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SL Xpress
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Alex Loeb and Shelby Coolidge on the call for the A&M/Kentucky match.
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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.
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Arch Manning scores against Sam Houston State .gif.
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You're probably right.
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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.
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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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There were a few years there where Nebraska was winning every head to head battle against Texas in high school recruiting and in the portal. It felt like they were fielding the U19 and U21 national team. But Elliott did a better job with roster management in 2022 and 2023 to bring home the titles. And then Penn State squeaked it out against last year's Cornhuskers. Both of Stanford's last two coaches won national titles with talent recruited by the previous coach - Dunning in 2001/2004 and then Hambly in 2018 and 2019. Elliott took a lot of flak from a lot of circles for being able to recruit but not being able to win championships prior to 2022/23, but as we all know the program was a dumpster fire when he took over. He's managed everything extremely well. Not just the roster, but staff hirings, the atmosphere at Gregory. Scheduling. I only wish he'd do more media availability, but with the press corps that covers the sport, it's hard to blame him for not wanting to see them more often. In any case, we'll see what happens with this Texas team. I'm excited about the journey. Someone posted on Volleytalk we're now more than halfway through the regular season, which doesn't even seem possible.
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I don't really get too worked up about this stuff. I enjoy watching this team. I want to see them continue to improve. I notice we're still trying to develop a slide attack with Ames and Harvey. It doesn't look very smooth, but you gotta start somewhere. I'd like to see AVW and Swindle get a better connection, and for AVW to be more consistently terminal, but I never feel the same way with her that I did with Wenaas. I watched AVW be a star in international play even when playing with older players. I feel like she has a tremendous upside. And it's not all on her. There are times when Swindle really does her a disservice with some of the sets. But it's mostly on her. Just keep improving. Keep improving the serve. Maybe develop more of the bic with Stafford. Keep working with Spears. I don't see how Spears can get better than what she's shown so far, but I'm sure it's possible. Stafford came back strong in serve receive against Mississippi State. More of that. Keep being the backcourt wonder duo with Halter/Gary. Nebraska can do their thing. We just need this team to be the best version of itself if and when that matchup transpires. At least it's not like OU in softball. We have plenty of Nebraska heads on pikes. No reason why we can't add this version of the team up there.
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Nebraska has been on a ridiculous tear. I don't think their last 4 opponents have even hit .100, and they haven't hit less than .300. The Big 10 still looks like a strong conference, but they don't have the powerhouses they used to have. Minnesota is in a free fall. This looks like a good but not great Wisconsin team. Penn State has imploded. Purdue is surprisingly good given all the talent they lost, but not great. None of the west coast teams are super impressive. The SEC has Texas and Kentucky. The ACC has Pitt, Louisville, and Stanford. Volleyball is always top heavy as a sport, but it feels even more so this year.
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No, it didn't matter what fanbase he's from. I doubt satyanash cares what fanbase the guy is from. It's a reference to Greg Davis, not a reference to Kennythetiger.
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Well, I see improvement. At least I'm not looking at this game feeling like the one player on the team who deserves the most blame is Arch Manning. I didn't think anyone would move the ball on this defense the way Florida did in the first half. They came back and limited Florida to 7 points in the second half, but my goodness. I'm not saying Manning played the perfect game, but he played better. Now that our playoff hopes are pretty close to dead, I will hope he shows continued improvement over the rest of the season.
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It's a reference to Greg Davis moving on to Iowa for several years and doing Greg Davis things there, too. He also did Greg Davis things at North Carolina with Mack Brown before coming over to Texas. If a fan base is really excited to see someone leave, there's often a reason for it. Iowa fans dismissed Texas fans for a while until they finally came to the realization there was something to all the criticism.
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Yeah, probably should have spent more on Starck or her boyfriend.
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Rumor is she was paid $750k to transfer by Penn State alums.
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There hasn't been a more swift and ruthless mercy killing than Nebraska dismantling of Penn State in Happy Valley since Travis finished off Old Yeller.
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Allie Sczech wasting away on the bench is not quite as impressive as Landfair and Blackwell spending most of their time watching matches from the sidelines last year, but it's close.
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25-6 in the first set. 25-15 in the second, which feels like a nailbiter in comparison. Hard for Martin to rack up any stats if Penn State never scores.
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Florida/Auburn was pretty entertaining. Just went final, with Florida winning 3-1. 3 lopsided matches to start then the 4th set went to Florida 27-25. It's interesting watching Byrd out there. I always liked her potential. Also, we really went after Alec Rothe, Florida's starting middle. Auburn runs a 6-2. I don't think I'm ever going to like that system. Stucky went for 42 assists, 12 digs, and 10 kills for a volleyball triple double.
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It is, but Minnesota has serious injury issues. Starting middle blocker Calissa Minatee is out for the season. Starting libero Zeynep Palabiyik is gone for the year because of an ACL. Starting outside hitter McKenna Wucherer has an undisclosed injury and has been out since September 1.
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They're not going to be regional hosts, but they'll likely host the first two rounds. No one else in the SEC is going to do that. They beat Minnesota before the Gophers went through a rash of injuries. Volleyball doesn't have a great depth of teams. No one is going to win the national championship outside of the top 8. And even outside the top 4 it can be unusual. The top 16 host the first two rounds, but the bottom 8 have a rough time in the regional. For many programs it's a big deal to make the tournament, but if you're not in the top 16 then you hope to get a high enough seed to head to the first two rounds against the top 13-16 seeds, because your season is pretty much guaranteed to end if you don't. So A&M being somewhere around the 10th to 16th best team is a big deal for them. But that can happen and you'd still be correct. I'm just saying, in the SEC it's a big drop off from Texas/Kentucky --> then A&M ---------> then everyone else.
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Yeah, I'm not worried in the slightest. I do look forward to a return to the program having a dominating block, but it's not an end all be all. Our middles are being effective. That doesn't have to result in a direct point. If they're altering shots enough to set up a terminal transition game, that's still winning volleyball, if not quite as spectacular. Georgia's tip defense was woeful. They're just not that great of a team overall. They're not terrible, but they're going to struggle to make the tournament. Outside of A&M and Kentucky I'm not sure how good the conference is, to be honest. I know we'll get some other teams in the tournament, but those are the only candidates to host the first two rounds, IMO. Florida falling off a cliff is a bit of a bummer from that perspective, although I can't say I'm all that invested in it. I was looking forward to having them as a fellow volleyball powerhouse, but they have work to do.
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I honestly doubt if either one of them have watched a single Longhorn volleyball match this season. They knew nothing about this Texas team that wasn't spoon fed to them pre game.
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I do a little bit. I really liked the LHN volleyball coverage. I especially enjoyed all the non Longhorn fans complaining about it when there was a match being played they wanted to see.
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They're obvious homers. It's going to be amateur hour for most of these SECN+ broadcasts. I feel like they pulled the play by play guy out of the communications school and the color commentator was some former player looking to make a little cash. Might as well have been saying boom goes the dynamite the entire broadcast.
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Georgia with 10 blocks to Texas 5. And Texas still sweeps. BTW, I really like Miller as the serving sub over Kujundzic. I hope that continues. She served for 2 points before the service error. It's a high risk high reward top spin serve, so you're going to get some errors.
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