SL Xpress
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SL Xpress last won the day on August 7 2021
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You're probably right.
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I think she needs to be granted a waiver by the NCAA, which requires a school to apply for it. I don't actually know what's going on there. But I do know she's being recognized as a senior, both by Texas and by Florida when Texas played there on senior night. In any case, I'd add her to the list of transfers/graduating. It's clear to me she won't be at Texas next year in any case. Edit - you know I say that, but it wouldn't be the first time an athlete was recognized as a senior and then granted the waiver. I believe that happened to Caffey at Nebraska. I know it happened to my niece (not volleyball). So maybe I should cool my jets.
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I think it's obvious Lauenstein is gone, given all the senior day tributes.
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I think a team with tough serving can give Nebraska a fight. The Big Ten doesn't have the multitude of great teams this year they usually do. So once Nebraska gets to the Elite Eight they're going to face a caliber of opponent they haven't seen since Kentucky in non conference, who took them to 5 sets (Creighton also took them to 5 sets). Balls that usually hit the floor pop up. Attacks are more proficient, made by more talented opponents. But Texas isn't that team this year. If you can't get Nebraska out of system from the service line - and Texas can't - then they're going to crush you with all their options. And they're a good serving team. I still think they're going to win the title, but I'm not willing to give them the trophy just yet. It's just that Texas doesn't have the team to beat them this year. But that's the bar. You know Elliott isn't content with making a Final Four. I think that's a big part of the frustration he's showing lately, along with all the mad scientist moves against Auburn. He wants to win another championship, but this team doesn't have the parts to do it no matter how much he fiddles with the lineup with one match remaining on the regular season schedule. Nebraska isn't going anywhere next year. After that they lose Harper, Reilly, and Jackson. But Flynn looks awesome as their next setter already. Really wish we could have won that recruiting battle. And they have even more NIL money than Texas does, so if they go after the same player Texas wants in the portal, they've shown they're going to get them.
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For sure. I have zero problems with this team, really. It's been a breath of fresh air compared to last year. I feel like some of the issues posters have with the team on this thread come from the standard being so high at Texas. I'm unconvinced this team ever had the makings of a national championship team without some luck on their side. The only time I thought differently was after the back to back shellackings of TCU/Baylor. But every other match has seemed like a lot of gum and bailing wire to win some of the sets, even if the match score was impressive. And the two losses aren't bad at all for some of the same reasons. They just couldn't overcome their own deficiencies. But there's still a remarkable amount of talent on this team. Just some big holes, too.
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Some of Elliott's experimenting had the feel of hitting the panic button. I think he was deluded into thinking what he had was enough to win the championship as long as the team went undefeated, even if the issues were patently clear. Then we lost to A&M and Florida, and it's like NOW he wants to address some stuff, but he doesn't really have the tools at his disposal, so we get this kitchen sink thing going on. I feel like it was obvious we were working on making the serving more effective against Auburn, by hitting it lower over the net. Well, we got the first part right, in terms of hitting it lower, but didn't do so hot on the over the net part. Swindle has had problems all year, so nothing new there. But Gary has been serving lollipops over the net all season, and now hits 3 right into the net, with her ace coming off a tape hit that an inch or two lower it falls on the Texas side. Binney even got into the act with a serve into the net. Then you have Bunton, who had two fantastic serve rotations early, then couldn't get it into the court to save her life. There have been several serves this year where the ball misses the inline by less than a foot, and I think, "Ah well. That's the price of trying to serve deep to get the opponent out of system." But she regularly blasts serves out of the arena. She had 3 of those this match, as well as another one into the net. One of those came after a timeout from Auburn when she was on a run. That's okay. We score some points and then she commits a service error, that's a trade I take all day any day. But the others came on her first serve, and effectively nullified her service rotation. At some point it's not worth the cost of having more service pressure, and as a fan I'm desperate for this team to find a way to get more pressure on their serve. She has to be able to get the ball in the court. Full stop. Unless he said something to her beforehand, he sent a signal to Vander Wal she was getting pulled for poor play in favor of Lauenstein. I really like what Lauenstein is bringing to the team this late in the season. I'm assuming she's finally healthy. I wish she could do it from the service line, too, but maybe that part just isn't there right now. She was the best server at Nebraska when she played for the Cornhuskers. The middle production is woeful. We have 3 players in Ames, Bunton, and Harvey who show all kinds of potential, but they cannot consistently close out the block to either pin to save their lives. I don't know whether the lack of production in scoring from the position is due to passing, setting, or the middles, or likely a combination of the three, but the fact is we don't use our middles all that much in attack. Harvey in particular seems like a waste when she's out there. She never even gets attempts. And she looks so good when she does. Our backrow makes spectacular play after spectacular play. But both Gary and Halter can sometimes feel like they're underperforming, too. I will say there are plenty of times I think Halter is our best setting option, especially behind the 10' line. I feel like Spears out of the back row is our X factor. I agree her sets are not good, but if we give up on that we give up on beating another elite team in the regional finals or better. For all the teams' problems, I'm still a big fan. In the fourth set when it looked like Auburn had it in the bag at 23-18, and Texas came roaring back, forcing the Auburn coach to use both of his timeouts, I felt like that was typical Texas. There's no quit in this team. The problem is, you have to dig yourself into a hole to show it, and this team too often digs a lot of holes for itself.
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It's the dumbest metric in volleyball. The point of a serve is not to get an ace. It's to put pressure on the opponent so their scoring options are limited. But we don't measure that in the box score. There should be a measurement of how many points a team scores with the player at the service line. That would be an easy, objective measurement that wouldn't take any time at all to tally. It's not a fair assessment of a server. It is, however, a fair assessment of the effectiveness of that specific service rotation. Swindle had a service run in the 4th set where she had two effective serves. Texas scores on both. Her third serve goes a little long - not much long mind you, but a little - and the announcers are all over her about how you have to get that serve in against that rotation. I will take a 67% scoring run from the service line all day long every day. Texas scored on 42.7% of their serves versus Florida scoring on 31.8% of their's. That's literally the difference in the match. I hate the stupid ace/error ratio so much. It has absolutely no meaning regarding the outcome of a match whatsoever.
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Reanchor: How Texas is Responding to Their First Losses of the Season // Hook-Em Nation
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I was just about to post, lol. When Florida is on, they can be dangerous. Auguste and Rothe are good middle blockers. We tried to recruit Rothe. Byrd is talented but uneven as an outside hitter. Auguste is terrific as an offensive middle. Madkin is the second outside. A transfer out of Arkansas. Smallish, and up and down, but when she's on she's dangerous. I love Stucky. I think she's one of the best setters in the country. It's a shame her career at Florida has gone the way it has. I'm sure not what she expected. She's celebrating senior night with one year of eligibility left, so that's a pretty good sign she's gone after this season. I will be surprised and disappointed if we lose to this Florida team. They have talent, but they haven't been consistent all year. Just lost to South Carolina of all teams 3-1, with 15 service errors. Out hit, out dug, out scored the Gamecocks, but in the end out lost to them, too. There was a vbadrenaline article about changes Elliott has made with the team. I should have posted it here but haven't. I'm interested to see if anything manifests tonight, whether good or bad. I feel like fans take too literally what coaches say to the media in terms of what is going on with the team. I'm interested to see if there are any differences in how the team plays and what is emphasized. Specifically in terms of serving and blocking. Apparently that's what David Hunt was recently put in charge of. Don't know who had those responsibilities before, or what can be done in a week versus a whole off season.
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It's more misguided with Herman since the guy was a pos. I do reminisce about the glory days under Shaka Smart. No way he loses to Duke in that game. Never should have strongly encouraged him to take that job at Marquette and saved us the hassle of firing of him. I'm glad Miller is the head coach now. I don't know how he ends up doing, but I have hope for the program again.
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I think game threads in general bring out the toxicity. I like what I saw. I didn't know what to expect, but whatever it was, this team exceeded it. Now we have a good baseline. I knew there were going to be parts missing from this roster. I had doubts whether we had enough shooters. I had doubts about how much playmaking is on this team. I had doubts about how good we'd play defensively. And all those are question marks. But I do feel like we have the semblance of a legitimate tournament level frontcourt. I believe we have a legitimate stud for a swingman in Swain. And our backcourt has some length and effort. I wish we had more of true point guard, but as a friend of mine pointed out to me, "is that even a thing any more? Florida won the national championship last year with a game runner. Duke doesn't really have a true point guard this year." I just replied I'm old and I want what I want. There probably isn't a team on the schedule with as much length in the backcourt as Duke. We couldn't run transition because the guards had to help rebound defensively. I'm interested to see how the team evolves this year. It's about Miller creating an identity for this team, and establishing what he wants potential incoming players to see so he can upgrade the roster. This was the opening salvo, and as should be expected, mixed results were achieved. A little irritated by the coverage. I expected this on some level, but the fellating of Duke and Boozer exceeded my expectations. By a lot.
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Oh man. Thanks for the correction. Yeah, I need to get that right. Like I said, I'm amazing at getting names wrong. So I nail Vokietaitis and Traore, but screw up Swain. That's on me for sure. I was over here double and triple checking, too, lol.
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Whose name did I misspell? I honestly get names wrong all the time in embarrassing ways, but I don't think I did there, and neither one of those names are super easy.
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Nice high low from Vokietaitis to Traore. Traore is just rusty out there. Couldn't finish. Swaim directing traffic. I really really like this kid.
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I'm looking at the box score and he's got 16 shots, with the next closest Pope at 9. I guess I want him to shoot every shot. I hope I don't think that, but I would like to see him touch the ball more regularly on every possession.
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