Girl, wtf happened today?!
My synopsis why they lost, but I'm probably forgetting one or two things:
1. Obviously, ASU won the serve/pass battle.
2. ASU shutdown Kipp OOS.
3. Stanford SEs, of which there were many, usually were on a first serve immediately after a rotation (not after winning a point or points on serve).
4. Lack of serving runs as #3 above implies
5. ASU limited their SEs but still served tough (6 SAs to Stanford's 3)
6. Some timely digs on Kipp bombs
7. ASU game plan (but can't be sure because hard to tell on TV) was to ignore the Stanford middles unless the pass was near perfect in zone 7
8. ASU took advantage of Francis' slow closing speed9. Stanford tipped too much and ASU did a pretty good job of picking those tips up
10. ASU swung away OOS at a higher percentage than Stanford attempting to tool the block and they were pretty successful at it
11. Untimely hitting errors near the end of set 2 (which they had a chance to squeak out)
A lot of credit to ASU coach JJ Van Niel as he learned from his 1st match against the Card and he came up with a good game plan to defeat them. Sure his team played well, but he gave his players very good information on how to defend against Stanford's attack.
