North Carolina 2024

[bvolley17]

Win set 2 25-21. A much closer set as Dook cleaned up their block and we had a bit of a drop in effectiveness. Offense really being spread around tonight. Hope we can wrap this up in three and get home.

[bvolley17]

Heels come from behind late in the third to win 25-23 and sweep Dook on the road.

Thorpe is finding her rhythm with us more and more every week. Team effort tonight.

11-1 and 3-0 in the ACC. Host Dook (I hate this scheduling) this weekend.

[volleyheels10]

Wow. Those first two sets we looked like a Top 25 team. When we use our middles we are very hard to stop.

-Alexis has been a key the last few games on the offensive end and defensive end. Jackie is a force blocking. The offense will come.
-Zoe and Taylor overall set much better last night. Still some not in rhythm but overall better.
-Safi and Mabrey are a very good pin duo
-Thorpe had her best match as a Heel and Emani was much lower error.
-I will say it again: Maddy May is MUCH improved.

11-1. Lets keep it going tomorrow night.

[volley4ever]

Another good win over rival Duke. This team has a ceiling, but they keep getting better and better. The culture looks better than what it has in the last 5-7 years. This is a fun group to watch and hopefully they will continue to take care of business against the teams they are better than and can find a way to sneak in a win or 2 against some of the higher ranked teams in the ACC. I’d love to see this group get into the tournament.

[bvolley17]

The game was awesome last night... I'm pretty sure they didn't break the attendance record like they wanted to, but that was the best crowd I've ever seen at a UNC volleyball game in person. The second level was more than halfway full. Fully agree with volley4ever, there is a ceiling, but we are clearly getting better. Thorpe especially is getting more and more comfortable (She hit .500 at Dook with 11 kills, and .556 last night with 11 kills). Emani is looking more comfortable in her new role, too.

Edit: Last night's attendance was 4,366... I didn't see the record in the media guide though.

[bvolley17]

Knowing her background with Dook, just a recap of Mabrey vs. the Blue Devils in her career: a combined 8-1 overall record with 25 sets won to 9 sets lost... 127 kills (.231) in 9 games (14.1 kpg, 3.7 kps).

Thank you for your service, Mabrey. Glad she was able to sweep them twice in her final season. And thankful Dook wasn’t thinking and never offered her.

[volleyheels10]

I think this week will tell us how much we have really grown. Last year, NCSU beat us at home....and was a really good team. They return a lot of those pieces and really only had true bad loss of the season yesterday on the road at CAL. They will be hungry. Wake has also been a team that has given us trouble the last few years. Talent-wise I think we are better. And I think we should beat both. Lets see if we can continue this growth on the road and get two more wins the week ahead.

[volleyheels10]

Also due to stats....we are #19 in RPI, 27 Massey, 22 Evolve, and 30 in VT

Want to know why we have turned things around....according to updated stats, two of the top 20 best passers in the nation are on our team...Mabrey(3) and Maddy (16). Overall, we are the 4th best passing team in the nation. 

We have said for years that we have more weapons, better setting, with better passing. Moving Emani to the RS due to injury was actually a good thing...Safi is on the floor and passed better and adds more wrinkles.

[volleyheels10]

First Bracketology has us in as an 8 Seed playing Colorado State at Nebraska in the first round with a potential 2nd round math against Nebraska.

This really means nothing other than the metrics have us in. We really need to take care of all the unranked teams and win a few of the FSU, Miami, Ga Tech, Stanford games we fortunately have at home. Would tremendously help seeding.

[vballbrian]

With "all" the preseason negativity from some, I am very happy to see the season start so positively.  Let's hope it continues and they get the wins they should get and grab a few upsets.

[bvolley17]

Didn’t watch tonight I’m out of town… what happened??

[volley4ever]

Oct 11, 2024 21:25:01 GMT -5 bvolley17 said:

Didn’t watch tonight I’m out of town… what happened??

State is not an easy place to play. We missed quite a few serves and could not get State OOS enough. I also thought State did a great job blocking and playing defense behind the block. UNC struggled to block #17 all game, struggled to stay in system which led to being predictable on offense.

[volleyheels10]

I had a feeling we were not beating State at their place.....while I think this team is good enough to do so and is the better team on paper...I saw it as a trap match and a match that showed we have not played away from from home very much with very energetic crowds in hostile territory. I saw this as a game of getting pushed on the road which we had not had in several weeks.

Also, that SC loss doesnt look too bad now that they beat Florida in 3 sets on the road. That combined with NCSU getting better should actually help our RPI after an initial dip from losing. Gotta continue to take care of business.

Do not need to overlook UVA this week.

[volleyheels10]

#22 in Evolve...went from 19 in RPI to 27.

Play #35 UVA on Sunday.

For the first time in several seasons UNC is RV in the AVCA Poll at #31. UVA is recieveing votes at 33. 

[bvolley17]

We didn’t play particularly well but left Blacksburg with a 3-0 win. They aced us quite a bit. And we got blocked a bunch cause our offense became too predictable with some bad passing. We trailed pretty late in each set, but we turned it on in crunch time. We went on a big run late in each set to close out the sets.

On to a big one against UVA in Charlottesville.