Ag4eva95 said:

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I agree after set one, sort of. If you watch the replay though, Brown was a big problem blocking, especially the last set. She misread so many attacks and lead to one on one situations. I know Kentucky has a really good setter so it's kind of expected. But Brown and Cos aren't really in the same field if you're talking athletic ability

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I am not saying Brown over Cos at all. What I am saying is when judging the middles from an offensive standpoint you need to set the middle. The doubled the number of attacks from the middle.
We got 9 kills on 16 swings with only one error.
Kentucky scored 25 points on 39 swings

I didn't see the match so I can look at anything but the play by play and box score but you can see things that need to be looked at. I can see our slow ability to read and defend off speed especially. I doubt that changed especially with comments made about how slow we are

Completely agree! Brown wasn't the problem offensively. When I made this comment, things were r looking great in the first set. I meant it more for a game plan change, which never happened. Cos looked fine with no injuries, there has to be drama going on. I've coached volleyball for a long time and that's the only thing I can see happeningThat's the only thing that explains what's going on to me. We haven't seen Jeffery play in forever, but hey she's warming up just fine. Perkins was the only one I was expecting out. This is my frustration with the small roster, just no options to sub in.

Ultimately in Kentucky we lost to a team that is quite a bit more talented and experienced than our current roster. Not sure anyone who seriously follows the sport/team to expect us to win that match. Seeing us grab a set was nice and we did see some good things from the back row defense in my opinion. I really like seeing Pearson grab that main DS spot over Hogan. She's already at her level IMO and will only keep going upward.

Not sure what is going on with Lednicky lately. She seemed kind of off to start the season, then adjusted and was looking dominant, and now has fallen back to pretty average. Meuth has been kind of off the past few games. She seems to lose some rhythm when she gets taken out in the back row. Nice to see Ital have a good game last night but she still really only scores on in system attempts which means all the trash goes to the outside. I do wish we could see more back row attempts from both outsides but maybe the setters aren't getting to practice that much in practice?

We are definitely better than last year and I think Morrison is doing a good job with what he has, but we definitely could use a few upgrades for next season. A consistent passing and scoring pin would be great but that is the same unicorn that every team will be looking for in the portal.

What do we need to do in our last 3 matches to make the NCAA tournament?

Beat Ole Miss and Bama to be safe.

Sargie said:

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Beat Ole Miss and Bama to be safe.

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This. It would have been nice to win against a team above us once or twice

I would love to see Meuth go off on Sunday since it is Senior Day even with a game later that week

Here is an RPI calculator that's more current than the weekly ncaa releases: http://ncaastats.figstats.net/volleyball-rpi.cgi.

We current sit at 28 mainly due to some very strategic scheduling by the staff and some good wins in non-con - Pepperdine, UNI, Utah State, Omaha, Wright State, Loyola, etc. We have the 16th strength of schedule rating based on the RPI rules. Again, in my opinion, a credit to the staff training up a team to compete early when other teams were still very rough. As the training gap closed over the season, our lack of experience and some bad injury luck probably hurt us in those tight losses in conference play.

For comparison, our Pablo ranking is 39. That's a truer reflection than RPI of where we are currently - a very young team adjusting to a new staff and the grind of a college season in arguably the deepest conference in volleyball this year with a thin roster that hasn't been able to overcome missing key players at key moments.

Pearson is the starting libero today!

I like Pearsons energy.
But defense and passing is not doing great so far.

Underwood in street clothes.

The said she was injured.

I don't understand Cos not playing. Brown just isn't in the same league as Cos.

We only had 3 digs going to end of the set but doubled it on one point.

Defense is just bad. Block and passing.

They are just falling apart. This is exactly what happened on all of Birds teams….. we look so bad

These girls look like they don't want to be out there. Communication isn't happening between points like a winning program should. Something is very off with this team right now

What is going on with the volleyball team these days?

3200 show up and they play like that. I don't know what's going on with the team. I don't see how a team that beat Florida and destroyed lesser teams can have fallen off the cliff like this. Lack of player leadership?

flintdragon said:

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3200 show up and they play like that. I don't know what's going on with the team. I don't see how a team that beat Florida and destroyed lesser teams can have fallen off the cliff like this. Lack of player leadership?

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Or maybe Tennessee is just that good and has a lot more experience than we do. Tenn has a bunch of super seniors. We were basically 19 yos playing 23 yos.

We had 2 girls celebrated on senior night, and one is starting grad school next year. And we only have 2 juniors. The other 10 players on the team are freshman and sophomores.

Tenn has 7 grad students on their roster. That is a ton of experience and development (and leadership?)

Thanks

I think that even if we win the next two, we are still on the bubble. Alabama is bad, Ole Miss looks better than before. Both are RPI killers. Were going to end up with an RPI in the 30s, maybe even 40s.

When is signing period for high school and portal for volleyball?

A few weekes ago RPI Futures had us at 20-8 for the season. It now has us at 17-11 which if we win our final two is where we are. So over the last few weeks we have dropped three matches we were expected to win. Now it is a weighted system somewhat and has rounding issues but after seeing Auburn lose to Miss State i can believe that is one we should have won a few matches ago. We should still get in because we should finish in the 30s in RPI provided we win the final two matches. I expect a sparse crowd for Wednesdays final home match against Ole Miss before going on the road to Bama

MadDog73 said:

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When is signing period for high school and portal for volleyball?

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We have no scholarship players from HS for 2024 season. We need to two or more scholarships that come valaible for transfer portal passing OH and I would get a solid DS naybe on a 2 and 2 system. We ciould use a third setter but the previous two or more important IMO for 2024

I'm on the same page with this, I feel like they will sweat it out like women's soccer did though….

Ag4eva95 said:

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I think that even if we win the next two, we are still on the bubble. Alabama is bad, Ole Miss looks better than before. Both are RPI killers. Were going to end up with an RPI in the 30s, maybe even 40s.

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Projection was low 30s assuming a loss tonight and two wins to finish the season. Expectation is that will put us solidly on the right side of the bubble.

Losing one of the last two makes things a lot more iffy.

They take into account more than RPI. Ask mens basketball.

I do think we are in, but one more loss I think puts us in a very questionable spot. This team isn't playing good volleyball and they take into account a few different rankings/stats.

Honestly would be a fan of finding a grad transfer setter capable of running a 5-1…..

Wicked Good Ag said:

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MadDog73 said:

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When is signing period for high school and portal for volleyball?

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We have no scholarship players from HS for 2024 season. We need to two or more scholarships that come valaible for transfer portal passing OH and I would get a solid DS naybe on a 2 and 2 system. We ciould use a third setter but the previous two or more important IMO for 2024

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Not sure where you get the "two or more scholarships" unless you are expecting a few transfers out. We had two player to celebrated for senior night and Lauren was announced to be starting grad school next year. Without some more leaving, you probably are looking at 1 available scholarship.

We are at 14 (2 over scholarship limit of 12) and the avg D1 program has 16 (Tenn had 21!). I think we could/should add a few more walk-ons to get us to 16+, but not sure pulling walk-ons from the transfer portal is really going to have a major impact.

The 25 class is where we start really building the talent that will move us up.

I can see a few players leaving.

Guinn
Pearson
Nisa
Lupyo(although she's been pretty solid offensively of late)


25 is THE class, but I don't want to have to wait another year to see growth. I think they will hit the transfer portal hard to upgrade the roster. You can see something isn't clicking, I really do think there is drama behind the scenes.

Ag4eva95 said:

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I can see a few players leaving.

Guinn
Pearson
Nisa
Lupyo(although she's been pretty solid offensively of late)


25 is THE class, but I don't want to have to wait another year to see growth. I think they will hit the transfer portal hard to upgrade the roster. You can see something isn't clicking, I really do think there is drama behind the scenes.

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Not sure. I feel like we kinda "peaked too early". There have been comments about how much of a grind October was and how they were a bit unprepared for that.

I'm just not sure staff is going to load up from the portal. Jamie wants the program identity to be develop the players rather than hit the portal hard every year. Obviously tap the portal to fill holes and if some of the girls leave, you have more holes to fill and potentially more scholarships available. But there is some concern that if you start hitting the portal to upgrade, you start losing the girls you want to recruit.

Makes sense. The players I see worth developing are Perkins, Cos, Manning, Muoneke, and Ledinecky. If they can take a step forward toward consistency, that's a strong group to grow around especially since they have 2 more years together potentially.

I agree with Wicked that we need a real libero, pending Underwood developing. I have a feeling there will be a ton of them available in the off season.

Part of finding their identity is finding their leader. We all know Hogan is that leader, but she isn't on the floor enough to help with the playing stability. Ledinecky has some qualities to be a leader, just hasn't done that yet. I think this is a big part lacking, no vocal senior leader playing 6 rotations consistently.

Attended the game and came away very frustrated. I don't understand how badly we play defense. Almost felt like every one of our strong hits just went directly to a defender and the exact opposite when defending where the ball lands where we are not.

Also watching in person, I think there is a chemistry issue. I can't pinpoint specifics though but strong chemistry can cover up a lot of weaknesses (trust, scrappiness, etc). Hopefully is just a youth thing but it's going to be hard to take another year of the same ol', same ol' until 2025 recruits arrive.

For a successful 2024, we have to find a true libero to take control of the backcourt, a 5-1 setter and a Meuth backfill. I don't think we get better or may even be worse without all three.

If you're tying to understand what happened in the Tennessee match yesterday, watch the 1st set broadcast. Paul Sunderland explains it very clearly as it's happening with the stats to back it up.

That pattern has accompanied us through this tough stretch. We play as we pass - we were competitive with them for good stretches when we passed well. Of course there are things to clean up in other aspects of our game, but we have so many shanks and barely 1 passes the back row has to set that we can't find any kind of rhythm.

And Tennessee good-passed at a 70+% clip so they ran their offense like a machine.