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2023 Texas Volleyball - Back to Back!

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BehoId, The Underminer!

BehoId, The Underminer! 11561

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44 minutes ago, Js1 said:

For those scoring at home:

3rd national champ appearance:

TX - Skinner (1 UK, 2 Texas) Akana (1 Corn, 2 Texas), Phillips, O’Neal

2nd national champ appearance:

TX - Halter

Corn - Rodriguez, Batenhorst 

Texas has a combined 14 champ match experiences to Nebraska’s 4

only five of our girls were on the roster last year?

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Js1

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14 minutes ago, BehoId, The Underminer! said:

only five of our girls were on the roster last year?

Just listing who played. Devin played briefly but doesn’t play much this year. Bella and Mari did not play last year’s match. Caffey was the second MB

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Js1

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36 minutes ago, BehoId, The Underminer! said:

i see singletary on last year's.

SPEAKING OF MARI

She looked pretty good when she came in during the 2nd set to replace Bella in the doomed rotation

She had a pretty slide kill on a perfect set by Ella and then 2 blocks. 

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Js1

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So to school the newbies:

Passing scores are on a 0-3 scale.  

0 - I got aced
1 - bad pass (shanked or overpassed)
2 - okay pass, your team got a swing but it was out of system
3 - perfect pass, setter has all options available

Generally want to pass between a 2 and 3 to be successful. Our downfall in recent years was we'd pass between a 1 and 2 and struggle, while facing teams who pass between a 2 and a 3. 

Last night's passing grades:

WISKY

  • Franklin - 1.98 on 54 passes (not bad for a 6 rotation OH)
  • Guctekin - 1.50 on 22 passes (pretty bad for a defensive specialist)
  • Orzol - 1.22 on 7 passes (HORRIFIC for your libero)

TEXAS

  • Barnes 2.10 on 19 passes - good
  • Skinner - 1.82 on 14 passes - meh, but she's not known for being an elite passer, just a decent one
  • Akana - 1.78 on 9 passes - quite meh for a defensive specialist, but she's more of a serving specialist who plays some defense anyhow
  • Wenaas - 2.22 on 9 passes - WOW that is really damn good for a 3 rotation OH
  • Halter - 2.38 on 13 passes - that is basically passing nails in college.  Some of her passes were so perfect, Swindle didn't even have to move to set the ball.  I think it's a 2.38 because she got aced at least once that I recall. 
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Js1

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Wisconsin is likely going to go away from the 6-2 next year.  Having 2 setters mean you always have a backrow setter, and setters are not known for being great passers, so Texas really keyed on Wisconsin only having 2 reliable passers in serve receive and forcing them to make tough decisions.  Huge disadvantage of a 6-2.  Yes, you get more attackers, and you don't have to rely on as many OOS sets coming from your defensive specialists/liberos, but if you can't pass, you can't really set well. 

1 minute ago, Mittens said:

Not to diminish Skinner's 10' attack in any way, but were y'all watching Texas VB when Destinee Hooker was playing?  Same w/ the slide and Sha'Dare McNeal - the OG Slide Queen.

Sha'Dare McNeal is such a favorite of mine.  She was such a huge part of why we won that title in 2012.  She was a swiss army knife - could play left, right or middle - and excelled at all of it. 

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Js1

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1 minute ago, Mittens said:

Agree on McNeal - they even labeled her position as "Utility"...which says a lot!  Ashley Engle was another one who could do literally everything on the court and had no problem not being the star, when she would have been the best player on most Top 20 teams.

Also YBG.  She played RS, MB and OH for us as needed.

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Js1

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It's quite of hilarious, as @Rickylovesweed pointed out, that the #7 overall team, and defending champs, with top 10-20 recruits at almost every position, is all in on the "underdog, disrespected, fuck the haters" mentality. 

Someone is relaying what social media/VolleyTalk is saying about Texas - look at Madi's comments to ESPN after the match.  A fun reminder:

Vs. Tennessee (Sweet 16) - Texas 60/40 was the pick
Vs. Stanford (Elite 8 ) - Stanford 70/30 was the pick
Vs. Wisconsin (Final 4) - Wisconsin 68/32 was the pick

Looking at the early picks for Sunday - Nebraska 54/46

This team found an underdog mentality, somehow. 

its working GIF

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sunset87

sunset87 235

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The serve game tore Wiscy apart.  Their serve receive, as has been mentioned already, was their weakness, and we exploited it beautifully.  I was a bit surprised when watching the first set, that their passing seemed to be shaky.  In the 2nd set they passed better and were in system, which allowed them to play their style, which quite frankly we couldn't stop.  That set was how I thought they would play the entire match.  Stanford's serve receive game was way better than Wiscy's. 

Between our serve, Halter's D, and Madi terminating from the back row they were destroyed mentally and just kind of collapsed the last 2 sets.  Masterful execution and match by the team.

Sounds like they should stay away from serving Corn's libero if at all possible.

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Js1

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It's also extremely hard to win a title, let alone 2.  Great teams fail to win every year for various reasons.

  • Elliot is taking his team to the champ match for the 7th time under his watch.  2 for 6 (33%) is fine, but 3 for 7 (42%) would look a lot better for him. 
  • Texas is going for its 4th team title in the NCAAs (1988, 2012, 2022) and 5th overall (1981 AIAW) with their 10th appearance in the finals. 
  • A 4th NCAA title would tie Texas for 4th all-time with UCLA and 1 behind Nebraska's 5. 
  • Texas would join 1982-83 Hawaii, 1985-86 Pacific, 1990-91 UCLA, 1996-97 Stanford, 2002-03 USC, 2013-14 PSU and 2018-19 Stanford as back to back champs. 
  • Texas-Nebraska for a 3rd time ties Stanford-UCLA for number of times they've matched up in the championship (1995, 2015).  Nebraska is 2-0 against Texas in NCAA champ matches. The record is Penn State-Stanford, with 4 matchups. 
  • Madi is bidding to be Texas' 2nd consecutive NPOY and Texas' 4th NCAA tournament MOP (2008 Hooker, 2012 Webster, 2023 Eggleston)
  • Elliot is looking to become a 3-time champion coach, joining quite a few coaches such as Dave Shoji, Andy Banachowski, Mick Haley and Brian Gimmillaro. John Cook has 4, Russ Rose has 7, Don Shaw has 4 and John Dunning has 5. 
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BERT

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1 hour ago, Mittens said:

Not to diminish Skinner's 10' attack in any way, but were y'all watching Texas VB when Destinee Hooker was playing?  Same w/ the slide and Sha'Dare McNeal - the OG Slide Queen.

Was about to ask this. Hooker is one of the I've seen attacking from the back line. Looked like she could jump over the damn net

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Xminus6

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25 minutes ago, sunset87 said:

The serve game tore Wiscy apart.  Their serve receive, as has been mentioned already, was their weakness, and we exploited it beautifully.  I was a bit surprised when watching the first set, that their serve receive seemed to be a little off.  In the 2nd set they passed better and were in system, which allowed them to play their style, which quite frankly we couldn't stop.  That set was how I thought they would play the entire match.  Stanford's serve receive was way better than Wiscy's. 

Between our serve, Halter's D, and Madi terminating from the back row they were destroyed mentally and just kind of collapsed the last 2 sets.  Masterful execution and match by the team.

Sounds like they should stay away from serving Corn's libero if at all possible.

Seems like the early exhaustion of timeouts and challenges was a big factor as well. When we were getting on rolls with serves they just couldn’t catch their breath. Elliot poured it on and they were getting visibly flustered. 

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Napoleon

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5 minutes ago, Xminus6 said:

Seems like the early exhaustion of timeouts and challenges was a big factor as well. When we were getting on rolls with serves they just couldn’t catch their breath. Elliot poured it on and they were getting visibly flustered. 

It looked to me like Wisconsin hit a wall at the start of the 3rd set. 

The last two sets they seemed slow to everything. It was like their meth ran out and they were trying to go through the motions, but their tank was empty. 

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Mittens

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39 minutes ago, BERT said:

Was about to ask this. Hooker is one of the I've seen attacking from the back line. Looked like she could jump over the damn net

Most athletic female I’ve ever seen, hands down. Made it look easy and had that Jordan-esque ability to hang in the air for an extra beat or so.

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Js1

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29 minutes ago, Napoleon said:

It looked to me like Wisconsin hit a wall at the start of the 3rd set. 

The last two sets they seemed slow to everything. It was like their meth ran out and they were trying to go through the motions, but their tank was empty. 

The serving was relentless in the 3rd and 4th set. I think that + Halter's defense was too much for them.  Out of challenges (both really dumb challenges, I support listening to your players, but Wisky was too amped up and it cost them), out of timeouts quickly and couldn't side out and had to play on their heels those 2 sets.  

The box score doesn't have it, but my guess is the side out % in set 3 and 4 for Texas was extremely high and Wisconsin extremely low, that it was in their heads they had no chance to play defense.  Just serve after serve coming at you.  Even if you managed to side out, Texas would immediately side out and put them back on their heels receiving another serve and shanking another pass. 

Sheffield did his players a bit dirty.  It was obvious Wisconsin was not going to win set 3 after the 11-0 run.  He should have taken out Franklin and let her rest.  She was GASSED. She passed 54 balls and took 43 swings.  That is a lot of work in 4 sets. Madi took 1 more swing than her, but only passed 14 balls. 

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Jive Turkey

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2 hours ago, perfectchaos007 said:

 Skinner is probably the best attacker from the 10 foot line that I have seen. Setting her in the middle when she jumps from behind the 10ft line is almost an auto kill for her 

in this tournament, my favorite back row attackers have been Skinner, Otene from Ga Tech, and Jill Gillen at Arky.  they all just destroy the ball from the 10 foot line.  but it does feel like Skinner is in a league of her own.

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2 hours ago, Js1 said:

Much more manageable Sunday than last night's block.  And we really neutralized the block - only 10 by Wisconsin. 

and 3 in one point on 3 consecutive swings.

 

destinee was amazing.  flew through the air.  i tried to emulate her takeoff point which was much farther back than everyone else.  needless to say it didn't work for me.

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texfan11

texfan11 90

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After watching Nebraska v. Wisconsin during the season, I thought Wisconsin was the #1 team in the country. The first match they choked a little and lost in the tight 5 setter…but I was shocked that we beat them so easily last night.

 

I definitely have a lot more hope that we can beat Nebraska now. Whoever called it earlier in the thread - I hope that the moment gets a little too big for the young Nebraska team.

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torre

torre 1284

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Player quotes from Statesman.    Note Sheffield's complimentary comments and Elliott's toward Wisconsin.

 

Sophomore libero Emma Halter led the way

Halter finished with 19 digs, two off her season best. And it wasn’t just the number of digs, it was who she was stopping, the types of shots she was stopping and then what Texas did in a number of instances after her stops.

Numerous spike attempts by 6-foot-9 Anna Smrek, 6-foot-4 Sarah Franklin — Wisconsin's second- and first-team All-Americans, respectively — that would normally hit the floor, didn’t get there. And in several instances Halter’s plays extended rallies that ended with Texas scoring.

Asked if she was “in the zone,” Halter replied: “Oh, I would definitely say it was one of those moments for me and for this team. We train so hard for these moments and this is the time to trust your training. ... And yes, I do think I was in the zone today.”

She credited advance work by associate head coach Erik Sullivan for giving her an edge in knowing where Wisconsin players were likely to send the ball in certain situations.

Madisen Skinner's night at the service line, not the net

Skinner, the Big 12 player of the year, is best known for her often spectacular hitting kills. And she certainly had some of those among her match-high 18 kills. But her serving was the engine for an 11-0 run in the third set that made the score 15-3 and for a 6-0 spurt in the fourth set that made it 11-4. In the latter, Skinner had three aces in a five-serve span.

 

For the match she was credited with six aces. That was double her previous career best. Last year, she had 10 for the entire season. She entered Thursday night’s match with 25.

“We had scouted them pretty well and we kind of knew kind of their weaknesses and individual players we wanted to serve,” Skinner said. “And then just changing up (how deep into Wisconsin’s side of the court to put the ball) and working on my pace of the ball … That was that.”

Said Wisconsin coach Kelly Sheffield: “With some players, when they start getting two and three serves, their serves get better. … And once (Skinner) starts getting her mojo and confidence back there and a little bit of rhythm, it just makes it tough for everybody.”

Texas took advantage of several Wisconsin errors

The Badgers didn’t come into this match with a 30-3 record by accident. But they didn’t play like a 30-3 team. They made hitting errors. They made serving errors. They made errors receiving serves. They even erred in deciding when to challenge officiating calls, using their allotment of two losing video reviews in a little more than two sets.

Errors gave Texas five of their first 14 points in the first set. It the third set, it was five of Texas’ first 10 points and seven of their first 18.

“We didn't play our best volleyball — that's not a secret,” Sheffield said. “But I would say most of it had to do with how (the Longhorns) were playing. I thought we were prepared to play. You know, it was — it was their night.”

Elliot's comments from KXAN.

“First of all, congratulations to Wisconsin,” Longhorns head coach Jerritt Elliott said. “They are a tremendous team and have so much size and present so many problems to what you do offensively. It was a battle out there. I’m just so proud of the way that our team has been sticking together and finding ways to pull this out and executing at a really high level right now.”

“You can see the confidence that they have with one another and the way they’re playing for each other,” Elliott said. “It’s been such a fun transformation to see from where we started to where we are right now.”

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WBT

WBT 20278

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1 hour ago, Mittens said:

Most athletic female I’ve ever seen, hands down. Made it look easy and had that Jordan-esque ability to hang in the air for an extra beat or so.

I wish she had gone for the olympic volleyball/high jump double.  She absolutely was good enough.

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WJC88

WJC88 97

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2 hours ago, perfectchaos007 said:

We need to exorcise those demons from the 2015 champ match. Also John Cook looks like a guy who smokes 3 packs a day and reeks of tobacco. 

Get rid of the 2009 Tampa demon at the same time. 😠

Yeah Madi is a great from the back row but Destinee is one of one, imo. 

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Js1

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4 minutes ago, Cairn Horn88 said:

Js1…..thanks for your insight, commentary and analysis of this year’s VB team.  I’ve learned a lot just from your comments.

It’s amazing high level sport that needs more eyeballs. It’s one of our most successful programs on campus right now, alongside tennis, swimming and diving and rowing. 

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Jive Turkey

Jive Turkey 12427

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39 minutes ago, WBT said:

I wish she had gone for the olympic volleyball/high jump double.  She absolutely was good enough.

also known as "the Erin Aldrich." well, to be fair, Erin didn't play on the Olympic volleyball team.  she had a swim on the national team but not at the Olympics.  however, she did rep the U.S. in the high jump at the Olympics.

Destinee and Erin each have personal bests of 6 feet 6 inches in the high jump.  so that's a push. but Destinee was the better volleyball player.  much better.  legit world class.  she absolutely could have done the double. that would have been cool.

i'm still scarred by that loss to Penn State in the 2009 finals.  we had 'em. absolutely had 'em.  it's up there with the 2010 national title game where Colt got hurt and game 6 of the 2011 World Series that the Rangers lost as my biggest sports heartbreaks.  damn, 2009-11 were some tough years.

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Rickylovesweed

Rickylovesweed 14087

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3 hours ago, Js1 said:

It's quite of hilarious, as @Rickylovesweed pointed out, that the #7 overall team, and defending champs, with top 10-20 recruits at almost every position, is all in on the "underdog, disrespected, fuck the haters" mentality. 

Someone is relaying what social media/VolleyTalk is saying about Texas - look at Madi's comments to ESPN after the match.  A fun reminder:

Vs. Tennessee (Sweet 16) - Texas 60/40 was the pick
Vs. Stanford (Elite 8 ) - Stanford 70/30 was the pick
Vs. Wisconsin (Final 4) - Wisconsin 68/32 was the pick

Looking at the early picks for Sunday - Nebraska 54/46

This team found an underdog mentality, somehow. 

its working GIF

Hey whatever internal motivation helps you win that's all that matters.

But even Elliott mentioned it last night. If not for illnesses/injuries this was probably a 1 or 2 loss team. This team is no underdog but as long as it keeps motivating the team it's all I care about. 

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Rickylovesweed

Rickylovesweed 14087

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2 hours ago, texfan11 said:

Whoever called it earlier in the thread - I hope that the moment gets a little too big for the young Nebraska team.

I think Texas wins if they can just apply pressure to Nebraska. 

We have a bunch of players that have been in this moment for years (Skinner, O'neal, and Phillips). Nebraska not so much. Just make this match tight and force those young players to deal with pressure. 

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TwiceHorn

TwiceHorn 30851

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Just now, Rickylovesweed said:

I think Texas wins if they can just apply pressure to Nebraska. 

We have a bunch of players that have been in this moment for years (Skinner, O'neal, and Phillips). Nebraska not so much. Just make this match tight and force those young players to deal with pressure. 

Madi is not the only wicked server.  Until last night, she didn't really stand out among several.  

They may not ace all the time, but Akana and Halter coax some pretty bad receives most of the time.

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Js1

Js1 83621

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35 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Madi is not the only wicked server.  Until last night, she didn't really stand out among several.  

They may not ace all the time, but Akana and Halter coax some pretty bad receives most of the time.

It’s our best serving team. Also I believe Skinner led the team in aces even before last night. 

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