Blog

Preseason, our Gophers were ranked #5 in the national VB Coaches Poll. Beating Baylor and TCU, both @ TCU, in week 1, bumped the Gophs to #4. Losing to #1 ranked Texas @ Texas, and beating Florida at the Pav, bumped us to #3. (Nebrasks, BTW, is #2, and the Badgers, losers to Baylor @ TCU, are #6.)

READERS WRITE

GOPHERVBROCKS reader, and passionate fan, R.A., was disappointed by the Gophers struggle with Florida: R.A. “I was so glad when I first saw your GopherVBallRocks headline (‘GOPHERS STRUGGLE’), I had put off commenting, thinking I was the only one disappointed. 

After the Gophs did zip thru 2 sets, I believed we would lose 3-1. We had no offense for 2 1/2 sets.  Wenaas and Landfair were non-factors.  Shaffmaster provided the most offense.  We were only 1-1 because FL kept giving us points.  Thru the whole match, we got 47 points from FL errors (hitting, SE, RE and bad sets) vs. 46 points from our kills. Landfair was tentative nearly every time she touched the ball — until she came alive late-3rd, Wenaas also. They hit only.125 and .171 for the match, Landfair with 9 errors to her 14 kills.

McGraw helped with solid serves. 3 aces but consistent serves throughout, which kept FL out of system.  Yay, CC! Kilkelly also served well, but needs to come right out after; she was the target of FL serves anytime she was in, and struggled in back court defense.

I hope Wenaas’s mile high toss, jump-serves accomplish something soon, as her 4 service errors hurt.  Unless there’s a divine plan, I prefer how she served before.  Oh, and 0 aces.

Booth was my biggest surprise.  I regarded her as our best asset thru three matches, but she played little or none after Sunday’s 2nd set. Painful to watch. Lucky FL handed us the match.”

JOHN: The 2022 Gophers are a very good team, but not so good that they won’t get off their game, now and then, as they did to start Set 2 against Florida. They may have an entire off-night now and then, and with a pair of ranked opponents at the Pav this weekend, and the Badgers later this month, that could mean a lost match. The goal, for a team with National Championship aspirations, is to work the bugs out in September, and peak in early December.

Reader C.B. notes that the Gators had some aggressive servers. C.B. also remembered me writing that I had court-side seats for the first few games, and thought he spotted me just to the right of the Scorer’s Table.

JOHN: Yes, the Gators did have some aggressive servers. And it caused them to make a bunch of service errors. I think that when Coach McCutcheon joined the Gophers (11 yrs ago) he thought that dominating the net would be enough to win Championships. But the D1 game has evolved to the point that you are not going to beat a good team at the net, if you allow them to play “in system” all the time; you have to serve aggressively to beat good teams. And this is why the Gophs are serving more aggressively, and making more service errors, than they did 4 or 5 years ago.

That was a different big-guy-with-a bad-leg next to the Scorer’s Table. I was court-side  all right, but in the opposite left-corner, i.e, the southeast corner, i.e., the University Ave/Williams Arena corner, behind the ball girl.

Several seats to my left, along the sideline, were a young man doing the play-by-play for BTN and an attractive blonde doing the analysis, a former player perhaps, but I didn’t recognize either of them. Several seats to my right, along the baseline, sat former Gopher and NBA star, Jimmy Pete. JP was sitting with an athletic-looking Black man about his age – perhaps (I’m speculating) another former NBAer and maybe the father of one of the VBallers on the court. (I think I have spotted former NBAer Calvin Booth, Carter’s father, at previous events, and this was a different guy.)

Sitting an inch from  the field of play (about 10 ft from the out-of-bounds lines) sounds exciting, and it is interesting. But it is not as good a seat, for watching the match, as my regular seat in row 14. For one thing, the ball girl, doing her job, steps in the way as inopportune times; and for another, I can’t really follow the action on the far-side of the net very well. I hope to be back in row 14 for the Badger game on Oct 25.

Our Gophers beat Florida in 4 sets, 25-22, 17-25, 25-22, 25-16, in front of a full house at the Pav. But our Gophs barely out scored Florida, 92-85, overall, and got out-hit by Florida, .211-.203, and out-blocked, 14-11, as well. The second set was especially grim, with the Gophers getting spanked in every possible way. I guess the good news is that this Gopher Team can win without dominating the net.

Through sets 1 & 2, the Gopher kills were pretty-well spread around. Taylor Landfair, who had been averaging 15 kills/match, ended up with 14, but we didn’t see the Landfair Shock-and-Awe until the decisive 4th set. Interestingly, only half of Landfair‘s kills were straight-forward left-side power-shots. I had her with 1 right-side kill, 2 back-row kills (she is playing more back-row this year), and 4 dink-kills. Not surprisingly, Landfair dinks for points after she establishes her Shock-and-Awe power; and does not dink well off of bad sets.

Jenna Wenaas, the other half of our intimidating left-side power tandem, picked up 11 kills, also coming on strong in sets 3 & 4. A Libero-quality passer, Wenaas also contributes significantly in the back row. What’s not working, yet, is her back-row attacks (I didn’t credit her with any B-R kills today), or her jump-serve (I counted 3 service-errors vs zero aces). But it appears that both Wenaas and the Gopher coaching staff are committed to having Wenaas hit back-row and jump-serve. And I’m willing to bet that it will pay-off eventually.

And Once again, the Gophers made more service-errors, 10 (vs 6 Aces) than reader R. A. will be happy with. CC McGraw had zero service-errors (by my count), but half of the Aces. Better yet, two of McGraw’s Aces came from a tie score of 19-19, propelling the Gophs to a Set 1 win.

The big story was our Freshmen. Today was not a good day for our freshmen, especially Middle Carter Booth. I had convinced myself, and maybe GopherVBall Rocks readers, that freshman Booth was going to immediately dominate. Maybe she will, in time, she contributed to the Set 1 victory, but then, looking very freshman-like, contributed to a 10 pt deficit in Set 2.  She made a couple of hitting errors, but perhaps more importantly, she was too-often late closing her blocks. This is likely to be an on-going concern. Booth is a big girl, with a lot of mass to move, and the D1 tempo is probably faster than she is used to. She’ll get better; soon I hope.

Coach McCutcheon benched Booth in favor of grad-transfer Naya Gros, and the Gophers’ fortunes turned the corner. In the final 2 ½ sets, Gros scored 5 kills and 4 blocks, matching exactly the contribution of our other Middle, Senior Ellie Husemann, who played all 4 sets. It now appears that the question of who the ’22 Gopher’s two Middles will be, is far from settled.

Freshman Opposite Julia Hanson didn’t sparkle either. I had her with 4 kills and zero blocks, in 4 sets. She stayed in the line-up, generally, but her blocking was so ineffective, against the powerful Florida hitters, that McCutcheon started spot-subbing in red-shirt freshman Lauren Crowl. (Who wasn’t especially effective either.)

Future super-star McKenna Wucherer, once again, didn’t play, but at least the mystery is solved. McKenna (I use her first name because her sister Miranda, another grad-transfer, did play, as a designated server) was on the bench, her right foot in a boot. I could not tell, from where I sat, how long her recovery time might be. But given our comparative ages, I’m guessing McKenna will back on the court faster than I will.

Thoughts on Shaffmaster:

• Love her or hate her, red-shirt sophomore Melani Shaffmaster is our setter. She is not as quick on her feet as the Badger’s Izzy Ashburn, or the Husker’s (they play 2) Kennedi Orr. This means that when the Gophers first pass is mediocre. Shaffmaster has to bump-set. She’s a terrific bump-setter, but when she bump-sets, we lose all finesse and deception, making our powerful hitters much easier to block. The only way to fix this is for the Gophs to make better first passes.
• I also noticed today, from my court-side seat, that when Shaffmaster goes to the floor for a dig, she doesn’t, understandably, pop back up as quickly as a small-girl might. We’re going to have to live with this – unless McGraw & Kilkelly can start getting more of those balls.
• On the positive, Shaffmaster is a good setter when she gets a good pass, and now, in her 3^rd season, we are seeing more finesse and deception in her sets.
• And, she is starting to become the offensive threat we dreamed she would be. I’ve said I wanted her to attack at least twice per set, earning at least 1.0 kills per set. And I counted 4 kills in 4 sets today.
• She also had at least 3 blocks today, including 2 on “over-passes.” I’m not talking about the easy kills when the opponent inadvertently passes to you; those are candy. I’m talking about when the Gophers inadvertently pass the ball to the opponent, and you turn their candy into Gopher points. If you’ve never played high-level volleyball, you can’t imagine how tough a play that is. And Shaffmaster did it twice today!

NEXT UP: Weekend games at the Pav, 18^th ranked Oregon on Friday Night, and 12^th ranked Stanford on Saturday Night. (The rankings noted above are from this morning, and might change as a result of this weekend’s matches.)

On Friday evening, I had an opportunity to see some of the Badgers (now rated #6 after their loss to Baylor) at home vs Marquette (rated #24), and on Sat evening, an opportunity to see some of the Huskers (now rated #2, down from #1, not because they lost, but because of Texas’s strong start) at home vs Ole Miss (not a strong team).

The Gophs will get two Conference Season shots at the Badgers, the first, at the Pav, later this month. The Badgers are still strong at Middle, with 6-7 sophomore Smrek and 6^th-year senior Hart. But absent the finally graduated Rettke, and the Gophs addition of Booth (also 6-7, but more athletic) , the middle vs middle match-up will be even this year. Besides Rettke, the Badgers also lost star setter, from MN, Sidney Hilley. Their new setter?  MN’s Izzy Ashburn. Ashburn was the D.S. on last year’s Nat Champs. The 2022 Badgers are a strong team, outside hitter Robinson is tough. But as of now, I like our chances at the Pav on Sept 25.

We won’t see the V at the Pav at all this year, and won’t see them in Lincoln until the last match of the regular season on Nov 25. So it almost isn’t worth analyzing Huskers vs Gophers with so much that can change between now and then. But for what it’s worth, here’s what I saw. The Huskers also lost a couple of players from last year’s national runners-up, but they got four strong outside hitters (as do the Gophs). Interestingly, Coach Cook exploits that by playing a 6-2, using Eagan’s Kennedi Orr as one of his two setters. (This does not seem an attractive option for the Gophers this year, with only the one top-flight setter.)

Not sure how many GopherVBallRocks readers also read the Strib’s Patrick Ruesse. To Ruesse’s credit, he is one of the few such “experts” to credit the Gopher V-ballers as a “major” local team. Anyway, Ruesse’s Saturday column was an appraisal how the likelihood of “major” local teams achieving success in the coming year.

Ruesse gave our ladies a 15% chance. Sound bleak? Maybe, but before assigning a percentage chance of success, Ruesse defined “success for each team, as follows:

Twins: Win one playoff game.

Gopher Football: Win Big Ten West.

Vikings: Win NFC North.

Wild: Win a playoff series.

Wolves: Win a playoff series.

Gopher Men’s Basketball: Finish in the top 7 in the Big Ten.

Gopher Women’s Basketball: Finish in the top 7 in the Big Ten.

Gopher Women’s Volleyball: Win the National Championship! Ruesse doesn’t even entertain winning-it-all for any of the above teams.

R.A. Writes: Service errors have always bothered me more than any other foible.  It’s the one thing that happens under control, no opponent in the way.  It’s either bad technique or carelessness.  No excuse for it at this level.  It also seems to be a rally-killer too often when the team starts to gain some momentum.  I just don’t get it.

I struggled most of the first set to find a broadcast, first with the suggested Gopher link, then ESPN+ within HULU, and finally directly to ESPN.  Nada.  Why the misdirection?

R.M. Writes: Thanks for the analysis of the stats.

It’s frustrating not to have a way to watch these games. It looked like it was on ESPN+, but said we didn’t have access when we clicked on the game. Bummer! It would have been a great game to watch. 

Texas must be pretty good. I hadn’t seen them, and I still haven’t because the Strib lied to us again. DID ANYBODY SEE IT? Anyway the Gophers lost in 4 sets, 21-25, 18-25, 25-23, 22-25. Apparently every set was close; even in Set 2, a 7-point loss, the Gophs were right-there at 15-18. (I noticed that Ohio State, who was rated #7 nationally before the season started, lost their first two matches, and wondering to whom, I looked it up – both to Texas, in Columbus. So the Longhorns probably are pretty good.)

Individually, Landfair, averaging 15 kills per match, posted 16 against the #1 Longhorns. But the big news was the break-out excellence of Freshman Julia Hanson, who had 14 kills (presumably from the right-side). Add 12 from Wenaas, and that’s 42 outside-hitter kills. And Freshman Middle Carter Booth contributed 5 kills and 5 blocks.

So the Gophers held their own at the net, and then some, actually outhitting the Longhorns .250 to .230 — pretty unusual for a team that lost in 4 sets – and not bad, playing Texas at Texas.

The thing that killed the Gophers, apparently, was 19 service errors. 19! We’ve talked about this before, every player on this team is capable of serving 100% — if that’s the goal. But apparently, the game plan was to serve aggressively, all night – presumably to knock Texas out of system. But this aggressive serving produced a mere 6 aces. If the Gophs had made only, let’s say, 9 service errors., and had earned, let’s say, 9 aces (as in fact, Texas did), then judging from the closeness of sets 1 & 4, and given that we outhit Texas, the Gophs probably would have won the match. But an error-to-ace ratio of 19 to 6 is hard to overcome.

The available data shows no indication of contributions from Lauren Crowl or McKenna Wucherer, and given Julia Hanson’s productive match, it seems that Prior Lake star has won the starting role of Right-side Hitter/Opposite. At least for now.

NEXT UP: #18 ranked (RPI) Florida, Sunday at the PAV

Last week, the Strib said that the Baylor and TCU matches would be streamed on ESPN+. Then Baylor wasn’t, but TCU was.

Last week, the Strib said that tonight’s showdown with #1 ranked Texas would only be available on “The Longhorn Network,” for $49.  Now they say tonight’s match will be streamed on ESPN+. Which I bought last week. So who knows? Certainly not me.

I guess, as my Congresswoman says, “It’s all about the Benjamins.”

Reader M. C. writes: Always a good day when the Badgers lose!

John: I tend to root for all BigTenTeams during the non-conference season. Here’s why: Let’s say we split our pair of BigTen games with Wisconsin, or Ohio State, Purdue or Illinois. That would tend to pull our national ranking (up or down) toward theirs, and the national rankings of all BigTenTeams, at the start of the BigTen season, are based on how they do, especially against power conference teams, during the non-conference season. Let’s say our Gophers finish the BigTen season 17 & 3, our national ranking, and our seeding for the NCAA Tournament, will depend largely on how many BigTenTeams were ranked how high at the end of the season, which depends heavily on how high BigTenTeams were ranked to start with. (BigTenTeams opened the 2022 season ranked #1, #3, #5, and #7, so that pretty good.)

But I understand rooting against those Stinkin’ Sconies – so knock yourself out.

Reader R.A. writes: “I’m with you on Booth; she gets my vote as the most pleasant surprise, and one of the two or three best performers in these opening matches.  Her 11 blocks against BU set a new freshman record.   I’m fairly sure both opponents twisted in knots to keep balls away from her, leading to errors or weak shots.  I’m not ready to say Booth’s in Regan Pittman’s league — Regan was my favorite at that time — but hope springs eternal.”

JOHN: I was at the Pav when Pittman made here debut. She was slow and clumsy, and I was skeptical that she could become a contributor. Obviously, Pittman got better and better, even demonstrating high-level passing skills (on her infrequent opportunities) on her way to stardom. I can’t promise that we will see this pattern of improvement from Booth. But Booth already impacts a match; Pittman didn’t when she was a frosh.

And remember, as highly regarded a recruit as Booth was, McKenna Wucherer was even more highly regarded. There is a lot of talent on this team, and only McGraw and Kilkelly are seniors.“

The Gophers took care of business this evening beating TCU at TCU, 25-17, 25-20, 25-18. Our Gophs started a bit slow in the first set (a worrying pattern that continues from last year), but surged to a 18-12 and coasted to 25-17.  As was true yesterday, the Gophs dominated the net, outhitting the Frogs .417 to .107 in set 1. With good hitting balance; 4 kills by Landfair, 3 by Booth, and 2 each by Wenaas, Hanson, and Husemann.

The Frogs put up stiffer resistance in set 2, forcing ties at 4-4, 10-10 and 17-17 before the Gophs took over. The Gophs served 5 aces to 1 for the Frogs in set 2. (6 kills for Landfair in this set.) The Gophs then dominated set 3, taking leads of 14-5 and 20-11; both teams subbing when the outcome seemed clear, with Crowl, Gros and back-up setter McGhie getting some playing time. (Our other back-up setter, Miranda Wucherer, served in all 3 sets.)

Encouraging sign: The major frustration last season was the lack of offensive productivity from our Middles, but it doesn’t look like this will be a problem this season! I had Booth with at least 7 kills tonight, and Husemann at least 3; several for each on quick-hits and slides. In addition, Landfair got at least 2 kills and Wenaas 1, on plays where Booth drew defensive attention with “fake” swings, leaving her Left-sides wide open.

The really impressive thing about Booth’s performance is that her total of 13 kills and 13 blocks matches against TCU and Baylor came in the first two matches of her collegiate career. Though weak last year, the Gophers have had some good Middles in recent years, Regan Pittman, the Tapp Sisters, and Tori Dixon to name of few. But none have dominated their first 2 matches, against quality opponents, like Booth did this weekend!

Also encouraging: I said in my wrap-up / look-forward at the end of last season, that I wanted to see Shaffmaster attack more often this year; I suggested 2 attacks per set. In these first 7 sets, Shaffmaster attacked 12 times, producing 8 kills. Shaffmaster also made the play of the night, diving for a dig, then shooting the 3^rd touch over the net from her butt.

Concerns: Nothing major, but here’s a couple minor concerns: 1) Wenaas is jump-serving this year – but so far without any tangible success. 2) #1 ranked recruit McKennna Wucherer has yet to take the court for the Gophers. (I think she was on the bench tonight, but not dressed – if so, apparently injured.) And 3) At least for now, it appears that true-freshman Julia Hanson from Prior Lake is our starting opposite. Okay, but if so we’re going to need more production from Hanson as she matures into this role.

Interesting fact: It’s always dangerous to draw conclusions from comparing scores against common opponents. BUT – yesterday, the Badgers played TCU following the Gopher’s match against Baylor, and this afternoon, the Badgers played Baylor prior to the Gopher’s match against TCU. The Badgers swept the Frogs by similar scores to the Gophs; but the Badgers lost to Baylor (in 5 sets).

Note: Reader D.K. reports that he was able to stream tonight’s game on ESPN+, but couldn’t get any sound. I don’t know; I got sound. But the play-by-play from Ft. Worth wasn’t great D.K. – you didn’t miss much.

I couldn’t watch it because it wasn’t on ESPN+ as advertised in yesterday’s Strib (not today’s Strib). Reader G.U. notes that I got “taken to the cleaners” in paying $10 for a month’s subscription, because ESPN has a standing first-month promotion of $7. So yeah, I got taken. Though I don’t know what one can get cleaned for $3 these days.

But after dropping the first set to #16 ranked Baylor (23-25), the Gophs stormed back to sweep the next three sets, 25-16, 25-23, 25-17, dominating the net. Left-side* hitters Wenaas and Landfair had 17 kills and 15 kills, respectively; and Middles Booth and Husemann had 6 kills & 11 blocks, and 7 kills and 4 blocks respectively. The Gophs outhit the Bears .300 to .133 (the Bears had a lot of hitting errors) and out-blocked the Bears 15-4. I can’t tell from here whether the Bears started strong and then folded, or if it took our Gophs a while to get started (which was a recurring problem last year).

Carter Booth, as previously mentioned, is a true freshman; impressive start for this terrific athlete. Freshman Julia Hanson had 3 kills and 2 blocks. As expected, veteran Setter Shaffmaster and Libero McGraw played well, but not much else is available from the limited game summary I’m looking at.

* The summary does not mention highly-rated true freshman Wucherer or red-shirt freshman Crowl. I’m guessing, from the sparse info available, that Hanson earned her stats from the right-side, and that Crowl and Wurcherer didn’t play (was Wurcherer even suited up?), but I don’t know. ANYBODY?

Hats off to reader Reader R.A. I was checking my sources every few minutes for a match outcome, but R.A. emailed me the good news before I found it.

Tomorrow’s game at TCU is on ESPN+. (I hope) Wednesday night’s game at #2 ranked Texas is only available on “The Longhorn Network.” (I do know a guy who’s a Longhorn Football fan; gotta find out if he has that.) Once we get to the BIG10 Season, all the games should be on BTN or BTN+.