Author: jktrpp

I predicted weeks ago (but not 48 hours ago, when I was feeling much less confident) that the Gophs would whip Badger butt at the Pav, and they did 25-21, 25-16, 29-27. If you had told me 3 days ago that the Gophs would win 1 and lose 1 this weekend, Wisconsin at the Pav is definitely the win I would have preferred.

SET 1: The Gophs, who have not been a great first set team in recent memory, fell behind briefly mid-set at 13-16, but quickly tied it up, They traded points to 19-19, and then, behind Wooker, took control.  In SET 2: From 7-7, the Gophs dominated, taking leads of 12-7, 17-11, and 23-15 before closing it out.

SET 3: After ties at 4-4 & 11-11, the Badgers pulled ahead 13-16, & 15-20, and a 3-set sweep looked unlikely. Then, behind Landfair, Shaffmaster and Booth, the Gophs scrapped their way back to a 22-22 tie. The Gophs fought off 4 Badger set points before earning their first match point opportunity at 28-27. Landfair appeared to pound one down for match point, but the Badgers challenged, claiming  that they had a pancake hand under the ball. (This was a nothing-to-lose challenge.) They won the challenge, returning the score to 28-27. Then, during a wild, out-of-system challenge, Shaffmaster got the match-point kill.

I think it would be worth while to compare the Gophers performance in tonight’s sweep over the Badgers (total score 78-73), to Friday’s night sweep-loss to the Boilermakers (total score 71-82). Must have been a lot different, right? Actually, not so much.

SIMILARITIES:

• Tonight, the Gopher offense was almost entirely dependent on the left-side hitters. I had Landfair (16), Wooker (8) and Wenaas (4) with 28 of the Gophs 38 total kills, including 1 back-row kill by Landfair & 1 right-side kill each by Wenaas and Wooker, i.e., 74%. – vs 75% on Friday, both numbers higher than we want. (For comparison, the Badgers got 38% of their kills from the Left-side and major contributions from their Middles and back-row attacks.)
• And note that Wenaas once again got most (4 of 5) of her kills from the Left-side, despite the fact that she only plays Left-side for 1 half-rotation, vs 5 half-rotations on the Right-side. Booth added 1 slide-kill from the Right-side. The Gophers need to find some way to generate offense from the Right-side.
• We got a measly 5 kills from our Middles tonight, vs 4 on Friday.
• Wisconsin, like Purdue, dinked us to death. (That’s a personal observation; I don’t have stats to back it up.)
• We out-blocked the Badgers 11 to 5 (Husemann the leader here) despite the Badgers having more highly regarded Middles — but we actually out-blocked the Boilermakers 9-7 while getting swept on Friday.
• Wisconsin served aggressively, trying to force us out of system (as did Purdue), and we continued to struggle with our serve-receive, forcing Shaffmaster to bump-set at least half the time. (see below)

DIIFERENCES:

• We served better, i.e., more aggressively, without an increase in service errors. Tonight, I had us with 6 aces vs 5 service errors., whereas I had us with 1 ace vs 5 service errors against Purdue. I felt Kilkelly served better tonight.
• Wisconsin was less successful with their aggressive serving, hurting themselves with too many service errors (though Purdue made a lot too).
• Two of Friday night’s lost sets were 2-pointers; the Gophers just unable to come up with the big play when the set was on the line. Tonight, Landfair and Shaffmaster stepped up.
• I felt like Landfair was more willing to attack mediocre sets tonight than she has been. I hope that continues.

It might be that Purdue is a much better team than the Gophers, who are in turn much better than the Badgers. Or it might be that all 3 teams play better with a home crowd pumping them up. (My gut feeling is that our Gophers are better than the Badgers or the Boilermakers, but we’ll have to see as the season plays out.

Tonight I started keeping a new stat. All night, I tried to “score” the Gopher serve-receiving as “good,” i.e. easily accessible to Shaffmaster, “mediocre,” i.e, available for Shaffmaster to bump-set or McGraw to set, or “failed,” i.e., either shanked out of play, an overpass, or requiring a desperate save.

I tallied 17 “good” receives, 16 “mediocre” receives, and 6 “failed” receives. It’s hard to say what these stats means because I don’t have anything to compare them to; I haven’t seen anything like this published, for the Gophers or anyone else: they represent my entirely subjective opinions; even I have never tried to do this before; and I obviously missed a bunch, because Wisconsin served in-bounds more than 39 times. . But my gut feeling is that these are not good numbers. I feel that a championship team needs to earn “good” ratings on at least 50% of their receives, even against an aggressive serving team.

Lastly, a word about our two freshmen:

• McKenna Wucherer (The WOOKER) has now played a total of 4 college matches, and has looked every bit the #1 recruit in the country in each of them (9 kills and 4 blocks tonight). She’s a stud.
• Carter Booth has dominated 3 matches (out of 10), and looked like a freshman in the other 7. I like her a lot. I think she is going to be really good, The Gophers need her to be really good.

NEXT UP: Northwestern at the Pav, Wed, 8:00 (BTN?)

Purdue, now 10 & 1, is a good team. But not so good that they should sweep the Gophers in straight sets; we won one set at Texas! After the Gophers usual slow set 1, sets 2 & 3 were close, 18-25, 23-25, 30-32. Obviously there were opportunities to win sets 2 & 3, but the Gophers couldn’t get it done. And the problems that plagued the Gophers tonight were problems we’ve seen earlier.

Especially serve-receive, which was poor most of the night. Purdue had more service errors than the Gophs, because Purdue was serving aggressively all night, and we had a ton of playable, but just-barely, serve-receives. The first set, for example, was tied 11-11; Purdue won the next point, and then the Gophers made poor receives on the next 3 serves, leading to an 11-15 deficit from which the Gophs never recovered. Wucherer played back-row for the first time tonight, but it didn’t help; if anything, there was miscommunication between Wucherer and Wenaas. And meanwhile, our Gophs don’t have even one killer-server who can put opponents on their heels. Also (I don’t have a stat for this, but) it seemed to me that the Gophers were even-up, or even a bit better than Purdue, when in-system, and Purdue dominated the out-of-system points.

We were also out-dinked again. 5-1 teams are generally stronger when their setter is in the back-row, but Shaffmaster is a decent blocker (she had 2 in 3 sets tonight). We had more trouble when Wenaas (she also had 2 blocks) was blocking Right-side and Shaffmaster had responsibility for dinks. Purdue was constantly dinking over Wenaas. Shaffmaster had 2 or 3 beautiful digs, but there were a bunch she didn’t get.

And we were again over-reliant on our left-side hitters. I had Landfair with her usual 15 kills (in 3 sets), and Wucherer with 13. But Wenaas was named pre-season All Big Ten based on her performance last year as a Left-side hitter, and she started strong there while Wucherer was injured; yet so far (in 3 matches), she has not demonstrated the ability to produce from the Right-side.

We also didn’t get much from our Middles. Booth had the best night, with 3 kills and 3 blocks; Gros had opportunities but didn’t score; and Husemann made a couple of plays early then disappeared. Coach McCutcheon played 3 Middles tonight, in each set I think – which is hard to do. I would hope that I could understand what he was doing if the match had been at the Pav, but watching on TV, where they don’t show you the subbing, I got confused. Whatever the system, it left the Gophers vulnerable in set 3 when we ran out of subs and were forced to play Booth (likely the least capable back-row player of the 16 rostered players) back there.

So the Gophers are 5 & 4 and facing the Badgers at the Pav on Sunday. I actually think the Gophs will get their act together and beat the Sconies, but if they don’t, they’ll be a 5 & 5 team. Not an encouraging start for a team with championship ambitions! Then again, unbeaten and #9 ranked Penn State got swept by unranked Indiana tonight, so who knows?

— ON THE EVE OF THE BIG TEN SEASON

STRENGTHS:

• Outside hitting. An old friend of mine, and an accomplished VB coach, always says that “At the end of the day, a VB team is as good, no better, no worse, than their Left-side Hitters.”  The rationale behind this is that your Left-side Hitters get the most sets, and therefor are the workhorses of your offense. They also handle a lot of serve-receives. I haven’t seen every team in the country, but I am confident the Gophers have the best group of Outside Hitters in the country. So if my friend’s theory is correct, the 2020 Gophers should be a Final Four Team.
• Taylor Landfair, at 6-5 and the #1 recruit in the class of ’20, might be the most powerful Left-side Hitter in the country. Landfair has the height and elevation to go over double blocks, and the power to go through them. (Healthy so far this season (she often rides a stationary bike during time outs, suggesting she has some on-going health issues), Landfair has already demonstrated effectiveness from the right-side and the back row, and she’s the most proficient dinker on the team, making her a 4-way threat.

Hitting back-row means she is playing 6 rotations, and playing 6 rotations requires her involvement in service-receive. She wasn’t asked to play back-row or receive serves during her freshman season, and she didn’t play last year for health-related reasons, so this is the first time we’ve had the opportunity to see her service-receive. And as the #1 hitter on the team, she is an obvious target for opposing servers seeking to wear her down, and several teams have made a real effort to attack her with serves. (I certainly would if I was coaching against the Gophs.) So far she is holding up pretty well. She does lead the team in receiving errors (for the reasons mentioned above), but she is holding better than I would have anticipated. But McCutcheon does has options available, so Landfair might not continue to play as much back-row as she has been.

Landfair ‘s other weakness is that she needs, or thinks she needs, a perfect set; and seems tentative, too tentative for my taste, hitting a less-than-perfect set. (If she played in the Geezer-League I play in, she would never get a swing in.) One of the greatest things about the now-graduated Steph Samedy, is that she could score off a perfect set – but also off a mediocre set. I hope, that as her confidence grows, Landfair will become more like Samedy in this respect..

Although Landfair enrolled at MN in January of 2020, and will likely earn a degree before we know it, and is starting her 3^rd season as the Gopher’s #1 Left-side Hitter, she actually has 3 more seasons of collegiate eligibility! How is that possible? Her first season, pushed by covid to the Spring of ’21, didn’t count (not for Landfair or anyone else), and although she played a matches early last year, her health problems cost her most of the season, for which she has already been awarded a “red-shirt.” In the age of the “transfer portal,” there is no guarantee that Landfair or anyone else sticks around; but if she does, and if she stays healthy, she is likely to become an all-time Gopher Great.  I also would not be surprised to see her on the 2028 Olympic Team.

• Jenna Wenaas, the #3 recruit in the class of ’20, second-team All Big Ten in ‘21, and a pre-season pick for All Big Ten in ‘22, lacks Landfair’s height and elevation, but is a very good hitter, a decent blocker, and, in my opinion, challenges Libero McGraw as the best serve-receiver/digger/all-around passer, making her possibly the best all-around volleyball player on this team.

In her first season with the Gophers, in the 2020 season (played in the Spring of 2021) Wenaas served as a back-up to multiple positions, getting most of her playing time at D.S. when Kilkelly was promoted to Libero during McGraw’s health issues. And in her 2^nd season, in Landfair’s absence, she became the Gophers best Left-side Hitter. Now, with the departure of Steph Samedy and Landfair back, and just now, in the last two matches, with the recovered health of Freshman Wucherer, Wenaas has become our starting Opposite (Right-side Hitter).

This is an adjustment, and Wenaas is not yet getting a ton of kills from the Right-side (against Wash St., she had 4 kills from the Left-side vs only 3 from the Right-side, despite 3 times as many opportunities from the Right) – she’s not yet a Samedy-like Opposite. But she’s a strong blocker and her Right-side Hitting will improve the more she plays there.

At the start of this season, Wenaas debuted her jump-serve (the only one on the team so far). She didn’t much success with it and recently discontinued jump-serving. It will be interesting to see if Wenaas’s jump-serve returns.

• McKenna Wucherer (pronounced Wooker) was, like Landfair before her, the #1 recruit, nationally, in the class of ’22. I got to watch her play 3 exhibition matches last Spring (she dominated in one of them), but then, frustratingly for fans (and surely for McKenna) she was on the bench with a boot on her foot for this fall’s inter-squad scrimmage, and the first 6 matches of the season.

As a result, we haven’t really gotten to see enough of her work to fully appreciate what she can do. But it seems very likely, even from the small sample, that McKenna is going to be an impact player. She’s a freshman, and freshmen can struggle; Landfair did at the beginning of her freshman season, and we’ve already seen Booth struggle. But McKenna had 28 kills, at a .368 clip in her first 2 matches (vs Pepperdine & Wash St.). She may stumble along the way, but she’s certain to become a force as the season progresses.

(Interestingly, there are 2 other players on the team that look a lot like McKenna. One is her sister Miranda. The presence of two Wooker girls on the roster is why I generally refer to McKenna by her first name. Miranda is a grad-transfer Setter, who previously played for Northern Kentucky, where she was first-team All Horizen League and led the “The Norse” to their first ever D1 NCAA Tournament. At 5-9, Miranda is not likely to set in the 5-1 system the Gophers use, but she is a credible back-up at D.S. and, if needed, could set in a 6-2 system. The other look-alike is Jenna Wenaas. I’m not saying I can’t tell Jenna and McKenna apart, but they’re both 6-1, with similar body-types, blonde hair approximately the same length, they wear the numbers 2 & 3 respectively,  and have similar skill sets. I haven’t yet tried to watch them on BTN+, but it could be a challenge telling them apart there. )

• And the Gophers have great depth at Outside Hitter, even without the now graduated Airy Miyabe. Filling in while we waited for McKenna to get healthy, were true freshman Julia Hanson (the #1 recruit from the State of MN), and redshirt freshman Lauren Crowl, a natural Opposite. Both can play.

• Another strength is our 5^th-year senior Libero C.C. McGraw, taking advantage of her covid-bonus year. McGraw has had some health problems along the way, but she stepped into the role of starting Libero from her first match as a freshman and has gotten better each year, honored as first-team All Big Ten last year, and a pre-season All Big Ten pick this year. Of particular interest is that McGraw’s coordination with Setter Shaffmaster, in their 3^rd season playing together, has gotten stronger.

SOLID BUT NOT YET PROVEN STRENGTHS:

• Melani Shaffmaster. This will be Shaffmaster’s 3^rd season as THE Gopher Setter. She again has had no rivals, so love her or hate her, Shaffmaster is our Setter, Fortunately, she has gotten better each year, and this improvement should continue. An overall contributer, Shaffmaster leads the team in assists, of course, but also in service aces, ranks 2^nd behind McGraw in digs, 3^rd behind Husemann and Booth in blocks, and has racked-up .81 kills per set. These are impressive numbers!

But a Setter’s #1 role is to set. Shaffmaster might grow into being a good enough pure setter to carry this team a long way – but I don’t think she’s there yet. (Some night’s better than others.) I don’t know if she has gotten quicker, on a stop-watch, but with growing experience and confidence, she is “getting to” more 2^nd touches than she did during her 1^st 2 seasons.

At 6-3, Shaffmaster is at a disadvantage, compared to shorter Setters, at getting underneath a ball, and this forces her to bump-set a high percentage of her sets. She is really good at bump-setting. But bump-sets eliminate the opportunity for deception; the opposing defenses know exactly where the ball is going – and have time to set-up their best possible defense.

Shaffmaster racked up a lot of back-set assists her first two seasons – setting Steph Samedy. But Samedy graduated, and through 8 matches, Shaffmaster and her Right-side Hitters (or Middle-sliders) have struggled to establish much of a threat. Some of this is the hitters, they’re not Samedy – but some of it is Shaffmaster.  Shaffmaster would be a better Setter, of course, if she got better passes. It’s not her fault that she is forced to cover 500 to 600 sq ft of court. This is an important “needs improvement” area for Shaffmaster’s teammates. If they pass better, she’ll set better.

There is, however, one thing Shaffmaster can do. I mentioned that she has racked-up .81 kills per set through the non-conference season. I can’t find national stats on kills-by-setter, but .81 is a strong number. But I’d like to see it even higher. It won’t work every time, and her percentage of success isn’t likely to increase, but she could take more swings. The threat of her attacking gives opposing defenses another thing to worry about, which gives her hitters more opportunity.

MAYBE A WEAKNESS, HOPEFULLY A STRENGTH:

• Our Middles: Our Middles were disappointing last year. By the end of the season, Ellie Husemann emerged as our most reliably-adequate Middle, outplaying her more-highly recruited rival Rubright. Husemann returns for her senior year, and has again, in early play been our most consistent Middle – though far from dominant.

Katie Myers graduated and Shea Rubright transferred-out, so help at Middle will depend on Freshman Carter Booth, Sophomore transfer-in Arcia Davis, or Grad-Transfer-in Naya Gros. Davis, at 5-11, despite some success in her freshman year at Ohio State (she led the highly regarded Buckeyes in blocking) seems too short to be the answer. There must be some reason she’s on the Gopher roster as a Middle, but I can’t explain it.

Gros, at 6-3, led Michigan State in blocks in each of the last 4 seasons (18^th nationally last yr) and can definitely play. I would not be shocked to see her on the floor whenever Husemann or Booth struggle. But she has been inconsistent during the non-conference schedule, and I suspect she is our #3 Middle, at least for now.  

Booth, the #14rated recruit is exciting! At 6-7 and powerfully built, she has the potential to dominate, and has demonstrated already with 18 kills and 18 blocks in the Gophers first 3 matches in Texas, and recently added 12 kills against Washington St. So she might be exactly what this team needs; and she might well be the best Middle in Gopher history before her career is over.

But Booth is a true freshman, who struggled against Oregon and Stanford, eventually getting benched. She  was not productive on her “slide” attempts, nor synched with Shafmaster on her “quicks-hits.” An even larger problem was her inability to “close” the double block against outside hitters. Stanford, especially, exploited this weakness. Due to my temporary disability, I was sitting courtside, east-side, in the back-left corner. In sets 1 & 3, the Gophs defending my side, and Booth at Middle, Stanford set ball-after-ball to their left-side hitter, and their left-side hitter pounded ball-after-ball right at me – through the wide gap between our right-side blocker and Booth, who was consistently late getting there.

Booth’s size is a tremendous advantage, she can literally block without jumping. But she can’t block when she gets there late – and she’s not the quickest player on the floor. (To be fair, expecting a Middle to close the block on either post is one of the most demanding expectations in volleyball. I don’t know how much quicker Booth can get, but I am certain that, over-time, her anticipation (i.e., guessing where the set is going) will improve as she gets more comfortable with elite D1 V-ball. Let’s hope she learns fast; we already saw a tremendous improvement in her offense against Washington St. Booth is also a weak passer, but you expect that from a 6-7 Middle. Regan Pittman, a great passer at 6-5, was the exception to the rule.

ADEQUATE:

• Defensive Specialist (DS) has the lowest impact, of any position, on the outcome of a match. There might be an occasional match where especially strong or weak play by a D.S determines the outcome, but not often. Rachael Kilkelly fits this trend, she is rarely brilliant or horrible.

WEAKNESS:

• The glaring weakness of this team, at least through the non-conference schedule, seems to be Serve and Serve Receive. It’s great to have a big, strong front line with the potential to dominate the net, but that isn’t enough to beat good teams if you get out-served and out-received night after night. Oddly, the over-all stats do not support this assessment; the season totals to date show that the Gophs have served more aces than their collective opponents, and had fewer service-errors and fewer service-receive errors.

 But it doesn’t feel that way, at least in part because aces, service-errors and receiving errors don’t tell the whole story – probably not even half the story. A meaningful statistic would be, regardless of aces, service-errors and receiving errors, what percentage of a team, or individual’s serves (or receives) result in: a) a perfect, “in-system,” pass to the setter, b) a mediocre pass that the setter can barely reach to set, c) a pass that the setter cannot reach to set, or d) an overpass (i.e. over the net to the opponent).

I don’t have access to such stats, for team or individuals, and I’m not sure that Coach McCutcheon has them. But it certainly felt, in the losses to Stanford and Pepperdine, that Gopher serves yielded more of type “a” than type “b,” and Gopher receives were more type “b”  than type “a.”

The difference between “a” & “b” is more important than it might sound. When Shaffmaster has to run 10 or 15 ft to reach the set, she invariably bump-sets – to an Outside Hitter. It happens that Shaffmaster is very skilled at bump-setting to an Outside Hitter. The problem is that this gives everyone on the other side of the net a 3 second notice of where the set is going, and all 6 players are perfectly positioned to defend it.

Our brilliant hitters sometimes score kills despite the opponents positional advantage, but it’s a lot harder, often turning great hitters into mediocre hitters. Meanwhile, the Stanford and Pepperdine Setters were getting a steady diet of perfect passes, giving them multiple options – which is why our Middles, especially Booth, never arrived in time to “close the double block,” turning mediocre hitters into great hitters. My theory, is that for the Gophers to beat elite teams, they will need to both:

• Be aggressive on every serve – without making a ton of service errors. So far, Shaffmaster and McGraw are the only ones performing at this level); and
• Receive better. So far, I like the job that McGraw and Wenaas have done, I have not been happy with the job Kilkelly and Landfair.

Don’t get me wrong, Landfair is a very good passer –everything considered. But when the Gophers line up with a 3-person receive of Wenaas, McGraw, and Landfair, opponents will go, and have gone, after Landfair almost every time. I am curious to see how McKenna would perform if that line up was Wenaas, McGraw, and McKenna?

There is a silver lining in this analysis: Teams that are short are not going to get taller during the season, and teams that are physically weak are not going to get stronger. But serving and serve receiving are about technique, concentration, and determination – all of which are coachable.

OVERALL:

• Before the season started, I wrote here that this was going to be a very good team. I thought they would do better than 5 & 3 non-conference, even knowing that their non-conference schedule would be grueling, a schedule including teams currently rated 1,5, 12, 14, and 22.

I did not know that top-rated freshman McKenna Wucherer would miss the first 6 games with an injury, nor did I consider that highly-ranked freshman Booth would play, well, like a freshman. I still think the ’22 Gophers have the potential to compete for Big Ten and NCAA Titles. Apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks the Gophers are better than their 5 & 3 record suggests, because the latest coaches’ poll rates them # 8, despite their losses, at home, to teams with better records. I can’t say what the coaches polled are thinking, but I think these Gophers, with Wooker and Booth back on track, are going to be very good.

UNKNOWNS:

• The one thing you can’t predict, in volleyball, or sports generally  (well, except for Bryan Buxton) is injuries. Anytime you have to replace an injured starter with someone off the bench, you lose at least a little. But the Gophs are deep at Outside Hitter, with Hanson and Crowl both capable, and deep at Middle, with Gros and maybe Davis. Losing McGraw would hurt, and losing Shaffmaster for any length of time, would be devastating. The Gophs have 2 transfer Setters on the bench, Miranda Wucherer and Elise McGhie; but from the little I’ve seen, the drop-off at setter would be significant.

THE COMPETITION:

• As usual, the Big Ten is loaded, with 6 teams (including the Gophs at #8) ranked in the Top 11, and Michigan just outside the Top 25. There won’t be an easy week.
• Nebraska (who the Gophs don’t play until after Thanksgiving) is ranked #3, with their only loss to Stanford, and wins over ranked Pepperdine and Kentucky.
• Wisconsin (at the Pav this Sunday, and later in Madison) is ranked #6, with losses to Baylor and Florida (we beat both) and wins over ranked Kentucky and Marquette.
• Ohio State (at the Pav on Oct 12, and later in Columbus) is ranked #7, with losses to Texas (twice) San Diego and Pittsburgh and wins over ranked Louisville, BYU and Georgia Tech.
• Penn State (who the Gophs don’t play until just beforeThanksgiving) is ranked #9, and is unbeaten, with wins over ranked Oregon and Stanford.
• Purdue (who the Gophs play at West Lafayette tomorrow night, and later at the Pav) is ranked #11, their only loss to Louisville.
• Michigan (at Ann Arbor on Oct 7, and later at the Pav) is ranked #28, with their only loss to Duke.

PROGNOSTICATION:

I’m not brave (or foolish) enough to imagine one single season outcome, so here are multiple scenarios:

• Scenario #1: The Gophs stay healthy, Wooker and Booth are as good as I think they are, and don’t play like freshmen, and our serving and serve-receiving improves – Big Ten Championship (maybe a loss or 2) and a top 4 seed for the NCAAs.
• Scenario #2: The Gophs stay mostly healthy, Wooker and Booth are as good as I think they are, but are up and down, like freshmen, and our serving or serve-receiving improves –  In contention for the Big Ten Championship headed into the final weekend (a brutal weekend at Columbus on Friday/ at Lincoln on Saturday) and a top 8 seed for the NCAAs.
• Scenario #3: The Gophs experience multiple injuries, Wooker or Booth are as good as expected, but the other struggles to adjust to elite D1 volleyball, and our serving or serve-receiving is what it is –  A Top 4 finish in the Big Ten, and a top 16 seed for the NCAAs.
• Scenario #4: (The absolute worst scenario I can imagine). The Gophs lose 2 of the 3 of Shaffmaster, McGraw and Landfair, for a significant chunk of the season, both Wooker or Booth, while talented, struggle to adjust to elite D1 volleyball, and our serving or serve-receiving gets worse –  an NCAA invite, but not Top 16.

Reader R.A. writes: Coach McCutcheon, asked about serving issues, said he wanted players to “serve hard,” not “just get it in” and to aim at spots.  My thought is the most effective serving comes from McGraw, Shaffmaster and even Kilkelly, more stylized and changed directions. McCutcheon had been replacing Wenaas with McGhie, though now Wenaas serves, but no longer her sky-high shots into the net.

Sitting in student section for WSU, the main (not sole) improvement I noticed was ALL the players hit their kills hard, even Landfair.   It seemed this tailed off in the 3rd (losing) set, but then picked up again in the 4th.  Booth was great.  Husemann seemed off in her timing with sets, which resulted in balls off the side of her hand, some of which surprised WSU.  And John is right, McKenna Wucherer has been sterling, by far the most aggressive player on the court. Too bad she comes out when it’s her serve because she was also good in the back row.

JOHN: If I was coaching the Gophers, I would coach them to serve “aggressively,” which is not exactly the same as “hard,”(but maybe what McCutcheon meant), especially against strong teams.. And serving “aggressively” increases the risk of, and ultimately over 4 or 5 sets, the number of, service errors. As mentioned a few days ago, Stanford made 23 service errors  while beating Nebraska, in 4 sets, in Lincoln! I didn’t see the match, but I’m guessing that Stanford was serving “aggressively” all night, and that this kept the Huskers out of system. Ultimately, it’s a question of playing to win vs playing to not lose. Admittedly, Wenaas had not been gaining this advantage with her jump-serves, which is why she has discontinued this – at least for now.

 McKenna Wucherer is going to be a great addition to this team, and I assume that she will be playing back-row, and probably serving, before long. This week she went from on the bench with her foot in a boot — to our starting Left-side Hitter; I’m guessing that maybe McCutcheon wanted to “ease her in” a bit.

The unranked Washington State Cougers. The Cougers are a Pac 12/Power Conference Squad, and they came into the Pav with an 8 & 2 record — but other than a season-opening win over Duke, their 8 victories came against teams you would expect St. Thomas to schedule.

The Gophers were clearly the better team, taking the first two sets 25-16 & 25-13, before letting Set 3 get away 24-26. The Gophs seemed to wake from their stupor to take a 17-9 lead in Set 4, before letting the Cougers back in it. The Gophs eventually won Set 4 25-20. Our Gophs dominated the net as we hope they will often, outhitting WSU .364 to .196 for the match.

ENCOURAGING SIGN #1: True freshman McKenna Wucherer (Wooker), who had worn a boot on her foot through the Gophers first 6 matches, followed her 13-kill debut against Pepperdine with 15 against Washington State.

ENCOURAGING SIGN #2: True freshman Carter Booth, who had 6 blocks and 11 kills in her debut against Baylor – and then played her way onto the bench with ineffective play, before showing a little spark late in the loss to Pepperdine, showed up again, with 12 kills (and 2 blocks) against Washington State, the vast majority of her kills on quick-sets from Shaffmaster,

WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT: When I (and the polls) were high on the Gophers going into the season, it was partly on the expectation of these two dynamic freshman making their marks. With all due respect to Freshmen Julie Hanson and Lauren Crowl, and grad-transfer Naya Gros, who filled in admirably while we waited for Wucherer to get healthy and Booth to find her game, Wucherer and Booth are critical to the Gophers 2020 aspirations.

NOTES RE LANDFAIR:

• Besides being one of the leading power hitters in the country, Taylor Landfair is clearly the most effective dinker on this team. I’ve been tracking her dinking, and I have her with exactly 4 dink-kills in each of the first four matches at the Pav, each  a 4-set match, so exactly 1.0 dink-kills per set. A pretty good #.
• And all of them off perfect sets. When this powerful hitter makes contact 2 full feet above the net, the opponents back-line is naturally on their heels (I know I would be), creating good dinking opportunities.
• But Landfair also dinks, fairly often, off bad sets – and it never works! For one thing, opponents have figured out that she is not going to crank a bad set – so they’re not on their heels. I’d like to see her attack at least the best of those bad sets.
• I absolutely LOVE the 2 rotations the Gophs have with Landfair hitting Left-side and Booth hitting Middle. When Shaffmaster gets a perfect pass, she has the option of a short-set to the 6-7 Booth, or a longer set to the 6-5 Landfair, both in the same direction. That’s a terrifying pair of options.

NOTES RE WENAAS:

• In just 2 matches, a healthy Wucherer has made it obvious that she belongs in the line-up as 1 of 3 outside hitters. So one of them has to play Right-side, and at least for now it’s Jenna Wenaas.
• At least so far, Wenaas has not hit as effectively from the Right-side as she had been from the Left-side. Tonight, for example, she had more Left-side kills than Right-side kills, despite the fact that she played Left-side for one-half rotation, and Right-side for two and one-half rotations, getting many more swings from the Right-side. Though it might be for the best, this system does clearly not play to Wenaas’s strength as a hitter.
• Yet Wenaas seems a clear choice for Right-side over either Hanson, who has so far struggled to block (Wenaas did have 3 blocks tonight, I don’t think Hanson has yet had a 3-block match), and Crowl, who has yet to produce significant offense.
• Wenaas is also the best receiver/digger among the Gopher hitters. (She might be better than Kilkelly and almost as good as McGraw), so she still contributes.
• At least for now, Wenaas has abandoned her jump-serve, which was resulting in more service errors than aces.

UP NEXT: The rugged Big Ten season, starting for the Gophers on Friday at West Lafayette. (I’ll have more to say about the Gophers prospects during the coming week.)

In what is starting to look like a pattern, our Gophers lost in 4 sets, 28-26, 20-25, 18-25,22-25, to #22 ranked Pepperdine. The Gophs first loss of the season, to #1 Texas at Texas, in 4, wasn’t televised here, but the scores were close, so I figured no shame in that. Then last Sunday, they lost to Stanford in 4 at the Pav. I didn’t think the Gophers played especially well against Stanford, but the a couple days later Stanford won in 4 at Lincoln – so maybe Stanford’s really good. And now tonight we lose to Pepperdine at the Pav. It’s not like Pepperdine is a bad team, they’re nationally ranked. But a week ago the Gophs were ranked #3 nationally, and I heard a quote from the Stanford coach rating the Gophers as have the most powerful offense in the country. We shouldn’t lose to Pepperdine at home.

ENCOURAGING SIGN # 1

Some readers have been wondering why I keep writing about McKenna Wucherer (pronounced Wooker), who hasn’t even dressed for the Gophers first 6 matches. A) She was the #1 rated recruit in the country, & B) I thought she looked like a the #1 rated recruit in the country during last Spring’s exhibition matches.

Last week McKenna was on the bench wearing a “boot” on her foot; tonight she was a starting Left-Side Hitter. And she started off great with 4 kills in Set 1, including 2 kills leading the Gophs to an 11-6 early lead. She did not play back-row or serve.

ENCOURAGING SIGN # 2

I’ve been begging for Setter Melani Shaffmaster to attack more balls, and she did tonight. I had her with 4 kills, including one for set-point in Set 1!

SO WHAT’S WRONG WITH OUR GOPHS?

1. Though Pepperdine outhit the Gophers, 64 kills at a .279 clip, to 50 kills at .204, it was the “floor game” where the Gophs were really outplayed. The Gophs had 4 aces (8 for Pepperdine), but it felt like 90% of the Pepperdine serve-receives resulted in a perfect pass to their setter. Not the case for the Gopher receives. Pepperdine also saved 20 or 30 near-kills by the Gophs, vs 5 or 6 saves for the Gophs.

• So far this season, Coach McCutcheon has been using Taylor Landfair all 6 rotations. This makes her an obvious target for opposing servers (Landfair being the Gophs big weapon, they want to make her work hard in the back row), and she has been struggling a little with her receives. The advantage of keeping Landfair in across the back row is that she can attack from the back row. But the tradeoff didn’t work tonight, as the Gophers had zero back-row kills. TLandfair had 4  back-row kills against Stanford and 9 against Oregon, but zero against Pepperdine despite multiple attempts. A couple of the failed attempts were due to poor sets, so not necessarily Landfair’s fault. But that’s sort of beside the point; Landfair made at least 3 service-receive errors vs zero back-row kills – so the trade-off didn’t work tonight.

• And Landfair, who brings the phrase “shock & awe” to mind when she unloads on a good set, is too timid, for my taste, when the set isn’t perfect. Landfair has the potential to be every bit as good as Steph Samedy was; the difference, so far, is that Samedy wasn’t afraid to attack a poor set.

• The Gophers are not getting enough offense from anywhere but left-side. I had Landfair with 16 kills and Wucherer with 13, out of 50. And 7 from Wenaas, but no back-row success and minimal success from our Middles. McCutcheon started Husemann and Gros, subbed Booth in for Gros to start Set 3, eventually subbed Davis in for Husemann, then went back to Husemann – but none were consistently effective. (Gros was especially unsuccessful on “slides.”)

• Nor were our Middles blocking. I had Pepperdine‘s #10 with 21 kills, and it felt like 19 of them were “power-angle” blasts. Defending against  “power-angle” attacks is the job of the Middle Blocker, but our Middles are consistently failing to “close the block,” i.e., getting their hands close to our outside blocker’s hands – leaving a gap for the opposing “power-angle” blasts. The big freshman, Carter Booth, has proven particularly slow in closing the block, and Husemann seems not strong physically strong enough to block “power-angle” blasts, even when she does get there.

• Nor are we getting much offense from our Right-Side Hitter, or “Opposite.” Freshman Julia Hanson had an impressive 14 kills against Texas, but minimal impact in other matches, and she hasn’t blocked well. Red-shirt Freshman Lauren Crowl has blocked a little better, but hasn’t generated much offense. Tonight’s insertion of the Freshman Wucherer bumped Jenna Wenaas to Right-side (and Hanson and Crowl to the bench –neither played at all), and I’m guessing, at least for now, that this night be the plan going forward). But Wenaas hit.069 for the match. So maybe Wucherer at Left and Wenaas at Right isn’t the answer. It certainly wasn’t tonight.

• And, contrary to the opinions of some GopherVBallRocks readers, I think the Gophs are not serving aggressively enough! Or at least not at the right time. Wenaas, the team’s only jump-server for example, had 3 service errors tonight, including one when the score was 25-25. (Exactly when I’d want her to back-off a bit and get it in.) Then in Sets 3 & 4, which Pepperdine led all the way, often by a substantial margin, which is when I’d want my servers to get aggressive because you need a spark, Wenaas was serving lollipops, which Pepperdine was teeing up for kills. (Here’s a statistic that might interest the “just put the damn ball in play” crowd: when Stanford beat Nebraska, in Lincoln, a couple nights ago, Stanford, the winning team, had 23 service errors!)

I’ve got some ideas what the Gophs need to do different, but I’ll keep that to myself until after Washington State, an unranked team for a change, plays at the Pav Saturday Night. One way or the other, the Gophs need to get these problems solved before starting the grueling Big Ten Season next Friday at Purdue.

R.I.P.J.D.

Stanford is probably a pretty good team; maybe better than the polls suggest. But our Gophers looked nothing like the #3 team in the country, going down easy, 20-25, 18-25, 25-22, 12-25, at the Pav.

Based on last night’s Stanford/Penn State game, I had suggested that the Gophs serve at #13; they did, and had some success. I also suggested hammering the ball at the undersized Cardinal setter when she was in the front row; and they failed at that. The main reason was the Cardinal’s aggressive serving, which gave the Gophs trouble all night, preventing Shaffmaster from teeing up the ball for our Left-side hitters to take advantage of an undersized setter.

(I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating, Taylor Landfair is an amazing hitter, maybe the best in the country, when she gets a perfect set. With a mediocre set, she’s a mediocre hitter. When she gets a poor set, she won’t even try to hit it. Keep in mind that she is early in her second season with the Gophs; she is not the polished put-down-a-bad-set hitter that Steph Samedy was last year, in Samedy’s 5^th season with the Gophs. Even so, I had her with 14 kills against Stanford, following last night’s 28 kills against Oregon; and 42 for the weekend against a pair of strong teams, isn’t bad.)

And GopherVBallRocks Readers, at least 3 of them, suggested that the Gophers stop serving aggressively and “just put the damn ball in play.” The Gophs ignored this advice in Set 1, where they committed 5 service errors, and lost 22-25. But then they heeded the advice, and stopped making service errors (only 2 total in the last 3 sets) by serving less aggressively, and lost 2 of the last 3 sets by a total score of 54-72. (Meanwhile, Stanford committed 12 service errors for the match, to the Gophers 7, repeating the results of last night’s match, where Oregon made fewer service errors than the Gophs, and lost in 4 sets. I’m not saying that this proves anything, but clearly, the correlation of fewer service errors to matches won, is not proven.)

Otherwise, the Gophers were dominated at the net, for the first time in 6 matches, by the shorter Cardinal, ultimately out-hit .269 to a pathetic .102, and out-blocked 13-5. Jenna Wenaas was fair, with 8 kills, but our second best offensive weapon was Setter Mel Shaffmaster, who contributed 4 kills. 4 aces, and 2 blocks. In a recall of last year’s squad, we got almost nothing from our Middles; I had Husemann, who played all 4 sets, with 2 kills, Gros, who played sets 1 & 2, with 2 kills, and Booth, who played sets 3 & 4, with 1 kill. A pathetic total of 5 kills from our middles, in 4 sets; following 6 kills in last night’s 4-set match — still not enough.

We saw this movie last year, and didn’t like it. When true Freshman Carter Booth put up a total of 13 kills and 13 blocks, in the first two matches of her collegiate career vs TCU and Baylor, I thought those days were over. They still might be when Booth “catches up” with the D-1 game, but she looked lost tonight.

Nor did we get much help, until late, from our Opposites. Last night, true freshman Julia Hanson, who had a breakout performance with 14 kills vs Texas, started the match but did not impress. And during last night’s Set 3, won by Oregon, Hanson seemed lost, so Coach McCutcheon replaced her with red-shirt freshman Lauren Crowl, who seems a less effective hitter, but a better blocker, and the switch seemed to help. Tonight, McCutcheon rewarded Crowl with the start, but got no blocks from Crowl during the first two sets, and only 2 kills; so he subbed Hanson back in for Sets 3 & 4, and it paid immediate dividends when Hanson got 4 kills, looking ever-so-briefly like the next Steph Samedy. But then Hanson disappeared, along with the rest of the team, in Set 4.

If one were to look hard for a ray or rays of hope to glean from tonight’s loss, it would be one of the following:

• McKenna Wucherer, 2020’s top-ranked recruit, who I thought looked great in three Spring scrimmages, then disappeared from sight during the inter-squad scrimmage 2 weeks ago, then was seen with a “boot” on her ankle last night, was on the bench tonight — not dressed-to-play, but without the boot. I have no idea what the time-table for McKenna to recover from her undisclosed injury might be, but it seemed encouraging. I think that if, and when, McKenna is fully recovered and back playing at 100%, she might be our starting Opposite. Or maybe, given how productive Landfair has proven to be from the Right-side, Opposite duties might be distributed, along with Left-side duties, among Landfair, McKenna and Wenaas. (Then again, if Hanson could play like she did in Austin, there might not be an opportunity for McKenna.)
• And after not attacking even once in Set 1, Shaffmaster started attacking as I’ve been pleading with her to. I scored her with 4 kills (in 4 sets, the rate I’m been hoping for), and no errors, on 7 swings, a .571 average. We need to see more of this.
• In fact, I thought Shaffmaster and CC McGraw, and Landfair had strong weekends . If those 3 can pull others up to their level their level of excellence, this team could still have championship potential.

The Gophs had 12 service errors (vs 5 aces) in last night’s close and hard-fought 4-set win over the Oregon Ducks. And readers besides R.A. are upset by it.

READER G.U. writes: The Gopher service errors are driving me nuts.  It is like missing free throws in BB. There is a reason they are called “free throws” they are FREE and not to be missed. The ladies do not need to strive for aces; just put the damn ball in play.

READER B.W. writes: Seems like service errors are frequent with the Gophers. Does Hugh play different servers to help prevent this problem? Just when they get momentum someone hits the net or serves long, crushing the momentum.

JOHN: I agree, service errors are frustrating. I don’t like it, and I doubt that the Gopher coaching staff is happy about it either. But let me repeat what I have said before, If the Gophers chose to prioritize the minimumization of service errors, they could probably make it through a 4-set match like last night, with zero or maybe 1 service error. But none of our readers are complaining, at least not on GopherVBallRocks, about the 20 hitting errors, in part because they came with 57 kills.

Wenaas was the worst last night, with 4 service errors (in probably 15 or so attempts). But Wenaas is also the one who is jump-serving, which is an aggressive strategy. For me, it was harder to understand Landfair’ 3 service errors, because she didn’t seem to be serving aggressively. Kudos to McGraw who had 1 service errors (and zero aces) last night, but who I thought was serving aggressively enough to force the Ducks out-of-system.

If they “just put the damn ball in play” as D.U. suggests, they will beat weak teams, but they will not win the Big Ten and National Championships. To win at that level, they will have to serve aggressively – and get better at it. Maybe the “getting better should take place in practice, but it’s just not the same.

In the prelim, the shorter but more powerful Nittany Lions squeaked past the Cardinal in five sets, and then the Gophers, led by a career night by Taylor Landfair, squeaked past the Ducks in four, 25-20, 25-22, 18-25 and 27-25.

When I say “Career Night” by Landfair, I’m not just talking 28 kills, but from everywhere, 13 left-side power kills, 8 back-row kills, 4 dink kills and 3 right-side power kills. And at least 3 great digs. And when I say“squeaked, our Gophs looked the better team in Sets 1 & 2, then fell apart, trailing 14-22 on their way to losing Set 3. Coach McCutcheon had stated Julia Hanson at opposite and Naya Gros at one of the Middles. For Set 4, he went with Lauren Crowl in place of Hanson and Carter Booth in place of Gros, but it didn’t seem to help as the Gophs started Set 4 down 3-10.

But riding Landfair, who the Ducks couldn’t stop, and with a little help from Crowl, who the Ducks seemed unprepared for, the Gophs clawed back to 15-15. Then, with the Gophs trailing 24-25, the Ducks made 2 unforced errors to put the Gophs ahead. And a Wenaas/Booth block put the Ducks away. But despite winning 3 of 4 sets, the Gophers only won the total score by 95-92

More individual details tomorrow, but it’s late and I want to say a bit about tomorrow’s (now today’s) opponent, the Stanford Cardinal.

The Cardinal.plays a 5-1. Their setter, #5, is quick and has good hands, but she does not seem tall enough to block the likes of Landfair and Wenaas. They have a strong Opposite, #10, when their setter is back-row, and they run an effective slide to a Middle, #17. But the Gopher Left-sides should score a ton when the Cardinal setter is front row.

Other notes re the Cardinal:

• They might have beaten Penn State if they hadn’t made so many service errors. If they serve better tomorrow night, and the Gophers continue to rack up service errors, the Gophers could have their hands full.
• The Cardinal dinks a lot, and defending the dink has not been a Gopher strength.
• The Cardinal’s #13, a left-side hitter, struggled all night with serve-receive; the Gophers should be serving at her every chance they get

And all 4 teams played hard tonight, and could be tired tomorrow.

Reader M.G. says the guy next to Jimmy Pete was Darrel Thompson.