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SL Xpress

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Everything posted by SL Xpress

  1. I'm not coping. I don't care. I don't consider Texas Tech a real threat to Texas. I feel like NIL, the wealth of some of your donors, and their commitment to football and other athletic programs gives the Red Raiders a chance to build a nice little program in the Big 12. If you get competitive enough, start drawing eyeballs and building a brand, maybe you can get invited to the big boys club eventually. But I don't have a lot of emotional investment in it. Great if you do. Who cares if you don't. Same thing with SMU which is doing much the same thing, with a bigger metropolitan more conveniently located, but a smaller fan base and alumni base. SMU has shown a real NIL commitment to their volleyball program, which is another sport I follow closely. I'm casually interested in how it works out for them, but there's no coping, and as a fan I don't feel threatened by it.
  2. I will say Phil Knight isn't the cheapskate T. Boone Pickens always was. Oregon athletic department people feel like Phil Knight has given assurances he's going to donate $6 billion directly to the athletic department. We'll see if that really happens, and it's still not the same as having him alive, but it would help ensure the generosity he's already shown doesn't completely fall off the map. I mean, along with the myriad of physical infrastructure he either paid for or certainly was the financial impetus in getting built. I'd also say that Tech's mega donors number at least two. Cody Campbell gets all the media attention, but his partner and former football team mate John Sellers is also a significant contributor. The point remains the same. Being dependent on one financial source, whether it's a donor, or a business client, makes you vulnerable to your future relationship with them and their decisions regarding your relationship. The nice thing for Texas Tech is both of those guys are relatively young.
  3. I have gorged myself on Sooner podcasts this week. They're all awesome. I find myself while loathing everything about the Sooners, I have a certain respect for them I do not have for the Aggies. Or their various social media guys. Here was my favorite. It's 2 1/2 hours long, and ain't nobody got time for that. I think I made it about an hour in before getting satiated on OU tears. But the whole rant at the beginning about this being a culture loss, that this was OU's best chance to beat Texas for a long time to come, was incredibly satisfying.
  4. As expected. And Purdue on the road was Nebraska's biggest challenge in the conference with Fuerbringer out for Wisconsin. Maybe they can lose a match. But it will be just as much of a challenge for them to lose a set, much less 3 in one match. And yes, part of it is because Nebraska is loaded for bear this year, but part of it is because the Big 10 has suddenly imploded this season outside of them. It reminds me when Texas played in the Big 12 and sometimes there was a real lack of elite competition. It can make the Elite Eight/Final Four/championship match a bit jarring in terms of the increase in competition. At least Texas has Kentucky and A&M in College Station. And Florida is talented, if discombobulated. Purdue already beat Tennessee relatively easily in a 3-1 win in Nashville, so it's not like they're creampuffs. Already beat SMU, too, in a sweep. But I think they'll be a #9 to #16 host team. Probably #9 to #12 tier. But Nebraska does look good, that's for sure.
  5. First set Nebraska only scored on 29% of their serves. The problem for Purdue is they only scored on 25% of their's. 25-23 Nebraska. This goes back to my complaints about over emphasizing service errors. If you don't put enough pressure on the receiving team, it's hard to win matches. And it's hard to put pressure on the receiving team. Harper and Jackson both hit over .700 for the set. But no one else hit over .110 for Nebraska. Wollard trying to make Purdue fans forget about Hudson and Chicoine.
  6. The Big 10 used to be so fun for me to follow. This year it's a train wreck at the top other than Nebraska. I remember when people used to criticize Texas for not facing enough challenges in conference prior to the tournament. The thinking was - and I'll admit I've always bought into it some - that it's not good for a team to face the uptick in competition that comes in the Elite Eight/semifinal/national championship rounds without facing an equivalent squad in conference play. The Big 10 used to have so many of those types of teams, with Nebraska, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Penn State. Even Purdue always put out solid teams, and Ohio State was an up and comer for a couple of years. Then they added the 4 west coast schools, all with their fair share of historical volleyball success. Now Minnesota and Penn State have imploded. Wisconsin just lost their starting setter to a dislocated shoulder injury - no timeline for recovery says Sheffield. Purdue is miraculously solid after having a gigantic exodus of talent, sending starters hither and yon including to national championship hopefuls Kentucky and Louisville. Ohio State will likely fire their coach either this year or next. UCLA is awful. Oregon took a step back when their coach departed for...Kansas? USC is playing out the string with Keller. Washington is a shell of the program it was under Cook when he brought his team to Gregory Gym for that classic comeback in 2021. Nebraska is in the same kind of quandary Texas faced in the Big 12. No real superlative teams, with Wisconsin coming the closest. I am interested to see if Florida can put it together somewhat. They're obviously not a very good team this year, but they do have a lot of talent. But I'm not going to watch the match, so I'll just have to see what the scores end up being.
  7. Henley and Harris become the new double sub! I'm not going to like Gaido transferring. But it's like Kenna Miller, except to a greater degree. I'm convinced Miller could start at plenty of Div I programs. And Gaido comes in with a higher profile than Miller did. Who is she beating out for playing time? It's not about her talent level, it's about competing with the other players in the same gym. Plenty of our back up transfers start at pretty high profile programs. I'm with you on Bunton. It's going to be interesting to see how Elliott handles the rotation from now on. It's obvious Harvey is much more explosive and makes the team way more competitive than Bunton. Ames is the one with the most experience, and so far she's been getting more attacking opportunities. Bunton seems like our best blocker, but to me she seems to lumber on the floor a bit. And going into the portal has its own issues. You want someone talented, but someone talented is usually going to want a clearer path to starting than competing with Ames and Harvey. And then if you succeed, you end up bringing in someone that displaces either Ames or Harvey. That will create its own problems. But you can't stand pat. Even just 3 middle blockers on the roster is not great.
  8. I watched her in international play. I think she's going to be fantastic for us. She's just showing glimpses of her potential. It's tough to focus on her when Spears and Harvey bring such a wow factor. And then we have Hayley Anderson coming in. An embarrassment of riches.
  9. They showed the passing numbers for Tennessee. Plante had a similar passing rating to Wonder Wal, but ended up with 46 attempts to Wonder Wal's 26. Given how close the sets were other than the 5th, that might have been the difference in the match.
  10. Yeah, mrshusker did that. It was in a response to a conversation criticizing the lack of middles being involved with Stafford swinging 64 times. Which...fair. But I felt there was context to it. The truth is I hope we get our middles more involved, but Spears' involvement from the right side mitigates that. I did a little research, and in the 4 years with Phillips as our starting opposite she swung the ball more than 30 times once. It was against San Diego in the semifinals in 2022, when Phillips took 34 attacks. Rutherford did it 3 times last year, but also had 18 matches with less than 20 swings. Spears already has 3 such outings with more than 30 swings, and in every match she's swung at least 20 times other than TCU, when she took 19 attacks in the 3 set win. Even without the middles involved as much as I'd like, we have a more diverse offense in many ways than we've had previously. They can certainly improve on a number of facets, with the middle attack being one of them, but at about the midway point to the season, there's a lot they're doing well. Obviously, given their record and the competition level. I loved the percentage of total attacks she compiled. That was very interesting.
  11. The number one setter is coming in, too. Genevieve Harris. Might not be Binney getting the double sub opportunity. Also Emma Cugino, the staffs' pick at libero after having their top targets in camp. That's with Callie Krueger on campus right now as a top libero, and Gary almost certainly taking the libero jersey next year as a senior. There are a lot of great players in Texas that UT doesn't recruit. Not enough room in the inn, and the state produces as much or more volleyball talent than any other state in the country. Just like it does in a lot of sports. Plus Texas volleyball recruits nationally at an elite level. There were a couple of years where Texas didn't bring anyone in from in state. Tennessee has 3 players from the state of Texas. Including Plante, they also have their starting middle blocker, Zoe Humphrey. She's a redshirt freshman. The one who was jawing across the net in the 4th set after scoring a point. And there's also Brynn Williams an outside hitter who transferred in from Texas Tech, but doesn't play much.
  12. It's probably a shame they didn't put the A&M match on a network. The Aggies go apeshit for that match. The thing is, everyone thinks Reed Arena is like that for every match. Although, to be honest the first part of the Kentucky match I saw, the fans looked like they turned out. Not like they do for Texas, but that's a pretty big arena. 4469 was the official attendance.
  13. I will say the Mississippi State announcers couldn't quit fawning over the Texas program. I also like Saltzman a lot more than Loeb. He's more invested. His ability to give context, referencing past Texas matches, at the drop of a hat was impressive to me. But yeah, Georgia was amateur hour. The color commentator was a former player, but I don't remember her name. Just awful. Listening to Logan Eggleston interview Stafford after the match was so awesome.
  14. Uh, the other thing being when Binney enters the match Spears sits on the bench. That's even bigger to me than replacing Swindle, and I love both Swindle and Kahahawai. I think there's something to be said for getting an investment from the whole team. We don't like that kind of stuff as fans. We want to see the most productive players out there. If a player isn't being productive, we want to see them replaced. Damn the consequences for team chemistry. It's not really something that enters our calculations. I look at Kahahawai, and I question her career choices depending on how important volleyball is to her. She was the highest ranked player to come out of Hawaii, a state where volleyball has the same kind of reverence that football has in high schools in Texas. A true 6 rotation OH. She played for multiple U19 and U21 national teams. She could have transferred at any point, but bided her time on the bench. Now it's her senior year - her last year - and Spears has come in to be a force of nature. There is no universe where Kahahawai will be a better volleyball player than Cari Spears. I feel like Elliott has been trying to find a way to keep Kahahawai invested in this team. Also, we're one slip up away from Binney being the starter. Swindle already took a match off with a boot on the sidelines. Wisconsin just lost their starting setter to a dislocated shoulder. Penn State has completely imploded with the drama around their setter who helped lead them to a national championship last year and now is no longer on the team. Elliott has created a system where he can get Binney and Kahahawai on the court in a way that has buy in from the whole team, especially Swindle and Spears. It's late in matches when Swindle rotates to the front row, and he does his double sub. It doesn't feel like a punishment to Swindle or Spears for sub par play. It creates an investment for Binney and Kahahawai, so they feel like they're making substantial contributions to the success of the team. And frankly, it's been effective at times. I will note that Texas closed out the first set in dramatic fashion, going down 22-20 and then scoring the next 5 points, with Swindle on the serving line, so your point is well taken. Also, Swindle got a critical early solo block in the 5th set with the following stare down that really set a tone. At some point I just have to trust the coaches. There have been times I've had some doubts. I wasn't a fan of bringing Wenaas in. I wasn't a big fan of bringing in Carlsen last year, even though I feel like she's an outstanding setter (better pure setter than Swindle). I don't really like our lack of blocking as a team this year and the way we've seemed to deemphasize it. But Elliott has earned the right to make whatever mistakes he's going to make. He also has a tendency to let players play through struggles, even to an extent that can be frustrating to us fans, but earns him a tremendous amount of investment from the players he's working with. That's something we aren't going to see from the outside.
  15. I think Abby Gaido may be the prettiest volleyball player we've ever had on the team. Her profile pic is fine, but when she shows up on camera she stands out. I will say they featured Madisen Skinner in a close up during the match, and she's an incredible looker, too.
  16. That 5th set where Tennessee hit -.052 did some heavy lifting there. 3 blocks in the 15 points and 17 swings overall for Tennessee in that set. Without going back and calculating it, that's by far the best ratio of blocks per point in a set on the season. That translates to 5 blocks in a 25 point set, which wasn't unusual in the past, but feels like a mission impossible for this team. That solo block by Swindle was a killer. Plenty of stare downs going on in that 5th set. The girls were feeling it.
  17. I also like Dawn Sullivan. But Missouri may not even make the tournament at this point.
  18. I'd argue Florida is more talented, but yeah, it's hard to say they're tougher. But I said that about their football team, too. I worked with David Saltzman about 15 years ago. Good dude. He was on the Houston radio at the time. He's one of the more knowledgeable regarding volleyball that we have covering us. I don't want to say he has the expertise of a former player or anything, but he knows the sport better than a lot of the play by play guys. Like Loeb.
  19. Alex Loeb and Shelby Coolidge on the call for the A&M/Kentucky match.
  20. There's a lot of stats I don't have access to. Volleymetrics has a lot of stats, but it's limited access. It's not so much a paywall, as you have to be involved with a college team in some regard. Permission is granted through the schools. But I don't know if even then those stats are tracked. And there's some debate over how blocking stats are kept. For example, in international play, a block is not considered an attacking error. I'm sure coaches keep track of unforced attacking errors versus errors caused by stellar defensive play, but in college it's not separated in the box score. Any attack into a block is considered an attacking error. At the end of the day I mostly have to go by the final score and the opponents we're doing it to. That's not very satisfying, but what we're doing seems to be working even if relatively woeful blocking stats.
  21. Arch Manning scores against Sam Houston State .gif.
  22. You're probably right.
  23. I'm all in favor of more blocks. I feel like blocks intimidate the opponent and either charge up the home crowd or silence the road fans. I don't think there's a more intimidating play in volleyball. But I watch this team, and I just don't see a great blocking team. As sunset87 notes, they're not always quick to get to the outside. They're also young, but Bunton is kind of a lumberer to me, and Ames isn't a whole lot more impressive in that regard. I like them both fine. They can both terminate the quick sets in front of the setter with aplomb. Harvey seems to have the most upside athletically. She twitchier. She explodes off the floor in a way neither Ames nor Bunton do. She's quick laterally. It feels like she stays in the air forever. But she's young. She didn't even early enroll. So I either lament our poor blocking numbers the rest of the season like a broken record, which I may very well do. I'll for sure continue on some level to miss Singletary, who would have been the eraser in the middle we're currently lacking. Or I accept this is a 2 block per set type of team, and hope they at least hit that mark. In the meantime all is not lost. Maybe the coaches saw we're not going to be a good blocking team, and so chose to deemphasize it. I don't know. But yeah, in international play it's way more common to go straight up. It comes from the men's game, like a lot of the strategies we see implemented. As Js1 notes, it keeps the ball from going between the defenders and the net to fall on the good guys' side. It provides higher elevation for the block, so harder to effectively hit over. It provides more block touches at the expense of blocks that score. I'm not going to sit here and advocate for it, because I love how dominating on the block we've been traditionally. But that's not the hand we're dealt with this season. I've said it a bunch on volleytalk, but if a genie were to suddenly appear to me to grant me one wish for this volleyball team, it wouldn't be to improve the blocking numbers anyway. I'm always interested in serves that get the opposition out of system. I think it's the single most critical component in winning matches, especially at the highest levels where everyone can terminate with aplomb. I don't think we're a bad serving team, but our collection of servers do not create the same fear factor our murderer's row during the two championship runs did. I miss that. It's interesting that we have Kujundzic as the server sub, with Lauenstein on the bench, who was the best server on her Nebraska teams, and Miller and Kahahawai, who are both top spin servers.
  24. Someone was saying that in a Point Texas presentation prior to a match the speaker said the team is being told to block straight up more than aggressively leaning over every time. Rely on block touches and affecting the hitters' angles more than going for the roof and the point. With Sullivan gone different voices in the room affecting strategy, even if Elliott is the main stay. But 1.58 blocks per set in conference play is terrible. I'm just not used to seeing such low numbers for Texas. I remember in 2022 we spent half the season with abnormally low block numbers per set for us, but even then it was in the low 2's, and they really came on the latter half of the season and then turned it up a greater notch in tournament play. I don't see that happening with this team. They're just not a great blocking team. Nebraska made it to the championship game that year they beat us in Gregory without a good blocking team. It's not necessary if you have amazing backcourt play and are terminal, which this team does. I'm just not used to it, and find it a bit disconcerting, although I'll be fine with it. There's something so intimidating about a block score. I miss that. The biggest thing for me is I'd like to see serving improve some. Texas has always seemed to turn up the serving as the season progresses, so I'm hopeful that will be the case this year. When facing elite competition, the ability to get the opponent out of system with the serve becomes probably the most critical piece to winning.
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