2023 Ohio State Buckeyes

[bellvision1]

Anyone know of a streaming site that will show the game against Pitt tomorrow?   Saturday?

[coachdavid]

Aug 17, 2023 18:16:30 GMT -5 bellvision1 said:

Anyone know of a streaming site that will show the game against Pitt tomorrow?   Saturday?

Not the B1G+ app

[Brutus Buckeye]

[coachdavid]

Well. That was ugly. Blockers weren't even slowing Pitt down. Serves were meh until set 4. No setter had a real connection with the hitters especially the middles.

[Fight On!]

Aug 19, 2023 17:56:14 GMT -5 coachdavid said:

Well. That was ugly. Blockers weren't even slowing Pitt down. Serves were meh until set 4. No setter had a real connection with the hitters especially the middles.

They woulda beat Michigan
Brutus Buckeye

[cbusvball]

Went to the scrimmage vs Pitt today.


Starters (I will note deviations in each set)

L: Sydney Taylor 
S: Mia Tuman
OH: Emily Londot & Grace Egan
MB: Rylee Rader & Eloise Brandewie
OPP: Lauren Murphy
DS (for OPP): Sarah Morbitzer

Set 1: Pitt jumped out to a 13-4 lead thanks to some shaky passing, not great setting from Tuman and several Londot hitting errors. OSU started passing a lot better, mainly thanks to Egan and got it to 16-13. Pitt then started serving tough again and focusing on serving Londot, which led them to winning the set 25-14. Tuman struggled with some set locations missing high with Londot and her backsets not getting wide enough. Sydney Taylor, who JFO said at B1G media day won the Libero job on their european trip had her best set as a buckeye, not that it was a high bar coming into this year. 

Set 2: This was a close set throughout that Pitt won 25-21. OSU was more consistent passing and looked like a tournament team. Tuman was better, but still had a few misplaced sets. Murphy and Brandewie looked okay in the first 2 sets, but definitely had plays that looked like players who have only been playing college level ball for 2 months.

Set 3: Kamiah Gibson started at setter and Chelsea Thorpe was the opposite. Pitt won this set 25-17. OSU struggled with passing again, with Egan having her first bad stretch of the match and Gibson struggled with mobility to get under the passes. It reminded me of the spring scrimmages where Sarah White was too slow to track down the shaky passing. Gibson also struggled with set locations and trapped several hitters late in the set as the Pitt block feasted to pull away in what had been a 3-5 point gap for most of the set.

Bonus Set 4: Zaria Ragler for Rylee Rader, but back to the original starting line except Thorpe and Murphy split time at OPP. Grace Egan served the first 9 points for OSU. She had a good serve all day, but it was especially tough on this rotation, which led to several blocks and easy balls for OSU to be in system. Tuman was much better with set location, although still leaves backsets a bit too inside, and this let Londot thrive for the first time all night. OSU won the set 25-17.



Overall thoughts:

Sydney Taylor has improved and I see why she won the Libero job for this team. Her passing was adequate, a lot I think would be graded a 2, which will look like 3s for this team. She was in good positions for digs during rallies and while she didn't get as many up OSU has been used to with Murr, she looked serviceable as the libero, which I didn't expect coming out of spring. Hopefully she still has some improvements coming considering she hasn't actually played that much in her career yet.

Mia Tuman should be the starting setter next Friday. She covers more ground, which will be important with the passing quality on this team. Her sets were better as well, even with the struggles I discussed above. She is ahead of Mac at the same point in her career and while a little shorter, is still a big physical blocker a the net, so I think the future is bright. Needs more time in the gym with the freshman hitters who didn't arrive until June, but already has a pretty good connection with Rader.

Grace Egan was the best player for OSU today. Her game reminds me of a hybrid of Gonzales and Moore. She was the best passer today despite a slight struggle in the middle of the 3rd set. She had several big kills on the left and out of the back. Her serve is tough and will create several runs this year, like to open the 4th set, because it will disrupt other teams passing and it will have Londot in the front left. I was also very impressed by her blocking, she set the edge well to not get beat down the line and seemed to hang a decent time up there. She had several good block touches 1 on 1 against Pitt middles and opposites.

Emily Londot was herself this match. Several great kills that were too powerful for anyone to dig and multiple hitting errors that just make you shake your head. She is going to start on the left so she can hit all the junk. She will be passing on 3 rotations (when Morbitzer is not on the court) and needs to improve on that skill for this team to compete with the top 4 of the conference. I hope JFO increases the area covered by Egan and Taylor so Emily can just focus on passing anything directly at her, because she really struggled when needing to reach for the ball.

Sarah Morbitzer who seems to have dropped the Sue on the website and from the announcer in arena, was exactly what she was last year. She has too many errors on her serve and is just an okay passer, but gets a lot of balls up mid rally. She isn't great, but is a good DS that gives OSU a chance to win points.

Rylee Rader played her game. She seemed to have a better connection with Tuman than Gibson, but nothing she did today surprised me good or bad.

That is all the players who I would be shocked are not starters for the first weekend of the season. I think Eloise Brandewie will start as the other middle because she has the higher ceiling than Zaria Ragler, but either player will mainly be a defensive player for this team because of the passing weakness not presenting many swings for the middles. Brandewie ran a few slides, but Tuman struggled to get the balls in the correct place for her to get a good swing on them. I think Ragler was better at setting up her block in the correct place in her set, but Brandewie is bigger and more athletic and should improve with more playing time. The last position battle I think is close and could see some more rotation looking for a hot hand. Lauren Murphy is probably the favorite because of the higher upside, but I think Chelsea Thorpe is closer to her than the battle at MB. Neither player had a great or horrible match, but had their share of good kills and bad misses. Tuman needs to get the ball out wide a bit more because they were forced inside a lot leading to big Pitt blocks. 

I still think this team will make the tournament, but they cannot afford to struggle these first 2 weekends because while they might be good enough at the end of the year to win a tournament game, they need to banks a winning record before conference play to be eligible. This team will be very streaky and will probably manage to win a set over the conference champion and drop at least one to the cellar dweller. It has been a while since OSU has been this uncertain going into a season, but it should be fun to watch so many talented, but very young players.

[cbusvball]

That was basically the exact performance I expected from this team. I was pretty much correct about the starters, except Chelsea Thorpe started instead of Lauren Murphy and had a very good game. The passing struggles continued, but for the most part the team was in control the whole match. Londot was good today and did a good job of taking the easy tips when the defense sat too far back against her big swings. Tuman's back sets for Thorpe and the middles on the slide seemed to be better placed, but it is harder to tell over stream versus in person. The most important part of this weekend is to get 3 wins to take the pressure off the rest of the non conference in the race to be tournament eligible.

[cbusvball]

Woah that was close. The passing absolutely fell apart in the middle of the match, which let the BGSU block set up in front of the younger hitters and take over the match. Finally started to get some 2 and 3 passes in the 4th and 5th to allow for some easier swings. Chelsea Thorpe played well after a slow start and seems to be the second arm to carry the offense. Londot was great and will need to play at this level in a lot of matches for the buckeyes to stay competitive. The defense is a big downgrade from last year as there were several balls hit at Taylor that need to be dug that were not, also Tuman and Brandewie struggled to get a good block up on the right side when next to each other. Good to see a mostly young team rally and get the win.

[hangonsloopy]

I think we’ve all predicted that this will likely be a season of growing pains and that’s normal. It’s a very good sign that these young Buckeyes handled the pressure well and were able to grind out the win.

I honestly believe that outcome of this season will come down to how many times we can get similar wins like that as I do believe that this team will have a late season surge once they get things figured out and get used to playing with each other and get used to playing in general.

[cbusvball]

Nice commanding win against a less talented team. I didn't see anything wrong and I am pretty sure it was just to give playing time to some younger players, but Rader didn't play the last half of the 2nd set or the 3rd set. Gibson set the whole 3rd set and the offense looked a bit worse than with Tuman running it, validating JFO's choice at setter. I was impressed with the brief cameo by freshman DS Kaitlyn Hoffman. She had a tough serve and some nice in rally digs. I wouldn't hate to see her be an option if one of the other littles is struggling in a match. Good weekend to get 3 wins and a big series next weekend with Georgia Tech looking to get some wins before the horrible stretch of top 15 teams away from home starts.

[cbusvball]

Aug 27, 2023 6:51:24 GMT -5 hangonsloopy said:

I think we’ve all predicted that this will likely be a season of growing pains and that’s normal. It’s a very good sign that these young Buckeyes handled the pressure well and were able to grind out the win.

I honestly believe that outcome of this season will come down to how many times we can get similar wins like that as I do believe that this team will have a late season surge once they get things figured out and get used to playing with each other and get used to playing in general.

I agree that the hitters and setting will continue to grow this season, but I am skeptical about the littles. SSM and Taylor are both upperclassmen and should have already shown that improvement if they are going to get there. Taylor, at least, hasn't had as much game time so is maybe a late bloomer, but they will need to pass better and dig more balls in conference to give the frontline a chance in the tougher games.

[cbusvball]

That was a very up and down performance, which I think will be the norm this year. The defense in the first set and first half of the second was really good. It also came back alive during most of the 4th set. The other portions of the match, however were really down. There were no blocks for a long time and it felt like no balls were dug. The serve receive was awful at times, especially to start the 3rd and 4th sets. The hitters, outside of Londot, seemed to run out of steam in the 4th set, but I think that will get better as the season continues. The problem that I don't think will be solved is the hole at libero. Taylor had some really ugly moments, especially in serve receive where she was backing up a lot on top spin serves that would land feet in front of her. Her setting when Tuman takes the first touch is atrocious. She seems to be trying to place the ball in the perfect location instead of always giving your a hitter a decent ball to hit. This led to the match ending net violation. She also just doesn't get enough balls up consistently during rallies. I don't know if Morbitzer is the answer, because she has her limitations, but I wouldn't hate trying Hasbrook at DS in a match to see if the potential is there. Without improved performance at the libero, this team is going to struggle against the good B1G teams and will have to win several of the toss up games against the other middle of the conference teams to be tournament eligible.

[Deleted]

Was a great effort. Had their chances.

[mnsports255]

Watched the series vs GT this weekend and some thoughts:

-Oof, this is not a very good volleyball team… I don’t see them making the tournament and if they do that’s a fortunate outcome. This is definitively a major rebuilding year (might turn into 2 years) but brighter days are ahead

-Londot and Chelsea Thorpe make a nice duo of pin attackers but they are missing a 3rd serviceable pin hitter on the roster and that hurts this team’s ability to stay competitive vs formidable opponents

-Tuman and Thorpe are going to be staples for this team over the next several years should they stay at OSU for the duration; and that’s some awesome talent to build around. People should be very excited about these two’s futures

-JFO really needed to add a libero in the offseason and it’s costing them right now… Sydney Taylor really shouldn’t see the court for any top 25 program nonetheless wear the libero jersey. I’m not sure what happened to her, as she was supposedly an accomplished player in high school and played on the youth national team, but something changed because she didn’t earn playing time her first two years and doesn’t look the part of a strong backrow player. Really jittery and technically unsound serve receive + subpar defense. It’s probably worth giving the bro jersey to Kaitlyn Hoffman and having SSM continue to DS

-The team’s service game has somehow gotten worse from last year. Their serves put no pressure on opposing passers and a they make a very high number of service errors considering how unaggressive the service strategy is

-Energy in the Covelli Center is awesome! One of the premier home environments in college volleyball and something that they can/should/probably already do use to their advantage in recruiting

[b1gvb23]

Did anyone predict Hoffman would take the jersey from Taylor?