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Post by notpriddy (COIF) on Sept 3, 2023 6:11:18 GMT -5
Tamas gotta go. Get a coach that can recruit. Mosher not great.I hope Raina is a grad transfer next season and goes to a top 5 team. Hey, Mosser, you know who really has to go? Anyone who claims to be an Illini fan but says he hopes that Raina transfers out. A true bright spot for me was the improvement in Raina's passing. She has come a long way during her time at Illinois. I give Wichita State a lot of credit. They had more weapons than we currently do, and played a good match. Nunge rounding into form and seeing more court time should help in the weapons department. Lily Barry is a revelation for me...so glad she chose to be an Illini. And, I am also very high on Vanessa Pan. Once Barnes returns, our back court should be solid. I can remember watching Kayla at Illinois State's tourney when she played for Mizzou her freshman season (2021). Tiger Anna Dixon was the star of that Mizzou team (similar to Raina), but Kayla was a good supporting player. She must have caught Tamas' eye then, as she did mine. Returning to her natural position at opposite should help her confidence. She appears to be a good teammate, and perhaps puts too much pressure on herself. Relax Kayla, and enjoy the game!
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Post by exit237a on Sept 3, 2023 15:30:12 GMT -5
In addition to seeing our current Illini, it was cool to see both former and future players at Huff today! Spotted some commits in the house : )
Good W, Illinois- quick turnaround then UIC on Tuesday! I'll have a match thread for that one up here soon.
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Post by exit237a on Sept 3, 2023 16:46:27 GMT -5
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Post by oldmanvb on Sept 3, 2023 18:30:26 GMT -5
Who said what to Burbage in the 4th set? All of a sudden she started taking good swings and changed the complexion of the march. Way to go Kayla!!
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Post by ilalum92 on Sept 3, 2023 21:56:13 GMT -5
Anyone with a full team recap evaluation. Sounds like Raina needs to get out of serve receive, Burbage had another sub par performance. Anything about the middles? Mosher??? Nunge not available???
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Post by inpaign on Sept 3, 2023 22:14:33 GMT -5
Anyone with a full team recap evaluation. Sounds like Raina needs to get out of serve receive, Burbage had another sub par performance. Anything about the middles? Mosher??? Nunge not available??? I got you! Apologies if there is too much negativity in here. Overall, I would say the win was uninspiring to say the least. Dropping a set to a poor Illinois State team and finding ourselves behind in the other sets at times was frustrating. Credit to the team for fighting through and ultimately winning but we did not look like a team that will be competitive in the Big Ten. Defense was about where it has been. Serve receive struggled, especially Raina. Bianca subbed in as a serving specialist/DS but I noticed there were several times when we actually hid her...at one point Kayla was passing lol. Barnes was on the sideline for the whole game so that has to be a good sign. Lily was good but still inconsistent at times (a freshman!!), so I do believe Barnes will take back the starting lib role. Our middles were average. Not too many mistakes but nothing super exciting. They were solid. Brooke was also solid...her sets are inconsistent at times but overall she was fine (refusing to discuss her serve that went under the net hahaha). I believe the biggest struggle today was again attributed with our pins. Raina was not at her best today and it's clear we struggle when that is the case. Kayla started out rough, hitting the ball out of play more than she kept it in play. As previous posts mentioned she turned it around as the sets went on but it was extremely clear to me how much more effective she was swinging from the right side than she was from the outside. Her RS hits were consistent downballs, and her outside swings are flat and erratic sometimes. The biggest concern though was Sarah Bingham, who could not put a ball down. I believe she ended with 2 kills on 13 attempts. She's great at lining up the block, but it is clear she should not be on the pins...she's a middle after all! It's evident that our coaches don't believe Jess is ready to return yet or they hopefully would've used her after we dropped the second set. We need her consistency badly, and I hope it comes sooner rather than later. If we play most of the teams on our schedule the way we played ISU today, we are in for a rude awakening. However, I'm hopeful that with Nunge and Barnes healthy it will only be up from here!
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Post by ilalum92 on Sept 3, 2023 22:34:15 GMT -5
Anyone with a full team recap evaluation. Sounds like Raina needs to get out of serve receive, Burbage had another sub par performance. Anything about the middles? Mosher??? Nunge not available??? I got you! Apologies if there is too much negativity in here. Overall, I would say the win was uninspiring to say the least. Dropping a set to a poor Illinois State team and finding ourselves behind in the other sets at times was frustrating. Credit to the team for fighting through and ultimately winning but we did not look like a team that will be competitive in the Big Ten. Defense was about where it has been. Serve receive struggled, especially Raina. Bianca subbed in as a serving specialist/DS but I noticed there were several times when we actually hid her...at one point Kayla was passing lol. Barnes was on the sideline for the whole game so that has to be a good sign. Lily was good but still inconsistent at times (a freshman!!), so I do believe Barnes will take back the starting lib role. Our middles were average. Not too many mistakes but nothing super exciting. They were solid. Brooke was also solid...her sets are inconsistent at times but overall she was fine (refusing to discuss her serve that went under the net hahaha). I believe the biggest struggle today was again attributed with our pins. Raina was not at her best today and it's clear we struggle when that is the case. Kayla started out rough, hitting the ball out of play more than she kept it in play. As previous posts mentioned she turned it around as the sets went on but it was extremely clear to me how much more effective she was swinging from the right side than she was from the outside. Her RS hits were consistent downballs, and her outside swings are flat and erratic sometimes. The biggest concern though was Sarah Bingham, who could not put a ball down. I believe she ended with 2 kills on 13 attempts. She's great at lining up the block, but it is clear she should not be on the pins...she's a middle after all! It's evident that our coaches don't believe Jess is ready to return yet or they hopefully would've used her after we dropped the second set. We need her consistency badly, and I hope it comes sooner rather than later. If we play most of the teams on our schedule the way we played ISU today, we are in for a rude awakening. However, I'm hopeful that with Nunge and Barnes healthy it will only be up from here! Thank you for a clear and unbiased opinion. Have to call it like you see it, even when it’s not a pretty sight. I just Burbage to go up and take a rip. She’s 6’4” and can jump. The noodle arm hits are more likely to go out of bounds. Go up and take a crack, snap the wrist and hit off the block or a down ball. They need so training on how to hit high hands.
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Post by oldmanvb on Sept 4, 2023 0:07:51 GMT -5
I would much rather see Kayla get blocked rather than watch her take a “safe” swing that is not a hard swing and watch it sail long. She needs to reach and rip, not play it safe. Nothing good ever comes from a “safe” swing except for the opposing team who will dig the less than hard hit balls or watch them sail out of bounds. Picked up tips and easily dug balls turn into transition points for our opponents.
Bingham was the same deal. She got blocked and lost confidence, leading to too many tips and soft hits. She needs to forget the fact she was blocked and continue to swing away. Good hitters have short memories.
We need to get Raina out of serve receive. It appears to drain her mentally and physically. On at least one stretch ISU served Raina 8 times in a row. Wichita State was pretty much the same. The idea we are using Raina to hide May in receive is just crazy. I respect May’s effort, but 5-1 setters don’t spend a lot of time practicing passing. Please get Barnes healthy and back on the court.
Crazy observation, but Kennedy looked more than capable playing back row. I don’t know if she can pass, but her defense was as good as anyone else we had on the floor.
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Post by notpriddy (COIF) on Sept 4, 2023 7:07:42 GMT -5
I would much rather see Kayla get blocked rather than watch her take a “safe” swing that is not a hard swing and watch it sail long. She needs to reach and rip, not play it safe. Nothing good ever comes from a “safe” swing except for the opposing team who will dig the less than hard hit balls or watch them sail out of bounds. Picked up tips and easily dug balls turn into transition points for our opponents. Bingham was the same deal. She got blocked and lost confidence, leading to too many tips and soft hits. She needs to forget the fact she was blocked and continue to swing away. Good hitters have short memories. We need to get Raina out of serve receive. It appears to drain her mentally and physically. On at least one stretch ISU served Raina 8 times in a row. Wichita State was pretty much the same. The idea we are using Raina to hide May in receive is just crazy. I respect May’s effort, but 5-1 setters don’t spend a lot of time practicing passing. Please get Barnes healthy and back on the court. Crazy observation, but Kennedy looked more than capable playing back row. I don’t know if she can pass, but her defense was as good as anyone else we had on the floor. I agree with all that you posted except for getting Raina out of serve receive. I was disappointed for her (and the team) with her passing struggles in the ISU match. I thought she passed quite well in the Wichita State match. I was hoping for another similar performance against ISU. This situation begs the question of coaching priorities. For a player to eventually play professionally, she must be able to pass, and pass in the most stressful game situations. When Hambly was coach, I watched a particular star player go from an inconsistent passer to a reliable one. She went on to play professionally. Raina has a future in volleyball beyond college. She needs to be able to pass. If I were Raina, I would want to be in the passing rotation. I have still not made a decision on whether or not to make the trip up to the Windy City for this match. It will be a tough one. I have not been to the UIC campus since before the campus name was changed from Chicago Circle to University of Illinois-Chicago UIC in 1982. At that time I was rooting for my alma mater, Illinois State. Chicago Circle's athletic teams were known as the "Chikas" in homage to the "Chikasaw Indian nation". When UIC was created, students selected the “Flames” as the team name, recalling the 1871 Chicago fire.
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Post by oldmanvb on Sept 4, 2023 7:25:09 GMT -5
I loved the way Raina gave Kayla a huge hug after Kayla put the ball on the floor in the 4th ISU set.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 4, 2023 8:54:53 GMT -5
When everyone is healthy it will be a different team. Still not sure how different.
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Post by oldmanvb on Sept 4, 2023 11:34:28 GMT -5
When everyone is healthy it will be a different team. Still not sure how different. This has been our mantra since 2019.
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Post by oldmanvb on Sept 4, 2023 14:56:07 GMT -5
At some risk to my mental health, I re-watched parts of the ISU match this afternoon for the sole purpose of trying to figure out why Raina struggled so much in serve receive. I wasn't surprised to see when both Raina and Bianca were in the back row Bianca was being hidden behind Raina and the Illini were in a two person receive, with Lily and Raina splitting the court. I didn't go back to the Wichita State match, but suspect I would have seen the same problem. It was in those situations ISU (and probably WSU) went on their long runs. Raina simply had too much court to cover, and ISU exploited the rotation. I'm not quarreling with the decision to go to a two person receive given the players on the court, but it explains, in part, why there were stretches in which we looked so bad. In my experience, when one part of a team's game goes bad, other parts also suffer.
I also re-watched the last half of the 4th ISU set, when Kayla (and to a lesser extent Sara) remembered how to swing away. The coaching staff needs to make her watch and re-watch and re-watch the last 4 or 5 swings she took against ISU to remind her how effective she can be. If she can consistently swing like she did in the last set, our biggest problems will be solved by Barnes taking the court so Raina doesn't ever have to pass half the court. Of course, having watched a couple of Kayla's swings from the right side in which she put the ball down with authority, getting Nunge back on the left and moving Kayla to the right makes this a completely different team.
Watching the Illini against WSU Friday I confess I was becoming a glass half empty guy. I'm back to glass half full.
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Post by liberovb10 on Sept 4, 2023 19:47:15 GMT -5
I’ve been thinking about this team and have one question for the group. With the addition of Nunge, do we think she’ll have that much of an impact on the left pin as we think she will?
Playing devil’s advocate here for a second. She was never really a power hitter and relied a lot on her “shots” - mainly a roll shot to middle court or line roll shot/back right corner placement. She didn’t play much back row but had an effective serve - and remembering to last season when she got healthy and was cleared to come back she didn’t dethrone Mosher from that pin spot. Mind you Mosher was playing lights out in every facet of the game…but as happy as i am to have the depth on the pins - and senior leadership - i don’t see how much of a significant impact she’ll truly make.
Maybe i’m just being a scrooge but i welcome any different thoughts!
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Post by ilalum92 on Sept 4, 2023 21:17:33 GMT -5
I think having Nunge will be an upgrade at OH, Kayla can go back to her natural position on OPP. Should give us somewhat of an upgrade.
My questions are: Is Stephenson that bad? It’s been two years and we have to bring back a grad who hasn’t played in 6 months? May not be able to serve receive? Setters have to know how to dig and pass. How long will TdB be out? She does look like she is on immunosuppressive drugs. How she recovers fully and soon. Barnes on concussion protocol is not good. If she gets hit again it could mean an end to her season.
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