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2022 Volleyball - Stacked as Hell


Js1

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Just now, TwiceHorn said:

I didn't think she was very sharp yesterday, either.

From the stats, looks like first set kind of a shit show.  Texas hitting .129, oSu .194.

oh agreed, guess i just assumed she would move towards improvement. more shanked passes, 3 hitting errors, and 2 nets in the first set alone

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2 minutes ago, perfectchaos007 said:

I'm glad we faced some adversity playing from behind after losing the first set. Minny up next, and they beat Baylor 3-1 and swept TCU this weekend

And Baylor took their match against the defending champs 

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The team looks dominant. Minnesota may be looking 2nd best. Heck, yesterday I might have said it was Ohio State, but after looking like they made some competitive adjustments in the first set Texas just slowly choked the competitive fire out of them. 

Ohio State's non conference is unbelievable. Their next opponent, San Diego, is no joke. I think they're a top 10 caliber team this year. Just beat Pitt in a very exciting 5 sets yesterday and then dominated an up and coming A&M squad in College Station today. I'll be rooting for the Buckeyes the rest of the year. 

Plenty of things to improve, but the back row is fire. I hope eventually we can involve either Caffey or Bergmark on the quick middle attack. Skinner still has some things to work on, but she had 9 kills in 3 sets while hitting .389 last night while scoring 17 kills for .312 tonight. Those aren't the numbers of someone who is struggling. I get where people are coming from, but the stats are simply not bearing it out. She wasn't serving tonight, nor did she play anything other than her 3 rotations, so from that perspective her playing time has been curtailed for sure. 

Edited by SL Xpress
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1 hour ago, WBT said:

Fleck, Akana, and Halter are like an oasis in the desert of our typical back row players.  I feel really good about this year.

JE acknowledging that he's been terrible at recruiting and developing HS S and DS/LB's is a great sign. Being a salesman who can close on the best, already developed players around the nation like he built this team was masterful. 2 games in and it's already the most fun team to watch since I can't remember when, love this new team so far.

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9 hours ago, Goodman said:

JE acknowledging that he's been terrible at recruiting and developing HS S and DS/LB's is a great sign. Being a salesman who can close on the best, already developed players around the nation like he built this team was masterful. 2 games in and it's already the most fun team to watch since I can't remember when, love this new team so far.

I'm not going to dispute this wholly, but I do want to add that Halter is a true freshman. Gabriel just had 103 assists in 8 sets this past weekend for UNLV. Cabello is neck and neck competing with the incumbent senior setter at North Carolina State. Iosia had 54 digs for Michigan State as their libero. They're not as good as what we have on campus, and it's certainly been a weak spot for the team outside of O'Brien's one season, but terrible is a relative term. 

Don't forget, we recruited Fleck heavily when she entered the portal from UCSB after her incredible performance in Gregory Gym in the postseason. Lost the battle to UCLA. I'm extremely grateful we won it this time around, but there are some what ifs that go through my head. 

What I love is that Elliott is constantly seeking to upgrade the talent on the team, and is not worried about protecting spots for players who have been "patient" waiting for their turn. If you come to Texas he's going to try to recruit over you. If that's a fear, Texas is not the place for you.

But yes, the back row play has been a revelation, for sure. 

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3 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Fucking corn always starts slow.  I guess it takes time to negotiate with Satan.

You mean Wisky?

Corn swept TAMUCC, Tulsa and Pepperdine in 3 matches, but were a bit meh. They hit .120 against Pepperdine. Defense won the day for them. Competition was awful. Don’t have a marquee match until September 13 (Stanford). Texas opens with 3 straight top 10 teams. 

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34 minutes ago, Js1 said:

You mean Wisky?

Corn swept TAMUCC, Tulsa and Pepperdine in 3 matches, but were a bit meh. They hit .120 against Pepperdine. Defense won the day for them. Competition was awful. Don’t have a marquee match until September 13 (Stanford). Texas opens with 3 straight top 10 teams. 

 

Technically Stanford is #14, and they play Florida this weekend, so might not be top 10 by the time Texas plays them even if they are this week (they probably will be). 

Still, it's Stanford. They have some terrific pieces, and it's in Palo Alto. There's a big part of me that doesn't care where they're ranked. They're like Penn State, except with a lot better players currently. They're volleyball royalty regardless of what kind of team they're actually fielding. I sure hope they're able to keep that home and home going. More than Minnesota, and I hope they're able to keep that one, too. 

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4 minutes ago, SL Xpress said:

 

Technically Stanford is #14, and they play Florida this weekend, so might not be top 10 by the time Texas plays them even if they are this week (they probably will be). 

Still, it's Stanford. They have some terrific pieces, and it's in Palo Alto. There's a big part of me that doesn't care where they're ranked. They're like Penn State, except with a lot better players currently. They're volleyball royalty regardless of what kind of team they're actually fielding. I sure hope they're able to keep that home and home going. More than Minnesota, and I hope they're able to keep that one, too. 

Well I meant Ohio State x2 and Minny. It’s 3 top 10 matches, 2 top 10 opponents 

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The big announcers talking down or simply attempting to indicate that our schedule is poor while we waxed them at their court was peak tosu behavior. That while clearly being upset with our "dream team", then they had to shut it when they mistakenly spoke about other expected great teams this year and their transfers. I might just replay both matches for the hell of it after Scottie hopefully secures a fat bag. 

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13 minutes ago, Js1 said:

Texas back to #1. 41 first place votes out of 64. Nebraska got the rest.

Minnesota 4

Ohio State 8

Baylor 9

Stanford 12

Kansas 20

 

I'm happy for Baylor's success. That was a huge win for them against Wisconsin in Fort Worth. But they are not a top 10 quality team. Wisconsin hasn't figured out who they are, yet, and it showed. It still counts, though. Minnesota looked legit against TCU, but it's TCU. Landfair is the real deal at OH, something Ohio State sorely lacked. They also had contributions from their two middles, including 6'7 true freshman Booth. McGraw is an experienced 5th year libero, and Shaffmeister is a 6'3 setter out of the same mold as Ohio State's Podraza, although not quite as good. Her connection with her middles was light year's better than UT's, though. Excluding the O'Neal slide, which I've never seen Minnesota run. They do run the fastest sets to the pins in the country, thanks to head coach McCutcheon. 

Ohio State dropping to 8 is a testament to how highly people think of Texas. They play #15 San Diego (who looks REAL good thanks to transfer setter Gabby Blossom) and #3 Louisville this weekend. If they win those two, which they could, it's going to make Texas look even more impressive. 

Stanford it's impossible to tell, because they played such weak opponents this past weekend. They play Florida in Gainesville tomorrow night, so we'll learn a lot more about Tree, then. 

I'm really excited about KU. I didn't see their matches this weekend, but the stat lines look impressive. Looks like their transfer middle, Szobak, is the real deal for them. Bien didn't even play that well (actually defensively she did great) and they still went 3-0. 

Overall the Big 12 looked pretty good opening weekend. I wish Iowa State could have found a way to come out on top against Creighton, but that would have been a big upset if they had. Texas Tech and Kansas State also look like they might be able to compete for top half of the conference. 

BTW, a lot of Texas transfers looked really good. Skylar Fields making a difference for USC, which should be ranked higher than #25 IMO. They just haven't played anyone. 

No one comes close to looking as good as Texas did Friday and Saturday night, though. Hopefully we keep it going on Wednesday. 

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Cool! 

Wonder how much arm twisting it took to get Elliot to agree - he's been anti-beach.  Will he coach it or will Sullivan or Hunt be the main guy?  Will our indoor players double dip initially or are we going to recruit beach only? 

Austin is an attractive city for that. 

Edited by Js1
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7 minutes ago, Rickylovesweed said:

Very interesting. I wonder what the reasoning was behind adding beach volleyball over some other options? 

 

Probably because we’ll have a very strong team from day 1, and CDC doesn’t want to let go of that directors cup. 
 

Im sure the possible loophole is closed already, but I wonder if this could also free up more scholarships for the indoor team by having some on full scholarship from beach while playing both indoor and beach 

Edited by perfectchaos007
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3 minutes ago, perfectchaos007 said:

Probably because we’ll have a very strong team from day 1, and CDC doesn’t want to let go of that directors cup 

This is probably the answer. It wasn't approved as a NCAA championship sport until 2014 so it's a relatively new sport. 

Texas isn't playing that far behind. 

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21 minutes ago, YGIFS said:

Where’s the beach?

ACU, ASU, Boise, Eastern Kentucky, GCU, HBU, LSU, Missouri State, Morehead State, SELA, SFA, TCU, Tulane, UCA, Nebraska, UT-C, Utah

Throw some sand on the ground, you got a beach. 

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26 minutes ago, YGIFS said:

Where’s the beach?

 

2 minutes ago, Js1 said:

ACU, ASU, Boise, Eastern Kentucky, GCU, HBU, LSU, Missouri State, Morehead State, SELA, SFA, TCU, Tulane, UCA, Nebraska, UT-C, Utah

Throw some sand on the ground, you got a beach. 

Isn’t there a bar on mopac that has some beach courts?

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Yeah, I was speaking more of that 80’s commercial series that was a play on “where’s the beach?” For “where’s the beef?”   There is a Sand volleyball court on campus already but it’s a cluster cuss to add bleachers/stands and broadcasting stuff there.    I’m guessing it gets rolled into the east campus construction master plan across IH35.  

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1 hour ago, Js1 said:

Cool! 

Wonder how much arm twisting it took to get Elliot to agree - he's been anti-beach.  Will he coach it or will Sullivan or Hunt be the main guy?  Will our indoor players double dip initially or are we going to recruit beach only? 

Austin is an attractive city for that. 

John Cook has been blatantly using the Nebraska beach program to make the indoor program more competitive for years. More development time. Means the indoor players don’t get a break, but that’s never been a big consideration. 

You look at their historical superiority on defense, their track record for getting players on the national team, their dominance in recruiting from the u19 and u17 national teams, and then last year’s debacle in the Elite Eight, there may be some “if you can’t beat them, join them.”

I think a big difference we’ll see is that Nebraska doesn’t even try to be competitive in beach. It’s truly simply an adjunct for Indoor. 

Thats not the Texas way. Elliott could get away with something like that the first couple of years (NOT saying that’s the plan - just hypothetically speaking), but institutionally Texas wants to compete for national championships in every sport they field. Except soccer, of course. 

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3 hours ago, perfectchaos007 said:

Probably because we’ll have a very strong team from day 1, and CDC doesn’t want to let go of that directors cup. 
 

Im sure the possible loophole is closed already, but I wonder if this could also free up more scholarships for the indoor team by having some on full scholarship from beach while playing both indoor and beach 

 If an athlete is on an indoor scholarship, she can play beach. If the athlete is on a beach scholarship, she cannot play indoor. This is to prevent schools from adding beach solely to gain more scholarship money in indoor.

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31 minutes ago, TexasDPT said:

 If an athlete is on an indoor scholarship, she can play beach. If the athlete is on a beach scholarship, she cannot play indoor. This is to prevent schools from adding beach solely to gain more scholarship money in indoor.

Yeah. Some of the buried players can get major playing time for beach though. 

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I’m not very impressed by Tree in this match against Gata @SL Xpress

So many attack errors and service errors   Just hitting things long. 

2 aces and 15 SEs early in the 4th set. Woof. 25 attack errors, only 10 were blocked 

Edited by Js1
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