Especially when your middle is hitting 500
***** Game Thread: SEC Tournament - #2 Texas A&M vs #3 tu *****
18,263 Views |
220 Replies |
Last: 13 days ago by B$Weigem
Tu backline was much better than us
Don't play Helmuth the rest of the year unless you are up 2 sets. That third set was ours to take
This last set, the passing was poor. The first 3 sets, you're wrong. It is the setters job to get your hitters 1x1 opportunities. When Waak sends almost every single ball to the pin, even perfect 3 passes, it makes your offense very predictable. Our middles could have easily had 10 kills a piece if Waak gave them the ball.
Not the feeling I wanted heading into Friday. Ready for our gals to get rolling in the tournament
proud of the team. They battled hard. one swing from winning that 3rd set.
Serve receive was really bad in the 4th set. Can't do that with texas blocking so well.
Serve receive was really bad in the 4th set. Can't do that with texas blocking so well.
I still think we're in position for a 2 seed. Whether that's in the Lexington Regional or Lincoln Regional is to be decided. That's 2 winnable games at home. Then it's a huge sweet sixteen match
Fitch looked so impressive! I'm excited for a full season of her starting next year. She's and Stowers are going to be so good!
B$Weigem said:
Tu backline was much better than us
that really is the difference. We win with halfway decent defense.
At least we lost to Texas, not Texas-Arlington like the women's basketball team today lmao
Got whipped, hope we get a fair seed.
We need to get Logan out of the slump fast not sure what happened today but she needs to be our go to hitter like the other team had theirs.
She's had a very below average year this year. We've been lucky the rest of the team is so strong. I will say, I think Waak sets her too low way too consistently. She's a rhythm hitter, she needs to get a few kills early on to get going. You can usually tell in the first set if she's going to have a decent or bad match
Selection Show - Sunday November 30th: 5pm
First and Second Round: December 4th and 5th or 5th and 6th in College Station, Texas
First and Second Round: December 4th and 5th or 5th and 6th in College Station, Texas
Stone44 said:
Got whipped, hope we get a fair seed.
I don't feel like we got whipped. They took it to us the 1st set. 2nd set we did better than they did the 1st set. 3rd set was ours if the ball went our way.
We just need a little more defense. We can easily make a deep run!
We'll get it right in the tournament, I promise you!! Keep the faith! 23-4 overall! 3 losses to top eight teams…
I'd rather them lose now than in NCAAs, which is what I said in my prediction. They needed to be challenged before the real test. Plus. Texas played so well. If Texas blocks like they did today. They will beat Kentucky!
Ag4eva95 said:
She's had a very below average year this year. We've been lucky the rest of the team is so strong. I will say, I think Waak sets her too low way too consistently. She's a rhythm hitter, she needs to get a few kills early on to get going. You can usually tell in the first set if she's going to have a decent or bad match
She started off well though. She was the only one doing anything to keep us in the 1st set. I was surprised she wasn't able to keep it up. All of her backrow hits were dug up by a superior offense. She wasn't getting blocked that much so surprised she got block at the end of the game so much.
Last few games, she's done really well though.
Ehhh, I mean, she isn't the strongest part of the offense. I think where I get really frustrated is when you set Emily over our middles. Emily had to take some tough swings, but if she's off the net, it's almost a guaranteed error or free ball to area 5. We need the Emily that showed up for Wisconsin in NCAAs. She looked unstoppable! Right now, she isn't swinging, she's guiding the ball. If you watch her, she isn't following through.
Ag4eva95 said:
Ehhh, I mean, she isn't the strongest part of the offense. I think where I get really frustrated is when you set Emily over our middles. Emily had to take some tough swings, but if she's off the net, it's almost a guaranteed error or free ball to area 5. We need the Emily that showed up for Wisconsin in NCAAs. She looked unstoppable! Right now, she isn't swinging, she's guiding the ball. If you watch her, she isn't following through.
I misread your earlier post. It came right after talking about Lednicky so my post was about her, not Emily.
Anyway, that Emily that showed up in the NCAA tournament is lurking in the shadows somewhere. Time to unleash her. She gets into her own head too much. I think Morrison was giving her every chance to figure it out. I was very surprised she wasn't subbed out much earlier. We are going to need Emily.
Completely agree. But, I also love fitch coming in. Fir is more like Stowers. Athletic and has way better ball control. Less errors. Emily just hits the shot out of the ball or tries to tip. The Emily today had 0 confidence after her first kill. Fitch came in and had 3 kills in less than 8 swings. I liked what I saw a lot!
Emily has been playing great for several matches. One of our most consistent players the last few weeks during this great stretch. She had an off day yesterday. It happens, move on. Even with her off day we still should have won the 3rd set.
The setting was off as well yesterday to the outside hitter to often. You have to get solid setting to beat the best teams. It's the main reason Kentucky might win it all. Their setter is the best I have seen this year. She puts it in a place that lets her hitters have several option depending on the defense. Many of our sets yesterday limited our hitters with solid options.
The setting was off as well yesterday to the outside hitter to often. You have to get solid setting to beat the best teams. It's the main reason Kentucky might win it all. Their setter is the best I have seen this year. She puts it in a place that lets her hitters have several option depending on the defense. Many of our sets yesterday limited our hitters with solid options.
Emily has been a steady player. She did have an off day. The issue why did Maddie keep feeding her. Several times she set Emily who was blocked by two blockers and went right back to her after the initial block. Puzzling.
Why didn't we set the middle more?
Why have we been a consistently poor serving team for the last five years. We use to put the total service errors on the scoreboard at Reed but the serving has been so bad they stopped doing that during the Bird Kuhn tenure and now Jamie.
Our back row play is not as good as the elite teams.
Why didn't we set the middle more?
Why have we been a consistently poor serving team for the last five years. We use to put the total service errors on the scoreboard at Reed but the serving has been so bad they stopped doing that during the Bird Kuhn tenure and now Jamie.
Our back row play is not as good as the elite teams.
Quote:
Why didn't we set the middle more?
Would love to see a heat map of where Waak was setting from on the floor. The sets I was able to watch last night, she was setting more often from the 3M line than not. Makes it tough to consistently set the middle from that position, especially while on the move.
Ag4eva95 said:
Completely agree. But, I also love fitch coming in. Fir is more like Stowers. Athletic and has way better ball control. Less errors. Emily just hits the shot out of the ball or tries to tip. The Emily today had 0 confidence after her first kill. Fitch came in and had 3 kills in less than 8 swings. I liked what I saw a lot!
They didn't put up a block against her and focused on the others while ahead. She had two kills against no block whatsoever. Emily had a bad game. Logan wasn't as terminal and this below .200. The fourth and first sets we were setting from off the net.
We ran middle slightly less then they did but the difference was one OH had a bad game and Logan who usually ends a point one way or another was dug quite a few times against a top 5 team.
Not a horrible situation. The sky isn't falling
Never said the sky was falling, but I do question our ball control consistency and setting decision making. All that to say, I have my eyes on a natty! If we con focus on even one of those things, we will get really close
It really comes down to passing and digging. Sometimes we are good on serve receive but we were off last night especially the 4th set. Now we are out of system and honestly, only Stowers is confident out of system. Lednicky is okay too but it's a much more difficult set to get her the ball in a good spot.
Our digging is non-existent often. I'm talking about picking up the hard shots. But it isn't good enough to just get it up... it has to be placed in spot we can generate offense. We had some good digs last night for sure but the location quality just isn't there.
Though thinking back, there was an awesome dig by Underwood that was perfect that gave Waak an easy set to Stowers for an impressive kill. We need more of that!
About service errors, it's a feast or famine strategy. We feast when we get opponents out of system like in the 2nd set. During a famine, we just hope the errors doesn't compound or come at a bad time. Morrison has said if you give a good team an easy serve, they get a first ball side out like 75% of the time. So why not serve tougher.
Our digging is non-existent often. I'm talking about picking up the hard shots. But it isn't good enough to just get it up... it has to be placed in spot we can generate offense. We had some good digs last night for sure but the location quality just isn't there.
Though thinking back, there was an awesome dig by Underwood that was perfect that gave Waak an easy set to Stowers for an impressive kill. We need more of that!
About service errors, it's a feast or famine strategy. We feast when we get opponents out of system like in the 2nd set. During a famine, we just hope the errors doesn't compound or come at a bad time. Morrison has said if you give a good team an easy serve, they get a first ball side out like 75% of the time. So why not serve tougher.
If we can dig and pass effectively and in the right location, Waak can distribute to the right hitters. We've seen it most of the year and that gets harder versus top competition. Confident our team will work on it this week and be ready to roll. I can't wait to be in College Station for the first two rounds.
Brad Whitmarsh
LB12Diamond said:
Emily has been playing great for several matches. One of our most consistent players the last few weeks during this great stretch. She had an off day yesterday. It happens, move on. Even with her off day we still should have won the 3rd set.
The setting was off as well yesterday to the outside hitter to often. You have to get solid setting to beat the best teams. It's the main reason Kentucky might win it all. Their setter is the best I have seen this year. She puts it in a place that lets her hitters have several option depending on the defense. Many of our sets yesterday limited our hitters with solid options.
What matches are you watching?
Last 6 matches (November) she has 12 service errors with only 4 aces. She has had 1 of those 6 matches hitting above .250. You can say only 2 of 6 above .200.
Quote:
Emily has been playing great for several matches. One of our most consistent players the last few weeks during this great stretch. She had an off day yesterday. It happens, move on. Even with her off day we still should have won the 3rd set.
The problem is her off days, she's hitting not just below .100, she's hitting negative numbers.
Every single match buddy. Let your BAS go and quit venting just bc we lost to the sips.
Trying not to pile on one player, so I'll say this and move on. The service errors on top of the hitting errors in that 3rd game are what sent me over the edge last night. You can't hit negative AND have 3 service errors in the same game where it's there for the taking against one of the top teams in the nation. We do that again this season and we're flying home dreaming about what could've been.
Commenting on other comments...
Commenting on other comments...
- Fitch isn't an upgrade over Hellmuth this year. The only reason she had a little success last night is because they left her hitting against air.
- While Waak was scrambling way too much last night because of the passing, when she does get a good pass she needs to set the middle much more. That is our clear advantage over most teams and she's not leveraging it nearly enough. And doing so will slow the block significantly for the OHs making them more effective. I feel like she abandoned the middle almost completely after the very first point last night when Ifenna was blocked, and she never fully came back to it.
- Passing was our limiting reagent last year and still looks to be this year. We might've improved a little...enough to take us from ~12th best team to ~8th best team in the country, but we won't consistently compete and beat the upper echelon with our current passing limitations.
- We need Emily to get her confidence back and go on a post season run like she did last year. We have no one else that can take her reps....it's a huge drop-off in quality behind her. If she doesn't, our ceiling is S16 or E8 again.
Lmao, ehhh. Questionable opinion. To say Emily has been playing well is a wild statement. Stats listed above. Why she is serving over Addi is hard to watch. At least Addi can serve it in play!
What are you talking about? I'm not venting. I'm discussing the match from last night where Hellmuth was particularly bad. She was key in our loss.LB12Diamond said:
Every single match buddy. Let your BAS go and quit venting just bc we lost to the sips.
You were the one that claimed she has been playing great and was a consistent part of our winning streak. I simply provided actual data that shows that your take is just ridiculously wrong.
Eliminating service errors would win us a few more games.
Featured Stories
See All
Cashius Howell validated and vindicated by postseason honors
by Olin Buchanan
Cashius Howell and Trey Zuhn III among 2025 SEC Award winners
by Richard Zane
Bobby Shuttleworth hired as Texas A&M's next head soccer coach
by Richard Zane
24:24
16h ago
8.0k
7:32
13h ago
2.8k
PhatMack19
Jokes about UofM coach having sex with female and male staff members.
in Texas A&M Football
6