For those who like me are digging deeper into the game…

and he calls the Aggies "Texas A&M" in this one.

This was a good video, and he does talk a little about what he sees as the differences in the International game. He sums it up as playing a lot more aggressively with power and creativity, though I think it's a little more complex than that.

Take this with a grain of salt as I was just a mid-level rec league player who for oddball reasons sometimes played with players who were much better than me, but I don't think the concepts he talks about would be unfamiliar to other NCAA teams. But executing them consistently and having a scheme that emphasizes them is not the norm.

For example, he mentions a couple of times that if the ball is set tight to the net that the hitter should assess the weaknesses in the block, and then wipe it on the weaker opposing blocker and out of bounds. I'd be very surprised if any high-level player didn't know this in principle.

I also wonder if teams will respond to how A&M is playing and if this will influence the NCAA game more widely. Morrison's system puts a lot of pressure on opposing teams with aggressive serves and swings, a lot of emphasis on blocking, and a very fast system that often doesn't allow the blocks and back row defense time to set up.

A&M uses a lot of fast low sets (quick 1-sets, and low-arc 2 or 3 sets that we might call shooters) and when there's a good first pass and the timing is right it makes it hard for even a good opposing team.

They don't seem to slide the middles much to hit, but my uneducated take is they didn't need to because Maddie Waak could quickly distribute the ball to three or more options on many plays, which already forces the defense to pick their poison and often be late to respond. The speed of the offense meant that there was often a seam in the block or a defender couldn't pull off the net in time to cover the cross court angle shot.

About the lack of slides, Morrison has mentioned that both our middles were exceptional attacking "off two legs". Combine that with the fact that we could run Logan on backrow attacks on the right side (where a slide is normally run) just as effectively without taking away our middle threat. No reason the mess with slide attacks this year given our roster strengths.

With Logan and middles now gone, Morrison has brought in 2 transfer middles who he said were much better attacking "off one leg" (ie off a slide). So he clearly sees value in that ability and it's safe to assume we'll have more slide attacks incorporated into the offense next year based on roster strengths next year vs this year.