plays each other, 3 and 4 plays each other, 5 and 6 plays each other, all the way down. Saturday night will be 1 playing 2. John Baylor: In the Big Ten? Cook: In the Big Ten Conference. Finish. So, it'll be an 18-game schedule. So we'll all go, banquet, do the whole thing, uh, we're the only sport in the Big Ten that does not have a tournament. How about that? I don't want to ruffle too many feathers with this. We'll see. Baylor had asked Cook after the Penn State match earlier in the month what he and Russ Rose were talking about before the match. Cook said it was a scheduling discussion before an upcoming coaches' conference call about scheduling. Happy offseason!
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Post by azvolleydad on Dec 23, 2019 19:21:36 GMT -5
There wasn't confetti this year?
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Post by Kingsley on Dec 23, 2019 19:23:52 GMT -5
There wasn't confetti this year? Apparently not! The horror!
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Post by Kingsley on Dec 25, 2019 12:39:26 GMT -5
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the Big Ten megathread!
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Post by gophersxdchicken on Dec 25, 2019 23:32:54 GMT -5
i think the gophers will win tbh... they are gaining the top senior class!
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Post by Kingsley on Dec 25, 2019 23:37:05 GMT -5
i think the gophers will win tbh... they are gaining the top senior class! Super interested to see all those talented freshmen. Landfair will surely see a lot of action. We'll see if there's a good competition between Wenaas and Rollins. The question mark for me is at setter. Shaffmaster has a good shot at getting the starting gig. Is she ready? Time will tell. The future is really bright, though. Welcome to the forum!
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Post by Kingsley on Dec 30, 2019 13:00:24 GMT -5
There are still some lovely goobers viewing this thread while it is relegated to the fourth page of this board. I appreciate you all. Things have been bone dry around here during the holiday season as we wait for the portal to start producing. I'm also still waiting to drop in a couple new head coaches into OP. Hurry up! There is one update I can plug in here. On December 31st, at 7:00PM EST, the Under Armour All-America Match will be played in Orlando, Florida. It will feature a lot of incoming 2020 recruits from around the Big Ten, many of whom will make an immediate impact at their respective schools. Here are all the Big Ten-bound participants in the match, by team: Team Pressure Annie Cate Fitzpatrick, 6'0" OH Emily Londot, 6'4" RS Kalynn Meyer, 6'3" MB Jess Mruzik, 6'1" OH
Rylee Rader, 6'1" MB
Macy van den Elzen, 6'4" OH
Team Savage
Taylor Landfair, 6'4" OH
Devyn Robinson, 6'2" MB
Melani Shaffmaster, 6'3" S
Jenna Wenaas, 6'1" OH
You can visit the thread for this match here.
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Post by rainbowbadger on Dec 30, 2019 14:41:06 GMT -5
Really looking forward to this match. Bummed that they moved it from the tourney - I enjoyed seeing it live every year.
As for Wisconsin, Robinson is enrolling in January, so I predict she'll make an early impact. I wonder if they'll have her playing in the middle or on the right.
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Post by bucky415 on Dec 30, 2019 14:43:53 GMT -5
Really looking forward to this match. Bummed that they moved it from the tourney - I enjoyed seeing it live every year. As for Wisconsin, Robinson is enrolling in January, so I predict she'll make an early impact. I wonder if they'll have her playing in the middle or on the right. Since she has been hitting off two feet from what I understand, I would guess more on the right. I don't think they will have their back court down enough to run a type of three middle system, even though the talents of the middles themselves may make that an option.
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Post by rainbowbadger on Dec 30, 2019 14:58:31 GMT -5
Really looking forward to this match. Bummed that they moved it from the tourney - I enjoyed seeing it live every year. As for Wisconsin, Robinson is enrolling in January, so I predict she'll make an early impact. I wonder if they'll have her playing in the middle or on the right. Since she has been hitting off two feet from what I understand, I would guess more on the right. I don't think they will have their back court down enough to run a type of three middle system, even though the talents of the middles themselves may make that an option. Middles seem to get shafted in the UA match because the first contact usually stinks and the setter connection isn't there enough to do anything but chuck the ball out to the left in transition.
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Post by NFRvb on Dec 30, 2019 15:06:31 GMT -5
Really looking forward to this match. Bummed that they moved it from the tourney - I enjoyed seeing it live every year. As for Wisconsin, Robinson is enrolling in January, so I predict she'll make an early impact. I wonder if they'll have her playing in the middle or on the right. How do we watch the match
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Post by Deleted on Dec 30, 2019 15:07:18 GMT -5
Really looking forward to this match. Bummed that they moved it from the tourney - I enjoyed seeing it live every year. As for Wisconsin, Robinson is enrolling in January, so I predict she'll make an early impact. I wonder if they'll have her playing in the middle or on the right. How do we watch the match Streamed on Flo
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