[SIZE=12pt]Since Rutgers joined the B1G, their volleyball team has had a heavy influence of Eastern European players from places as Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Serbia, and so on. Assembling and structuring such a diverse group proved to be a difficult task and for a few years the Knights have been an easy target for opponents to pad their schedule. Now they have a new coach, but there are multiple players from that part of the world still on the roster. However, with this group there seems to be less confusion and more cohesion. Indiana can attest to that reality as the Scarlet Horde dumped the Hoosiers two weeks ago 3 to 1 in their first match up of the weekend. And Steve Aird’s young squad was fortunate to win the second match after having to comeback from being down 8-15 in game 4 to prevent the Knights from forcing a decisive game 5.
As it was last weekend against Maryland, inconsistent play plagued the Huskers in match one, and, as it was last weekend, the level of play plummeted in the 2nd set and nearly cost the Big Red their first set to Rutgers since the Scarlets entered the B1G. The biggest issue remains passing. During a large portion of the 2nd set where the Knights staked to a 15-10 lead, the Huskers were passing, as John Baylor would opine, ‘like a Yugo on the Autobahn.’ Cook was so disgusted he actually pulled Akana after a shank off a serve and subbed in Emma Gabel. Immediately the turbulent waters calmed as Gabel made a couple of nice digs and the Huskers righted themselves for a 25-21 set 2 win en route to a straight set victory in the opener. The middles again were efficient with Stivrins getting 11 kills on 18 swings and Caffey putting in 7 on 11. Both hit over .500. Lexi Sun rebounded from a moribund performance against Maryland with a team high 17 kills and a scorching .484 hitting percentage. The Rutgers hitters, particularly the right side, Beka from Belgrade, were taking advantage of Nebraska’s poor coverage on tipped attacks over blocks, something Wong-Orantes and Maloney were excellent at, but for some reason Knuckles, despite her athleticism, seems slow to respond to.
It wasn’t pretty, but there were plenti-o-‘reasons’ floated out as to the cause of the sub-par performance of the Big Red. Long flight, early morning testing, false positive giving the team a testing scare, early start to the match. We were assured that day two would bring a steadier performance for the Good Gals.
Instead, we saw a Rutgers offense that was on fire in set 1 of the second day with the vaunted defense of Nebraska seemingly unable to do much about it, even with Miss Callie starting in place of Caffey in the middle. The Scarlet Knights took it to the Big Red Machine and hit an astounding .400 in route to a 25-22 win. First set taken by Rutgers over Nebraska EVER. Well, at least since the Knights joined the B1G. The Big Red dominated sets 2 and 3 by identical 25-14 margins before putting the Knights away in a much more contested set 4, 25-20. Stivrins was once again Stivrins and got a double double with 15 kills AND 11 blocks. She keeps with this pace and Lauren may garner some POY consideration. Three other players accumulated double doubles with Hames of course adding to her total (49 digs, 17 digs) and the six rotational pins of Sun and Kubik hitting double digits in kills and assists. Sun was high error in this match and while she had 15 kills, she also blemished the stat line with 8 errors for a hitting percentage of .156.
Riley Zuhn was a disappointment. After making strides against Maryland, she regressed in New Jersey, hitting triple zeros for the weekend mainly due to attack errors that where long, whether mis#!t or missing hands. Finally, Coach Cook subbed in Jazz Sweet for the final 3 sets of the 2nd match. To compete against the best in the B1G (and by definition the best in the country), the Huskers are going to need have increased production at opposite. [/SIZE]For Wisconsin, the right pin was supposed to be a question mark in replacing Duello, but freshman Devyn Robinson has been tearing it up. Jazz DID have an excellent outing in the final 3 sets with 8 kills and a hitting percentage of .429, but she can also disappear in matches and hasn’t significantly improved her play since 2017 (at least to this untrained eye).
The first set of matches against Indiana and Maryland were solid, but not dominant performances. This set of matches I would put under the ‘unimpressive and concerning’ category. The level of competition ramps up dramatically in the next two weeks (hell, the next month), and it is not clear that this version of Husker volleyball is ready at this juncture in the season.
Week 4 of the AVCA poll:
[SIZE=12pt]1[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]Wisconsin (50)[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]2[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]Texas (9)[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]3[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]Kentucky (1)[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]4[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]Nebraska[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]5[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]Minnesota[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]6[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]Baylor[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]7[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]Utah[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]8[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]Penn State[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]9[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]Florida[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]10[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]Washington[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]11[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]Purdue[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]12[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]BYU[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]13[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]Notre Dame[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]14[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]Louisville[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]15[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]UCLA[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]16[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]Georgia Tech[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]17[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]Washington State[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]18[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]San Diego[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]19[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]Pittsburgh[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]20[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]Creighton[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]20[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]Western Kentucky[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]22[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]Oregon [/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]23[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]Stanford[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]24[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]Marquette[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]25[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]Missouri[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]1 through 14 remained unchanged although Wisconsin DID pick up an additional first place vote from Kentucky. 15 through 25 saw some maneuvering and is starting to look like a home for the 2nd tier from the PAC-12 again, but not as crowded as some years when you would have 6 to 7 teams from the conference slotted in the back half of the poll.
The big news around the country comes from the forementioned PAC-12 and once again concerns the defending national champs. After getting drummed out in Tucson last weekend, the volleyball team from The Farm played their rivalry match up with the dreaded Bears from UC@WokeBerkley on a Friday night. California was picked 11th in the pre-season PAC-12 rankings and, much like Arizona, hadn’t won a match this season resting at a meager 0-6. However, Stanford sans McClure & Campbell and only dressing eight due to injuries and COVID, turned out to be the chicken soup necessary for the Golden Bears to break into the victory column. It went 5, but Cal prevailed on Friday night in Berkley 3-2. Their first victory in 9 years over the Color Cardinal. The second match on Sunday at Palo Alto resulted in a dominant Stanford sweep. McClure was back for this match, and while her stats were pedestrian, Kendall Kipp, the heir apparent to Kathryn Plummer, had an outstanding match with 15 kills on .571 hitting and the Cardinal offense improved from .192 to .378 between the two matches. The 1-3 record compiled over the first two weekends against the bottom tier of the league didn’t put the Color Cardinal out of the top 25 for the first time. They are still clinging to the poll at 23. I personally don’t see how someone ranks them, but the AVCA poll has a lot of inertia associated with it, particularly with the blue blood programs. In other PAC-12 action, Utah beat USC twice, but it took 5 sets to prevail in the second match of the weekend. Washington split with UCLA 3-0 and 2-3 and remained at 10. The Bruins actually moved up three spots to 15. Washington State beat the Buffalos from Boulder 3-0 and 3-1 and climbed from 22 to 17. And Oregon crushed Arizona in straights in which only one set out of six was competitive, to make their entry into the top 25 at 22.
In the SEC, Florida and Kentucky held serve, but 16th ranked Missouri lost twice to unranked Tennessee, with the Tigers succumbing in the second match of the weekend in straight sets. Missouri drops to the final slot at 25. The ACC started their sparse non-conference play, the first of two weeks before entering the conference slate. Two of the four teams in the rankings elected to play no non-conference games (Georgia Tech and Notre Dame), Louisville was off after beating Dayton in an exhibition match last weekend and doesn't play again until March 5th in conference, and Pittsburg beat Villanova from the Big East 3-0 and also won’t play again until March 5th in conference. The Yellow Jackets, by not playing, still managed to move up one to 16 while the other three ACC teams stayed put. The Big 12 starts their bastardized non‑conference ONLY spring schedule on February 25th. Realistically Baylor and Texas are the only plausible teams from the conference with a chance of making the tournament (Texas has actually already garnered the automatic bid). Kansas State finished third at 10-6 in the fall, but play just 6 non-conference matches this spring. One IS against Creighton, but two are against Division II Wayne State. Not enough substance to build a resume for an at-large tournament bid particularly in this COVID year with a truncated number of at-large positions.
In the Big East, Marquette and Creighton DID NOT play this past weekend (despite what I erroneously wrote last week), but will play THIS COMING weekend in Milwaukee. BYU and San Diego both handled their business in West Coast Conference play. BYU beat Gonzaga twice 3-1, 3-0 and remain stuck at 12 and San Diego defeated Portland twice also 3-1, 3-0 to move up two positions to 18. And Western Kentucky had their Conference USA matches with Old Dominion postponed, but climbed up into a tie with Creighton at 20.
In B1G action, the spotlight matches over the weekend involved Minnesota and Penn State with the Golden Rodents beating the Cultists twice, 3-1 in which 3 of the 4 sets went deuce or extras (all won by the Gophers) and 3-2 in which none of the sets were particularly close. With the two close losses Penn State stayed at 8. More on the Rodents later. Michigan lost twice to Purdue in the Wolverines first action of the season 3-1 and 3-1. Purdue remains at 11 while Michigan drops out to the top of the RV line. Ohio State beat Iowa twice to run their record to 6-0 but still remain below the RV line, right behind Michigan. Wisconsin dispatched Indiana 3-0 and 3-0 but two of the sets in the second match went deuce or over. The Ferocious Weasels remain the top dog in the land accumulating even more first place votes.
The Golden Rodents come to Lincoln chalk full of All-Americans and highly ranked freshman. They have also been battle tested in this young season after beating Purdue and Penn State. Samedy is a force at opposite and has multiple 20 kill matches this season. The newcomer Taylor Landfair at one outside has struggled at times hitting percentagewise, but is an outstanding athlete and in the last match against Penn State had 22 kills on .340 hitting. Schaffmaster is the 6’03” setter who presents unique problems with her height and her willingness to attack on the 2nd touch, but also is undergoing some understandable growing pains. An odd stat prior to the Penn State matches was that Schaffmaster was averaging only one less attack PER MATCH than her 1st team All-American middle Regan Pittman. She sets the pins heavy, calls her own number quite a bit, but often neglects the middles. Some of it is that her pins are dynamic, some of it is Minnesota is not a premier passing team so setting the middles consistently is more difficult, and some, I’m sure, is inexperience.
After watching snippets of the second Penn State – Minnesota match, it is apparent that the Huskers are going to have to take their game up a notch. Both the Huskers and Gophers struggle with passing at times, but Nebraska should have an advantage at the service line. Minnesota has better pins, Nebraska has better middles. Hames has a slight edge at the setter (if Schaffmaster was 5’10” it wouldn’t be a competition), but Minnesota has CC McGraw at libero, a first team B1G All-Conference and honorable mention All-American performer last year. Nebraska doesn’t. It will be interesting if the brain trust comes up with a game plan to contain Samedy or Landfair a bit. [/SIZE]If Nebraska serves nails and the Rodents spend much of the two matches out of system, I think the Huskers split. If Samedy, Landfair, and Rollins can tee off all night (and all afternoon), it will be a rough weekend for the Big Red. Having said that, by the time the Tournament comes around, the Huskers will be a tougher out as Minnesota tends to peak a bit early most seasons.
The Fightin’ Schwartezbachs get the split with the Golden Rodents at home before they take their show on the road to Madison to face Mount Rettke.
