Month: August 2021

The Gophs had no trouble sweeping TCU, 25-7, 25-19 and 25-16. To my eye, less a case of the Gophs playing better than they had Friday night, and more the case of TCU being not nearly as good as Baylor.

Once again, the Gopher offense was “pin-heavy.” Samedy had 12 kills and Wenaas and Landfair had 11 each (nice balance there). The Middles were again Husemann and Myers; I think they had 4 kills between them. For comparison, Wisconsin’s Middles Roettke and Hart racked up 28 kills in their 4-set win over Baylor.

It wasn’t as though Shaffmaster wasn’t trying to set her Middles. On the rare occasions when she got a perfect pass (another discouraging comparison: at one point during the Wisconsin/Baylor match, I counted 12 straight perfect passes to Badger setter HiIley) Shaffmaster tried quick-sets to Husemann or Myers, but their timing was off more than it was on. To compensate, the Gophers continued to set Samedy and Wenaas from the back-row, again with some success.

NO DEFENSIVE SPECIALIST

Veteran D.S. Rachel Kilkelly was “unavailable,” presumably meaning injured or ill. The logical Plan B would have been to use Freshman Libero/D.S. Skylar Gray (out of Maple Grove H.S.). Or if Gray was also “unavailable,” perhaps filling in with Freshman Outside Hitters Natalie Glenn or Lauren Crowl; a perfect chance to get some game-action for one of these Freshmen.

But instead, the Gophers played without a D.S., leaving Left-Side Hitter Taylor Landfair to play all 6 rotations. On Friday night, Baylor servers relentlessly targeted Landfair when they could – she had more receives than McGraw, Kilkelly and Samedy combined. Through 2 matches, Landfair has been responsible for all 3 of the Gophers’ receiving errors. But that’s 3 shanked receives out of 51 attempts – certainly not great, but also not horrible for a young, 6-5 Hitter.

Playing a match without a D.S. is unusual. It could be that Gray, Glenn and Crowl were all “unavailable” (did KilKelly and the 3 Freshmen break a team rule?), but my guess is that Coach McCutcheon recognizes that future opponent’s servers are going to target Landfair relentlessly, and she needs the reps. Stay tuned.

SCHOLARSHIP LIMIT DRIVING TRANSFERS?

Friday night, broadcaster Paul Sunderland (Sunderland was the play-by play guy for the Olympics – not the jackass color-guy that I hated) mentioned that Adanna Rollins, who would have been a senior for the Gophers this season, loved the Gophers but had transferred to Penn State because Penn State had guaranteed her two more years of scholarships – implying that Coach McCutcheon had not matched Penn State’s offer.

Assuming that Sunderland’s info is correct, this situation raises several issues:

• Open transfer rules, which allow a player to transfer at any time, without penalty, create a “wild-west,” anything goes atmosphere. (The Gophers have benefitted from the open rules with Katy Myers, currently, and Kylie Miller in 2019.)
• Complicated by the “Covid-Bonus-Year” of eligibility. Rollins played 3 years for the Gophers and under normal circumstances, would have run out of eligibility at the end of this year, regardless, making Penn State’s offer impossible. But the 2020 season, played in the Spring of 2021, doesn’t count against anyone’s eligibility.
• Our current roster includes three players, Airi Miyabe, Katie Myers, and Steph Samedy, using their 5^th, and unplanned-for year of eligibility. I can’t imagine Coach McCutcheon would have needed to think too hard when Samedy asked for another year’s scholarship, but I don’t know for sure if Miyabe and Myers, both in Graduate School, are on scholarship. (It is not unheard-of for student-athletes to play D-1 sports without being on scholarship.)
• And what about Regan Pittman? Pittman, like Samedy, Miyabe and Myers, used her 4^th, but not final, year of eligibility last Spring. Besides these 3 Gophs, players all over the country (e.g., Wisconsin’s Dana Roettke and Baylor’s Pressley) are taking advantage of their “bonus year.” But not Pittman, who as far as I know, isn’t playing anywhere.
• Back to Rollins: Did McCutcheon not guarantee her a scholarship for next year because he declines on principle to make such offers to anyone? Was it because he thought we didn’t need Rollins? Or could it be because he didn’t have any scholarships left due to commitments made to current high school players the Gophers are recruiting for next year?
• CC McGraw (along with Bayley McMenimen), the only true senior on this team, has already expressed her intentions to play again next year.
• This must be driving coaches crazy.

NEXT UP: #1 RANKED TEXAS

At the Pav on Wednesday (BTN)

Our Gophers lost their season opener in a VERY close match, to a VERY good team. I say very close because 10^th ranked (but probably under-ranked) Baylor won the 1st set 26-24, the Gophs dominated the 2^nd set 25-16, Baylor dominated the 3^rd set 25-17, and Baylor took the 4^th set 28-26. Two of the 3 sets that Baylor won were in overtime, and the total score for the match was Baylor 95, Gophers 92.

HIGHLIGHTS:                                                                                                                                                                        * Jenna Wennas, in her debut as a left-side hitter, had 12 kills, 9 digs, two blocks, and two aces. It does not appear that the Gophers are going to miss Adanna Rollins. (I’ll have more to say about Rollins and her decision to transfer in a future post.) * C.C. McGraw appeared back at her performance level of two years ago; and     * Steph Samedy, the reigning Big Ten Player of the Year does not appear to have lost a thing, racking up 21 kills, 18 digs, and 2 blocks.

LOWLIGHTS:                                                                                           * Last season (last Spring) the Gophers seemed, at least early in the season, to have an extra gear that kicked in when sets or matches were tight. But in the decisive 4^th set against Baylor, the Gophs led 18-15, 21-18, and 24-20, before blowing 5 set points.  A good team plays a lot of close sets; a great team wins the close ones.                                                           * The Gophers generated almost zero offense from their Middle Hitters (dare I call them Hitters?). Outside hitters Samedy, Wenaas and Landfair recorded 43 kills on 126 swings; while our Middles, Myers, Husemann and Rubright recorded 8 kills on 19 swings. And the 8 kills on 19 swings stat is misleading; I don’t have hard data, but my perception, watching on TV, was that more than half of the kills and more than half of the swings came on overpasses. In other words, Baylor set our Middles more often than Shaffmaster did. The Gophers compensate for their lack of a middle-attack by repeatedly setting Samedy and Wenaas out of the back-row – with some success. But the Gophers are not going to beat good teams without some offense from our Middles.                                       * Our serve-receive, like last year, was mediocre. I assume Shaffmaster is willing to set our Middles when she gets a perfect pass, but middle-sets are tough when she is running all over the court to get the ball.                                                                                                                        * Landfair played okay, but seemed a little tentative to me, like she was early last season. I don’t expect Landfair to dominate every set like Samedy does, or like Samedy’s Baylor-counterpart Pressley. But Landfair was the tallest and strongest Outside hitter in that match – and will be in almost every match. She has the tools to dominate a set, and we saw her do that last Spring, especially toward the end of the season. We need her to do that consistently.

WHAT DID WE LEARN?                                                             * We learned that this is a good team, certainly a team with at least Sweet-16 talent.                                                             * We learned that this team has a long way to go to become the Big Ten and NCAA Champions we want them to be.                                                                            * We also learned, as predicted, that Jen Wenaas is our 3^rd Outside Hitter, and a pretty good one – maybe even better as she gains confidence.                              * We did not learn where our middle offense is going to come from, or even who our Middle Hitters are. Coach McCutcheon started Myers and Husemann, and later subbed-in Rubright (who had been injured). Freshman Middle Anna Wolf did not see action.                    * Freshman Outside Hitter Natalie Glenn did see action, but only as a server, not as a hitter.

TCU TONIGHT, AGAIN AT MADISON (BTN)

The pre-conference schedule for our 7^th-ranked Gophers is intimidating, beginning with #10 ranked Baylor (I’m guessing Baylor is actually under-rated) THIS FRIDAY, Aug 27 (ESPNU), and TCU on Aug 28 (BTN), both at Madison; #1 ranked Texas on Sept 1 here at the Pav, #6 ranked Florida at Gainesville on Sept 5, #21 ranked Stanford on Sept 10, and #14 ranked Oregon on Sept 14, both at Eugene.

Whew! We start with six matches in 15 days, 5 of them vs teams ranked in the top 21. Only one here at the Pav, 3 at neutral sites, and 2 at the home of a nationally ranked opponent.  Followed by home matches vs St. Thomas, in their D-1 debut season on Sept 16 and Iowa State on Sept 18.

And then the 20-match Big Ten season opening at the Pav vs Michigan on Sept 24. (Seven Big Ten Teams, including our Gophers, are ranked among the top 12 teams in the country.)

BTW: all of this is available on the official Gopher V-Ball website at https://gophersports.com/sports/womens-volleyball.

THE GREATEST DRAMA IN SPORTS

Used-car salesman Red McCombs once described pre-season NFL games as “The Greatest Drama in Sports.” His reference, apparently, was to the fact that NFL teams start with 90-man rosters, which have to be cut down to 45-man rosters by the beginning of the real season, creating a variety of individual competitions, and the pre-season games, along with 6 times as many practices represent a portion of that competition.

Can you imagine paying $400 per ticket per game to watch these two most recent disasters? Tens of thousands of Minnesotans did; or at least the company they work for or buy from did – and wrote each $400 off against their taxes.

That said, I do look forward to how the Gopher V-Ball lineups shapes up each year, and have occasionally attended their open-to-the-public (for less than $400) inter-squad scrimmages. I did not make it this year, but readers G.C. and D.S. did, and forwarded their observations. But first, let’s examine what we know about the Gopher roster.

• SETTER: Returning from last spring’s starting lineup are starting setter Melani Shaffmaster and back-up Bayley McMenimen. I see no new setters on the roster, so I assume Shaffmaster and McMenimen will continue in these roles. As previously blogged, I felt that the Gophers setting was the weakest part of the team last year; Shaffmaster needs to play a lot better this fall if the Gophers hope to improve on last spring.

• LIBERO/DS: Also returning from last spring’s lineup are starting Libero CC McGraw (reportedly healthy this year) and starting D.S. Rachel Kilkelly. This year’s roster also includes freshman Skylar Gray out of Maple Grove. (At 5-10, Gray was an outstanding left-side hitter at Maple Grove, but will apparently focus on the back row for the Gophers.) I assume Gray will spend this season on the bench watching McGraw and Kilkelly play, but we’ll see.

• MIDDLES: Outstanding Middle Regan Pittman postponed her senior season from the fall of 2020 to the spring of 2021 even though she had graduated a year earlier, but she has apparently decided not to take advantage of her covid-bonus year of eligibility. (I can’t find any news about her. Does anyone know where she is or what she is doing?) So that leaves the middle positions up in the air.

6-5 Junior Shea Rubright was not a starter at the beginning of last season, but came on strong as the season progressed, and seems like a favorite for one of the two middles – but reader D.S. reports that Rubright did not play in Saturday’s scrimmage; in attendance but not dressed, apparently injured.

The other options appear to be fifth-yr senior Katy Myers, a determined blocker who opened last season as a starter, but who was not effective on offense; Ellie Huseman, a 6-5 junior out of Eagan, who has seen spot duty her first two seasons, but has yet to establish herself; and Anna Wolf, a 6-4 freshman out of River Falls. Reader D.S. reports that Wolf is raw, but has a lot of potential.

• OUTSIDE HITTERS: Last spring’s Big Ten Player of the Year Steff Samedy is returning to take advantage of her covid-bonus year, so Samedy, surely one of the top players in the country, is a lock for one outside position. And powerful 6-5 sophomore Taylor Landfair is a lock as another. But senior Adanna Rollins transferred to Penn State, leaving the Gophers third outside hitter position up for grabs.

Reader G.C. was very impressed with freshman Natalie Glenn. Glenn is only 5-10, but very athletic with a major vertical. But Glenn is a left-handed “opposite,” presumably recruited as Samedy’s replacement. (It seems likely that Glenn was expecting, and the Gophers were expecting, Samedy to be gone by the time Glenn got here.) Samedy would be a fantastic left-side hitter if Coach MuCutcheon wanted to move her there to make room for Glenn, but that seems unlikely. More likely, Glenn will spend most of her freshman year on the bench. (Not the worst thing in the world.)

That would narrow the competition for the third outside hitter position down to super-sub and bonus-year senior Airi Myabe, and sophomore Jenna Wenaas, who spent her freshman year on the bench. I love Miyabe, but Wenaas came in very highly rated (#3 in the country), so even though we haven’t really seen Wenaas play front row, I guessing Wenaas will be our third starting outside hitter.

TWO PERSONAL NOTES:

• The reason that Maureen and I were unable to attend Sat’s scrimmage was because we were celebrating our 50^th wedding anniversary.
• Oldest grandchild Leah, an incoming 8^th grader, just made Washburn’s freshman V-Ball team. GO LEAH!