For the third time this season, and fifth time this year, the Badgers, behind setter Sidney Hilley and middle Dana Roettke, were just too good for the Gophers. 18-25, 24-26, 23-25. The Badgers out-hit us, they out-blocked us, and they had especially out-passed us.
Karch Kirily went on and on about the coordination between Hilley and Roettke, based on them playing together for 5 years, and there is no doubt some truth to this. But it is also true that the Badger’s back-row, led by Libero Barnes and D.S. Ashburn feed Hilley perfect passes almost every time. If you watch the Gophers, by comparison, Shaffmaster is chasing the ball all over the court – resulting in a lot of mediocre sets – resulting in a lot of ineffective dinks.
Roettke does hit for a much higher percentage than Samedy. Part of that is because middle hitters are expected to hit for a higher percentage than outside hitters; but Roettke also gets much better sets. If one had stats for it, I would expect Samedy’s hitting percentage on good sets to be similar to Roettke’s.
One more petty complaint about the TV announcers: The ESPN announcers, and the BTN announcers all season, refer to the UW Fieldhouse as a “great volleyball venue.” I disagree; they have a stupid scoreboard hanging over the court. It’s high enough that you don’t usually see it on TV, but low enough that live balls hit it about once a set. Those of us accustomed to playing in high school gymnasiums are used to overhead obstructions – but it shouldn’t happen in a first-class volleyball venue.
SET 1: I didn’t get to see the first set because the Louisville/Georgia Tech Game ran long. On Thursday, you could watch the alternate game on ESPNews, but not tonight, so who knows what happened? The consolation was getting to watch the Gopher Men’s basketball team beat Michigan at Michigan. (Who saw that coming?) But I would rather have watched V-Ball (there will be plenty more basketball games).
SET 2: The Badgers jumped out to an 0-3 lead, but the Gophers tied it at 4-4 and would eventually take a 14-10 lead. The Badgers pulled even at 15-15, thanks in part to a string of poor passing by the Gophers resulting in 5 consecutive dinks, none of which worked. It stayed tied all the way to 24-24 before the Badgers won the last two points. Samedy was magnificent, putting away pretty much every decent set that came her direction.
SET 3: Set 3 was tied at 4-4 and 9-9 before Wisconsin pulled ahead 10-13 and 13-16. The Gophers fought back behind kills by Miyabe, Samedy and Wenaas and a Shaffmaster block, to earn an 18-18 tie. But Wisconsin ended Samedy, Miyabe and Myer’s Gopher career, 22-25 – the saddest thing I’ve written all year!
Could the Gophers have gone farther with Pittman and a healthy Landfair in the lineup? Maybe, but who knows? I didn’t really think this was a Final Four team, but it was fun to watch them beat Stanford and Baylor. Better to focus on having been able to watch the Amazing Steph Samedy for the last 5 seasons. That was pretty great.
NATIONAL SEMIS: As I write this, Nebraska just beat Texas at Texas in 4 sets. This sets up a pair of Big Ten vs ACC semi-finals for next Thursday: Louisville vs Wisconsin and Pittsburgh vs Nebraska.
COMING SOON: My take on the 2022 Gophers.