Author: jktrpp

Georgia Tech beat Lipscomb in 4 sets last night, advancing them to tonight’s 2^nd round versus our Gophers, 6:00 on ESPN 3. (If you’re busy at 6:00, you can watch it later because it’s “streamed.”) I watched last night’s match so that I can provide a little better analysis than appeared in this morning’s Strib. I didn’t know if I got ESPN 3, but it turns out I do. (Maybe I get ESPN 7?) It’s “streamed,” but I got it through my regular Comcast connection without paying extra – not sure how that works.

Back to Georgia Tech: The ‘Rambling Wreck is led by two Brazilian outside hitters, one who looks like my idea of a Brazilian (I haven’t been there) named Brambilla, the other a redhead named Bergman (go figure???). Both seem to take most of their swings from the back-row. In all my playing, coaching, and Gopher-watching history, I can’t remember seeing a team that relied so heavily on back-row attacks.

[We were in Orlando one time, to watch Ethan play in the 16 & Under Nationals, and we got to watch the 18 & Under championship match. This was pre-rally-scoring, and though the match was 2 out of 3, it lasted over 2 hours because both teams had one unstoppable hitter, who was fed every set, regardless of position, and it went serve, bump, set, and kill; sometimes a full six rotations between either team scoring a point. But that’s different.]

The advantage of back-row attacks is that there’s more margin-of-error for the set, you just throw it up in the general direction and let the hitter find it. And back-row attacks are harder to block. The disadvantage, for the hitter, is that you have to be conscious of where your feet leave the floor (maybe you get used to this, but it’s an additional complication), and you have less court to aim at – basically the back 10 feet. (I have seen back-row attackers dink, but I didn’t remember these Georgia Tech hitters doing it last night.) Obviously, the Gopher coaching staff was scouting the match last night, and maybe there are tactical moves that can slow down an offense dependent on back-row attacks – but I don’t know what it is.

The Gophers finished in 2^nd place in the Big Ten, and the Wreck in 4^th place in the ACC. But the Gophers were 15 & 2, just barely better than the 4^th place Buckeyes at 15 & 3, while the Wreck was 13 & 4, just barely behind 2^nd place Notre Dame at 14 & 3. So the only reason for confidence is the assumption that the Big Ten is a stronger conference than the ACC. But how much better?

Historically, the Big Ten is a stronger VB conference. I took a quick look at the 50 teams appearing in the last 25 National Championship Games, and counted 22 Big Ten teams, 24 West Coast teams, and a couple each by Texas & Florida. No ACC teams have ever made it to the finals! And this season’s final national coaches poll had 6 Big Ten Teams in the top 12, and no ACC teams. (First place Louisville was ranked #13, with 3 more including Georgia Tech scattered between 19 & 23.) But polling suggested that the Big Ten was the nation’s strongest in men’s basketball in 2020-21, and that turned out an illusion. And 3 of the Men’s “Frozen Four” teams were from Minnesota, and none of them won it. So …

Watching last night’s Georgia Tech/Lipscomb match, I tried to visualize how either of these previously un-seen teams would match up against the Gophers or other top Big Ten Teams; lacking benchmarks, a difficult exercise. The serving, receiving/digging and setting looked about the same — strong, skilled girls that know how to play volleyball.

As mentioned above, Georgia Tech’s reliance on back-row hitting was definitely different. But if the Gophers have any obvious advantage over Georgia Tech, it would be at the net; the Gophers are very strong blockers, and Georgia Tech didn’t seem to be. Georgia Tech’s reliance on back-row hitting could neutralize the Gophers’ blocking, but I think the Wreck will have a difficult time handling the relentless power of Samedy, Pittman, Landfair and Rollins. So I like our chances.

Reader M.C. notes that opposing servers also target Shaffmaster when she is in the back row rotation, which takes the Gophers out of sync.

In a 5-1 system, the setter is in the back-row half the time, and serving at this back-row setter is a common tactic. But according to the stats on the Gopher website, Shaffmater hasn’t touched a single receive all year. There are a variety of counter tactics a receiving team can employ to prevent their setter from receiving.

1. You can let your setter participate in the receive, and have the opposite/right-side hitter take the first set (and then switch while the ball is on the other side of the net). Samedy, the Gophers’ opposite is a very skilled passer and could easily handle this responsibility. The down side is that Samedy can’t set herself, so the Gophers wouldn’t have a right-side hitter on this initial return. Or
2. Your setter can “hide” close to the net, as long as they are positioned behind the front-row player in front of them. This the tactic I used most frequently when I was coaching, but I think the Gophers employ this tactic only when their setter is back-left, behind Landfair, resulting in a formation with 3 players “stacked” in the left front corner, with the setter moving toward the setting position as soon as the serve is struck. . Or
3. Your setter can “hide” behind one of your primary receivers, again moving toward the setting position as soon as the serve is struck (but choosing a path which does not interfere with the receive). I’ve also used this tactic This works well when your setter is back-right (following the loss of serve), and the Gophers use it in that rotation. But it is more difficult coming from other positions, especially if your setter chooses the wrong path. Or
4. Your setter can “hide” in plain sight, in the center of the court. I never had the nerve to try this when I was coaching (at a much lower skill-level), because it requires your receivers to pretend that their setter isn’t there, even though she is. (She’s not there in the sense that she will not handle the receive, even when they serve right at her — which they love to do.) The Gophers use this when Shaffmaster is back-middle, and she does quickly duck out of the way, but it requires extreme concentration by our liberos and D.S,’s to not be distracted.

Before the season started, I shared my expectation that the Gophers would be one of the best teams in the country, with a chance to compete for their first National Championship. And now they enter the NCAAs as the #3 overall seed. But we know a lot more about them now, so as we head into the playoffs, this seems a good time to reevaluate this Gopher Team. Coaches & recruiters generally evaluate players on 5 skills (serving, receiving/digging, setting, hitting and blocking) plus “intangibles.” Let’s use these same 6 categories plus a 7^th, bench, for our evaluation.

• SERVING: I have previously blogged about the Gophers’ serving, so I won’t repeat that. I give them 4 stars (out of 5).

• RECEIVING/DIGGING: As is typical of high-level teams, the Gophs use a receiving formation that tries to force opponents to serve to our libero and D.S. (McGraw & Kilkelly, or when McGraw is out, Kilkelly & Wenaas), who between them cover about 80% of the court. And our opponents try to avoid our libero and D.S., aiming instead at our left-side hitters (Rollins & Landfair) along the outside edges of the court. (Our middles, setters and Samedy almost never touch a serve.)

Current Gopher stats show this contest of wills to be a virtual draw, McGraw, Kilkelly & Wenaas have handled 51% of our opponents serves, while Rollins & Landfair handled 49%. And their “success” is also similar, with “error rates” of 6% for Rollins, Kilkelly & Wenaas, 8% for McGraw, and 10% for the freshman Landfair. Which raises the question of why our opponents are so intent on aiming for the edges.

But I think that only balls shanked out of bounds or otherwise unplayable count as “errors;” it doesn’t measure the “quality” of the pass. I don’t hold myself to “quality” in Geezer volleyball, if I get the ball “up,” where at least one of my teammates could play the 2^nd touch, I figure I’ve done my job. But the expectations for the Gophers are higher; Coach McCutcheon is not looking for a “playable” first pass, he’s looking for a “perfect” first pass, high in the air and exactly where the setter wants it. The Gophers don’t publish stats re quality passes, but my sense is that McGraw, Kilkelly & Wenaas’s service-receives tend to be of significantly higher quality than those by Rollins & Landfair, which is why they are targeted so often.

Overall, I give the Gophers 4 stars for their serve-receive.

Digging up spikes and dinks are the other half of this category. Again, the Gophers would prefer to have the digging done by our libero and D.S., but this is a lot harder to manage when the ball is live. Consequently, digging is spread out almost equally between Rollins, Shaffmaster, McGraw, Samedy and Kilkelly, who between them have handled 83% of the digging. McGraw and Kilkelly are very good, and Samedy’s no slouch. But most of Shaffmaster’s digs, and most of Landfair’s contribution, about 20% of the Gophers’ overall digging between the two, is covering dinks, and Shaffmaster and Landfair, both unusually tall freshmen, are not good at digging dinks. I do think they’ve improved as the season progresses, but if I were to rate Shaffmaster and Landfair on covering dinks, I’d give then 1 and ½ stars.

Overall, I give the Gophers 3 stars for their serve-receive/digging.

• SETTING: In a “5-1 system,” responsibility for setting falls almost entirely on one player, in this case freshman Melani Shaffmaster, who has accounted for 76% of the Gophers’ “assists.” (An “assist” is a set that the hitter converts into a “kill;” the Gophers don’t publish stats on sets not converted to kills.) Shaffmaster is a very talented and highly recruited player, who brings a high-upside and a unique skill-set to the position; she has shown improvement as the season progresses, and she would likely have performed even better if the Gophers’ first passes were better. She was also recognized as the setter on the Big Ten All-Freshman Team.

But for comparison, Samantha Seliger-Swenson, the Gopher setter from 2015 through 2018, accounted for 87% of Gopher assists during her 4 years as setter, including 86% her freshman year. I just watched a 2016 Gophers at Nebraska match on BTN. (As has been true for the past decade, the Gophers and Nebraska, then and now, were among the top teams in the country.) I’d swear the only assists of the match by anyone other than SSS were balls where SSS was the digger. (Admittedly, the team passing seemed better.)

Also for comparison, Badger setter Sidney Hilley (out of Champlain Park, MN) was one of 7 players unanimously chosen All Big Ten, while Shaffmaster was not one of 6 setters recognized as 1^st or 2^nd team All Big Ten. Early in the season, Shaffmaster really struggled to set her middle-hitters. Fortunately, Shaffmaster gets a lot of help setting, especially from veterans McGraw, Samedy and Pittman.

Overall, I give the Gophers 3 stars for their setting.

• HITTING: If you look at Big Ten statistics, there is a big gap between the top 6 teams (Wisc, Neb, Penn St, Ohio St, Purdue, MN) and the rest of the Big Ten. The Gophers rank 6^th, with a hitting % of .248, way behind Hilley’s unbeaten Wisconsin’s .344, but not far behind Neb, who ranks 2^nd at .272.

This suggests that our Gophers are mediocre hitters, at least by Big Ten standards. But statistics don’t always tell the whole story. First, the Gophs have played a much tougher schedule than the Badgers. And also, the Gophers have often struggled with their digging and setting, making their hitters look less wonderful than they really are. Steph Samedy was recently recognized as Big Ten Player of the Year (beating out the Badgers’ dominant middle-hitter Dana Rettke), and Pittman joined Samedy as one of 7 players unanimously chosen All Big Ten, freshman Landfair, who has really been coming on after a slow start (though I’d still like to see her be more aggressive), also made 1^st team All Big Ten, and Rollins made 2^nd team All Big Ten. I doubt that there is a better trio of outside hitters in the country than the Gophs’ Samedy, Rollins and Landfair.

Middle-hitters Pittman & Rubright are becoming more effective as they get better sets, and Shaffmaster, a 6ft, 3 in, setter, is a significant weapon with .9 kills/set. For comparison SSS never averaged more than .4 kills/set in any of her 4 seasons.

Overall, in consideration of the quality of sets they get, I give the Gophers 5 stars for their hitting.

• BLOCKING: The Gophers rank 12^th in the country in blocks/set, but 5^th among “power conference” teams, behind Louisville, Purdue, Texas and (surprisingly) 4 & 16 Maryland. But they rank ahead of top teams like Wisconsin, Nebraska, Penn St., Ohio St., Washington and Baylor, most of whom have played easier schedules! This suggests that the Gophers are a very strong blocking team.

Pittman leads the Gophers by a mile, with 88 blocks, but it isn’t just Pittman, Samedy has 47, Rubright has 43, Shaffmaster has 36, Rollins has 34, and Landfair has 33. Really a whole-team effort.

Overall, I give the Gophers 5 stars for their blocking.

• BENCH: Before the season started, reader D.S. noted that the Gophers’ bench is the strongest in recent history. And sure enough, all 14 players on the roster have played, and all in competitive situations, not just mop-up duty.

Freshman Jenna Wenaas, the #3 ranked recruit in the country, has played in more than half of the sets, occasionally at left-side hitter (presumably her preferred position), racking up 19 kills, but mostly at D.S., racking up 61 digs and 126 serve-receives.

Airi Miyabe has played in a third of the sets, at both outside and middle-hitter, racking up 12 kills, 9 blocks and 3 digs, and perhaps more importantly, providing a spark of energy when the Gophers needed it most. And Rubright earned her spot as the “other middle” (opposite Pittman) not by default but only after proving herself more effective than Katie Myers and Ellie Husemann, who also had opportunities to play.

And Bailey McMenimen and Hunter Atherton took over the setting when Shaffmaster couldn’t play (due to covid protocols) or was struggling (early in the season), between them racking up 42 assists and 13 digs. McMenimen and Atherton handled the setting in the Gophers’ single match vs Wisconsin. Given that it was a 4-set loss, one might conclude that our bench-setters didn’t perform very well; but we took a set from a Badger team that finished the season 45 & 3 in sets played

So I agree with D.S. that the bench is a strength of this Gopher Team. Then again, the Gophs finished the regular season 15 & 2, the first loss at Lincoln without Rollins, and the second loss to the Badgers without Shaffmaster or McGraw, so there is clearly some drop-off between the starters and the subs.

Overall, I give the Gopher Bench 4 stars.

• INTANGIBLES: There are few stats to help measure intangibles, but I love this team’s intangibles. Two points:
• Five of the Gophers’ 17 matches went 5 sets, and the Gophers won all five, and 13 of their sets were decided by 2 points, and the Gophers won 10 of those. To me, this is the mark of a team that has the confidence to make big plays when they need big plays.
• I like the balance of seniors (Samedy & Pittman) who provide leadership, juniors (Rollins and McGraw) and sophomores (Kilkelly) who are steady, reliable performers, and freshmen (Landfair and Shaffmaster) who are getting better week after week.

On intangibles, I give the Gophers 5 stars.

• SUMMARY:
• Serving – 4 stars;
• Receiving/digging – 3 stars;
• Setting – 3 stars;
• Hitting – 5 stars;
• Blocking – 5 stars;
• Bench – 4 stars;
• Intangibles – 5 stars.

29 stars out of a possible 35 sounds like a Final Four Team!

New this year, hopefully for this year only, the NCAA Tournament includes 48 teams (vs the standard 64), and will be played entirely in Omaha (presumably in some sort of “bubble”), the early rounds in a “Convention Center,” with as many as 4 matches going on simultaneously.

The tournament begins this Wednesday, April 14, but the Gophers, as one of the top 16 seeds (actually, the #3 overall seed) get a first-round bye. So the Gophers first match will be in the second-round, on Thursday, April 15, against the winner of a first-round match between Georgia Tech and Lipscomb.

#23 ranked Georgia Tech, with a record of 13 & 4, finished the regular season 4^th among four closely grouped teams (inc Louisville, Notre Dame and Pitt) in the ACC. The Yellow Jackets are led by #13, unamimous 1^st-Team All-ACC junior outside hitter Marianna Brambilla. The Lipscomb Bison are the Champions of the Atlantic Sun Conference. The Gopher should defeat either of these teams, though the GT/Lips winner will have a slight advantage from having already played a match in this unusual (for collegiate v-ball) venue); and advance to the Sweet Sixteen, on Sunday April 18, versus whoever emerges from among Long Island, Pitt, and Utah.

These first two rounds will be “streamed” on some ESPN streaming service (which I don’t think I have), and the Final Four, on April 22 & 24, will be broadcast on ESPN2. I have not been able to figure out the broadcast/streaming plan for the Sweet Sixteen; does anybody know?

The Gophs could not possibly have gotten a more attractive draw, in that their road to the Nat. Championship Game does not include Wisconsin, Nebraska, Penn state, Ohio state, Texas, or Florida. Their path to the Final Four includes teams like Georgia Tech, Utah, Louisville, & U of Wash; and if they get that far, their opponent in the Nat Semis would likely be Kentucky, Oregon or Purdue. They may stumble against this field, but they ‘ll have only them selves to blame.

As seems to be true in competitive tennis (which I have never played), serving is an important part of competitive volleyball. The teams that serves better doesn’t always win the match, but it is certainly an advantage. It can be painful to watch “your team,” whoever that might be, miss a serve, or struggle to handle a powerful opposing server.

But aggressive serving is a double-edged sword. Aggressive serving produces aces, which are thrilling when your team serves them, but it also increases the probability of service errors, which are like a dagger in your heart when your team makes them.

I, for one, have often felt disappointed in the Gophers’ serving. The Gophers have not, it seems to me, been an aggressive serving team at any time during the McCutcheon era. Maybe that’s a matter of our personnel, but I suspect it’s a reflection of McCutcheon’s coaching philosophy; I’m guessing he doesn’t favor the risk-reward trade-off that comes with aggressive serving. Sometimes I wish he were a little less conservative.

HOW GOOD IS THE GOPHERS’ SERVING?

Let’s look at the stats: Going into the final weekend of the Big Ten season, the Gophers 83 Aces in 57 sets, for an average of 1.46 aces/sets, tying them with Michigan for 5^th best in the Big Ten. Let’s call that good, but not great.

But let’s look a little deeper. The Big Ten website does not provide Service Error data for all 14 teams, and I’m too lazy to look it up on 14 websites. But I did compare the Gophers to 3 other teams, unbeaten and league leading Wisconsin, Nebraska (virtually tied with the Gophers) and Illinois, who leads the Big Ten with 120 service aces and a 1.90 aces per set average.

• The Gophers 83 aces came with 68 service errors, for a ratio of 1.22 aces per error;
• The Illini crushed an impressive 120 aces, but this league-leading total came with 162 errors, for a ratio of 0.74 aces per error;
•  The Badgers’ 62 aces (in many fewer sets than the Gophs) came with 95 errors, for a ratio of 0.74 aces per error; and
• The Huskers (who have an aces per set ratio almost identical to the Gophers) served 84 aces and 116 errors, for a ratio of 0.72 aces per error

I can’t say for certain based on my limited research, but the Gophers appear to be an outlier in aces to errors ratio. And when you look at it this way, the Gophers might be the best serving team in the Big Ten. And even if they are merely 2^nd best, the Gophers “conservative” serving philosophy looks a lot better in this light.

MATCHING SERVICE AGGRESSION TO SERVICE RHYTHM

When I was coaching J.O. V-ball, I stressed the importance of matching service aggression to serving rhythm. The most difficult serve to make, and the worst one to miss, is your first serve. You’re cold, you have no rhythm, and missing your first serve is a killer; volleyball is a game of momentum, and missing your first serve hands the momentum to the opposing team.  I have, on occasion, experienced a team I was coaching or playing on miss 3 first-serves in a row. Never, did we win that set! So putting the ball in play has to be a server’s priority on the first set.

Increased aggression is appropriate on a second serve; you’ve got a little rhythm, and momentum is neutral. And on the 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th set, I wanted my girls to crank that sucker with everything they had. By now you are in rhythm, a service error following 3 points does not transfer momentum, and you have a chance to capture the momentum.

I coached my girls to ease up a little on the 6^th serve, and on a 7^th or subsequent serves (the opposing team generally calls a time-out by now, but sometimes not), putting the ball in play once again becomes the priority. Sure, you got all the rhythm in the world, and you can probably serve an ace – but it isn’t worth the now-minimal risk of an error. You can serve underhanded to the opposing team’s best receiver, and she’ll probably shank it; that’s how powerful your momentum is.

GOPHERS RATED #3 IN THE COUNTRY 

National rankings are always mysterious and unreliable, and never as much as during a pandemic. The pandemic has affected rankings is two ways: 1) Most teams in most sports have been limited to conference-only competition, making it difficult to compare across conferences (example A, the Big Ten was supposed to be the strongest conference in the country in Men’s Basketball – until they fell on their faces in the NCAA tournament); 2) In addition to the usual injuries, we’ve seen players and teams miss matches due to covid rules. It’s great to see the Gophers rated so high, and maybe it will help with their seeding for the NCAAs, but it means less than ever this year.

I can’t begrudge Wisconsin their #1 rating; they have everyone back from last season’s (2019) team that made it to the National Championship Match, and they’re unbeaten, so they deserve their ranking. But they haven’t played hardly anyone; their only significant challenge being their one-match victory over the Gophers without our setter or libero. (To be fair, Wisconsin didn’t have their setter for that match either.)

But the latest ratings are curious: The Gophers (13 & 2) moved up from #4 to #3 based on our sweep of a not-very-good Northwestern, Nebraska (14 & 2, including a split with the Gophs) moved up from #5 to #4 based on their sweep of a not-very-good Michigan, and Kentucky (19 & 1) moved up from #3 to #2, based on their sweep of a not-very-good Alabama, all at the expense of Texas (21 & 1) who slipped to #5 based on beating 9^th ranked Baylor at Baylor, but losing at home, in 5 sets, to 24^th ranked Rice. Probably tough for Longhorn fans to swallow.

The Gophs finish their scheduled matches at home this weekend vs a not-very-good Iowa, Friday @ 5:00 on BTN+ & FSN+ (a broadcast station for those without cable), and Saturday @ 3:00 on ESPNU (I ‘ll not be able to watch this one.) The most interesting match-up of the weekend will be Penn State, who needs at least one win to get “off the bubble,” at Nebraska for a pair.

Then the NCAA pairings will be announced on Sunday. If the Pairings follow the current rankings, the Gophers could be in a position to reach the NCAA Championship Match without playing other Big Ten Teams.

As of now, this year’s tournament will include only 48 teams, 32 conference winners and 16 at-large teams. Lately, some, including Nebraska Coach John Cook and Wisconsin Coach Kelly Sheffield, have publicly complained about this, drawing comparisons to the men’s & women’s basketball tournaments, which started last weekend with the standard 64 teams.

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t expect complaining to change anything, but the NCAA responded quickly to bad pub regarding inequality between the men’s & women’s basketball facilities, so who knows?

Reader M.C. writes, “Not enjoying the video quality on BTN+.  But like no commercials!” Ditto here; also miss the replays.

Also not enjoying the play-by-play on BTN or BTN+. They seem locked in to a weird system using highly annoying male play-by-play guys who have limited or no knowledge of volleyball, accompanied by female analysts who do know volleyball but grow tired of correcting their male partners. I personally know men who understand volleyball, and I assume that there are women capable of play-by-play; so WTH?!!!

After a 3 set sweep on Friday, the Gophers defeated Northwestern again on Saturday, this time in 4 sets. The Gophers lost tonight’s first set 21 -25. Hard to say if this was the Gophers coming out over-confident, or the Wildcats playing inspired on Senior Night, but the best team won this first set.

The Gophers roared back to dominate the 2^nd and 3^rd sets, wining each 25 -15. Northwestern came out strong in the 4^th set, taking an early lead, but the Gophers resumed control and finished the match with a 25 – 20 (I think) win. For the weekend, the Gophers dominated 4 of 7 sets, won two competitive sets, and lost one.

The sweep of Northwestern brings the Gopher season/Big 10 record to 15 & 2, with a pair of matches at home vs Iowa (not a top team) to finish the season. (Assuming no make-up matches, which at this point seem unlikely.) The Gophers are currently ranked #4 in the country, and if they can avoid a loss to Iowa are likely to stay at #4 going into the seedings for the NCAAs.

After a rugged schedule featuring pairs of matches at Purdue, home vs Penn State, at Nebraska, home vs Michigan, Illinois and a single match vs Wisconsin, the Gophers get to finish their scheduled season at Northwestern and home vs Iowa, both lower-rated teams. With an almost healthy squad, missing only McGraw, the Gophs started these final 4 matches with a sweep of Northwestern.

The Gophs struggled a bit in the 2^nd set (25-21) and trailed early in the 3^rd set, but hit .358 for the match compared to the Wildcats .113. Kilkelly filled in ably for McGraw, and Wenaas for Kilkelly, and the rest of the line-up played well, especially Rubright, with 9 blocks in a 3-set match. Northwestern served at Landfair every chance they had, and Taylor struggled a bit with her receives, but she made up for it with 7 kills, 4 blocks and 3 aces.

REMATCH TONIGHT, AT 6:00 ON BTN+.

The other news last night was the “postponement” of the Wisconsin at PennState matches scheduled for this weekend. They say “postponement,” but with the Badgers scheduled to play Michigan next weekend, April 3 & 4, and the NCAA Tournament Field announced on April 4, I think “cancelled” is a more accurate term. Assuming that the Badgers beat Michigan in Madison, Wisconsin will finish unbeaten – without playing Nebraska, Penn State or Ohio State, and having beaten the Gophers once, on a match where neither team had their starting setter! Talk about a record with an asterisk!