|
Post by bbg95 on Feb 5, 2021 18:41:12 GMT -5
Madi Allen is #4 in ESPN's top 10 plays today. True.
|
|
|
Post by bbg95 on Feb 9, 2021 11:19:07 GMT -5
BYU makes its home debut against Gonzaga today at 6PM MT.
|
|
|
Post by bbg95 on Feb 10, 2021 1:43:47 GMT -5
BYU defeated Gonzaga 3-1 (25-17, 23-25, 25-12, 25-17), outhitting the Zags .423 to .132. Setter Whitney Bower led a balanced attack that saw six players (including Bower herself) rack up six kills or more, and all six players hit .360 or better. Ballard-Nixon led the way, hitting .361 on a line of 17-4-36, along with six digs and two blocks. Dodson hit .423 on 13-2-26 with a match-high six blocks. Dodson moved back to her original position at middle blocker after Hakes rolled her ankle late in the first set, and BYU was already without Eschenberg, who missed the match with a knee injury. Grimmer hit .455 on 12-2-22, while Livingston hit .360 on 11-2-25. Llarenas had seven kills and no errors on 10 attacks (.700) and contributed four blocks. Bower had six kills on .455 hitting, 43 assists, 18 digs, two blocks, and two aces. Allen had 18 digs and 13 assists, and Dayton had six digs and two aces.
|
|
|
Post by bbg95 on Feb 10, 2021 14:32:46 GMT -5
BYU plays Gonzaga today again at 4 PM MT (5PM PT).
Highlights from the match:
Finally, Madi Allen's triple dig play from the UVU match was selected as the top play of the week by the NCAA's twitter feed.
|
|
|
Post by bbg95 on Feb 16, 2021 12:30:44 GMT -5
BYU roundup in advance of today's match with LMU at 7PM MT (6PM PT):
KSL wrote a recap for the second win over Gonzaga last week.
Madi Allen won her second WCC Defensive Player of the Week award.
|
|
|
Post by Brutus Buckeye on Feb 17, 2021 10:25:48 GMT -5
Heh, this emoticon gag is applicable sport-wide, imo.
|
|
|
Post by mintonetteman on Feb 17, 2021 10:40:31 GMT -5
Mid/Early season observation: This may be Heather's best coaching year. Any of you noticing what BYU is doing defensively in terms of running a modified defense? What Heather is doing is quite amazing. I first noticed it against Gonzaga and thought it was brilliant (typically at the college level teams do this to hide a big setter that struggles back row) -- obviously Bower is not a defensive liability -- so Heather covers another deficiency and essentially uses the setter as an extra libero which is why Bower's dig numbers are higher than most of the other liberos in the WCC. Last night, between sets 1 and 2 she made another modified defensive adjustment. This BYU team is young and clearly has weaknesses--all teams do. But Heather's ability to coach around those weaknesses has been impressive IMO.
|
|
|
Post by bbg95 on Feb 17, 2021 11:05:27 GMT -5
Mid/Early season observation: This may be Heather's best coaching year. Any of you noticing what BYU is doing defensively in terms of running a modified defense? What Heather is doing is quite amazing. I first noticed it against Gonzaga and thought it was brilliant (typically at the college level teams do this to hide a big setter that struggles back row) -- obviously Bower is not a defensive liability -- so Heather covers another deficiency and essentially uses the setter as an extra libero which is why Bower's dig numbers are higher than most of the other liberos in the WCC. Last night, between sets 1 and 2 she made another modified defensive adjustment. This BYU team is young and clearly has weaknesses--all teams do. But Heather's ability to coach around those weaknesses has been impressive IMO. Very interesting. Could you elaborate on exactly what these modifications are and how they differ from the norm? My knowledge of volleyball x's and o's is still rather limited, as I haven't been the following the sport nearly as long as I have followed, say, football or even hockey.
|
|
|
Post by bbg95 on Feb 17, 2021 20:41:59 GMT -5
Highlights from last night's match:
The link to watch tonight's match is here. Live stats are here.
|
|
|
Post by bbg95 on Feb 23, 2021 14:22:17 GMT -5
BYU faces its biggest challenge yet with a trip to undefeated Pepperdine tonight at 8 PM MT (7 PM PT).
trojansc created a match thread here.
The match will be streamed here.
|
|
|
Post by bbg95 on Feb 25, 2021 14:46:40 GMT -5
This was a really impressive bounceback performance from Bower, who actually got benched in a blowout loss the night before. To come back one day later and be the best player on the floor for either team with career highs in both kills and digs in a critical match says a lot about her resolve.
|
|
|
Post by bbg95 on Mar 4, 2021 11:22:48 GMT -5
BYU resumes play at San Francisco on Friday. I couldn't find the video link, so these may not be broadcast, unfortunately. USF is improved from 2019.
|
|
|
Post by bbg95 on Mar 4, 2021 11:24:15 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by bbg95 on Mar 4, 2021 18:35:52 GMT -5
Just over halfway through the spring season (BYU has eight matches left on the schedule after playing nine--I have no idea if the Santa Clara matches will be made up), I thought I'd take a look at the team's stats to date.
Based on what's happened so far, it seems that Heather Olmstead has settled on the following lineup for the time being:
OH1: Taylen Ballard-Nixon OH2: Erin Livingston MB1: Kennedy Eschenberg MB2: Leilani Dodson OPP: Kate Grimmer S: Whitney Bower L: Madi Allen DS: Grace Wee DS: Abbey Dayton SS: Taylor Hifo
With the exception of Eschenberg and Livingston, all of these players have played in every set this season. Eschenberg missed some matches with a knee injury, and Livingston wasn't playing at the beginning of the season. I'll take a look at each player and how they compared to last year's team. Obviously, some caveats apply in that there are almost zero non-conference matches this season, but I think it's still worth looking at.
At OH1, Ballard-Nixon is averaging 3.68 k/s on .222 hitting compared to McKenna Miller averaging 3.58 k/s on .293 hitting. Ballard-Nixon is not as efficient as I'd like for an OH1, but she also plays six rotations (2.10 d/s). She is a credible threat in the back row, which was almost entirely absent last year. Ballard-Nixon has also quietly been one of the better servers on the team, with 12 aces against 19 errors, though Miller was better (43 aces and 48 errors).
At OH2, Livingston has been the most pleasant surprise of the freshmen. She was the only player who played well in both matches against Pepperdine, and she is averaging 2.70 k/s on .269 hitting. This compares very favorably with Madi Robinson, who averaged 2.49 k/s on .206 hitting. I really like what I've seen out of Livingston this season. She hits the ball hard and has pretty good shot selection. I imagine she has this job won.
At MB1, Eschenberg has been the steady senior leader and one of the best players, averaging 2.35 k/s on .386 hitting and 1.10 b/s. This compares well to Heather Gneiting's 2.02 k/s on .303 hitting and 1.23 b/s (to be fair to Gneiting, she went from LHE to 17-year-old Bower at setter).
At MB2, Dodson has been playing the position ever since injuries to Eschenberg and Allie Hakes. Her stats don't translate quite as easily, since she has some time at OH2, but she's averaging 1.94 k/s on .227 hitting and .77 b/s. This matches up unfavorably to Eschenberg in 2019, who averaged 1.74 k/s on .353 hitting and 1.20 b/s. Dodson has had some big matches this year and has a lot of potential, so I think Olmstead will stick with the true freshman.
At OPP, Grimmer has been another pleasant surprise. She was somewhat effective last season, averaging 1.68 k/s on .227 hitting. This season, Grimmer has improved those numbers to 3.16 k/s on .339 hitting, and she is now the most dangerous pin hitter on the team. She could always hit the ball hard, but this season, it seems that she's much smarter with her shot selection, and she is doing a much better job of tooling the block.
For the back-row players, I don't have access to the VolleyMetrics passing data (hopefully, I'll get it later, and I'll update when I do), though I would suspect that Wee is a better passer than she was last season, and I can't imagine that Allen is as good a passer as Mary Lake was (2.37), which says more about Lake than anything else. At any rate, Allen is averaging 4.42 d/s, which is more than Lake's 3.61 d/s, but that's more of a testament to Lake being a "shutdown corner," as teams avoided her. By way of comparison, Lake averaged 4.59 d/s when she was a freshman. Allen is also averaging 1.65 a/s, which is an improvement on Lake's average of 1.24 a/s in 2019. As for Wee, she has improved from 1.18 d/s in 2019 to 1.61 d/s this season.
Dayton is listed as an outside hitter, but she was been used exclusively in a defensive role the last two seasons, so she's effectively a DS. Last season, she averaged 1.15 d/s, and she has improved that mark to 1.68 d/s this season. She's also far less error-prone while serving. Hifo has been one of the team's best servers, with 13 aces against 15 errors. Last season, she had 15 errors and 22 errors. She's also a good defensive player in her rotation.
Finally, there's the setter Bower, who is probably the most improved player on the team overall. Last season, Bower averaged .78 k/s on .390 hitting with 9.55 a/s and 2.48 d/s. She also had 40 aces (.36/s) against 42 errors, which made her one of the two best servers (along with Miller, who had similar stats) on the team. This season, she's improved those numbers to 1.10 k/s on .476 hitting with 10.39 a/s and 3.58 d/s. She's also easily the best server on the team in terms of aces to errors, as she has 14 aces (.45/s) and just 7 errors so far this season. The team's hitting percentage has also improved from .273 to .287. She is a bit of a liability blocking (actually a bit down from last season), but she brings so much else to the table that it's worth it.
Edit: So I got some of the VolleyMetrics passing numbers (thanks, bwf2), and this is why it's better to have stats than to rely on the "eye test." According to the numbers, Wee and Dayton are about the same or a bit worse than last season. Ballard has improved from last year, but her numbers still aren't great. Allen is the best passer on the team, but she's not the passer that Mary Lake was. In light of these numbers, this makes Bower's setting look even better. It has also been brought to my attention that passing in general is down during the spring, so maybe the numbers aren't quite as bad as they look in a vacuum.
|
|
|
Post by pelagius on Mar 5, 2021 3:59:19 GMT -5
|
|