Category: Uncategorized

Several readers expressed appreciation for the Gophers’ effort and for as getting as far as they did.

Reader M.C., suspecting that I have no life and therefore concerned about my mental health, inquires what I’ll be doing during the next 8 months?

[John: I’ve got Geezer volleyball 3 mornings a week until May, and granddaughter Leah’s 14U VB team will have tournaments every other weekend. I’ve got one grandson playing basketball and another wrestling, plus a friend with Wild tickets and another with Wolves tickets, and daughter Tessa and I will probably take in a couple of South High Girls basketball games. So I might make it.]

Reader E.L., noting my reference to having once been a competitive chess player, wonders if it is true, and if I was any good?

[John: Yes, and sort of. I was a member of two State H.S. Championship Teams at Washburn, and while never the best player on the team, I was the only unbeaten player (6-0) in the 1963 State H.S. Tournament. Later, in my early 20s, I had a strong Class B rating (1600-1800), and flirted with Class A (2 rungs below “master”) a couple times, but always got my butt kicked as soon as I broke 1880.

If there was a Big Ten Tournament (I’m glad there’s not, unnecessary), this match, in Columbus Ohio, could have been for the BIG TEN Championship. But instead it was for the national NCAA Championship, with the Badgers finally winning the title, in a back & forth match, on their 4^th trip to the Championship Match.

Heading into the NCAA Tournament, I posed the question, How good is the BIG TEN, really? My answer was, “Hard to say.” Watching BTN we are fed a steady diet of “The BIG TEN is the greatest.” But BTN is incentivized to boost their own ratings. We hear the same thing watching men’s basketball and hockey, where it isn’t true.

I thought Wisconsin was under-rated as the #4 seed, and not at all surprised that they won the title.  But Nebraska? Nebraska finished 2^nd in the BIG TEN, one game behind Wisconsin and one game ahead of Minnesota, Purdue, and Ohio State, but they looked terrible in their appearance at the PAV, and lost twice to Wisconsin during the regular season. I thought Purdue was the 2^nd best team in the BIG TEN, (if not the best). Purdue not only gave Wisconsin two of their 3 defeats, but in mid-November won at Madison on Friday Night and at the PAV on Sat night (annually, the toughest road trip in Women’s D-1 volleyball).

But you have to hand it to Nebraska Coach John Cook. Year after year, the Huskers either under-perform during the regular season, or over-perform in the playoffs. If this happens once in a while, that’s a fluke; but when it happens year-after-year, that’s a coach getting his team to peak at the right time. I’ll bet a lot of coaches in a lot of sports would like to know Cook’s secret.

SET 1: Huskers were up early and held on to win, serving extremely aggressively – a strategy driven, perhaps, by the two teams high-level familiarity with each other. I’m not certain I understand the logic, but I don’t know what else it would be. And Nebraska’s aggressive serving was a major factor in neutralizing Rettke; Hilley couldn’t feed Rettke those perfect sets iwhen she had to chase the ball.

And the Badgers had their own surprises up their sleves. Just when we think we’re finally done with the 6-8 Roettke, the Badgers come up with a 6-9 freshman, Anna Smrek. I don’t recall Smrek even playing against the Gophs in early October, she was on the bench watching Soph Jade Demps play the opposite. She played some at the PAV in November, and in the Region Final last week, but didn’t have much impact in either match. But suddenly, in the National Semi-Final against Louisville, Demps sits, Smrek plays, and dominates, even more than Rettke! Then, in the Finals against Nebraska, the Badgers start using Demps exclusively as a back-row hitter (for Loberg?) and setting her more than anyone! (The Gophers hit back-row more than almost anyone; is that where the Badgers got the idea?) ESPN announcer Karch Kiraly called this “a chess move.”

I guess this is as good a time as any to complain about Kiraly. A volleyball match can include tactics and counter-tactics, so an occasional chess analogy is tolerable. But Kiraly used the analogy at least 6 times during the match, and as a former competitive chess player, I have to say the chess analogy is not that strong. (I was the tallest player in a couple of State H.S. Tournaments, and I don’t remember that being much of an advantage.) Kiraly is no Magnus Carlson.

SET 2: Huskers up early again, but the Badgers stormed back to win 31-29, after both teams had multiple set-point opportunities in the long-overtime set.

SET 3: Nebraska did not lead early, or ever (that I recall), but they did tie it up at 23-23 before the Badgers’ Devyn Robinson put away back-to-back kills.

SET 4: Close most of the way until the Huskers took a late lead, 21-17, and the Badgers’ attempted comeback was sabotaged by consecutive missed serves.  

SET 5: And then the Huskers collapsed, spotting the Badgers to a 7-0 lead. It is hard enough to dig out of a 7-point deficit in a 25-point set, harder yet in a 15-point set. Nebraska fought their way to 12 points, but it was too little too late. Sidney Hilley, the best setter in the BIG TEN, started the early run with a play she made half-a-dozen times during the match: preventing an overpass with a spectacular one-handed set from directly above the net. And later, Hilley fed Roettke had Championship point,

COMING SOON: NEXT YEAR’S GOPHER PROSPECTS

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.

Reader J.D. writes:

What a great win, against the big bad Baylor Bears! 

Reader R.N. writes:

Eight of my Gopher Volleyball posse and 12 of our new best friends were perched on the edges of our seats at Scoreboard Bar and Grill in Minnetonka watching the Baylor match enfold and cheering our team on as if we were at the Pav. We all promised to return Saturday evening to enjoy the Region Final against the Badgers.
   We were treated to some very insightful commentary from Karch Kiraly.  I found myself listening carefully to the explanations of volleyball tactics and skillful execution by players that Karch provided during the match. But by the time he interviewed Samedy we were partying hard; I don’t think any of us noticed Karch’s question.
   P.S. I like your set-by-set summaries and highlighting of some critical points in the set that are more apparent in retrospect than they were in real time as the set was contested.

Reader P.W. writes:

The entire Minnesota vs. Baylor fifth set is available at: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNcuYRYAuZM

In a match full of surprises, our Gophers took revenge for an early season loss to the #5-seeded Baylor Bears, 26-28, 25-22, 20-25, 25-23, 15-10 (total match score: Gophers 111, Bears 108). It didn’t look good when Baylor took 2 of the first 3 sets and was leading 14-10 & 22-21 in the 4^th set. And if you had told me that the Bears could neutralize Samedy (Steph, looking like the Steph we know and love had 6 kills in Set 1 — but then only 10 more scattered across the next 4 sets), I wouldn’t have expected a Gopher Victory. But the Gophers were Golden when they needed to be! (McGraw was back in action.)

SET 1: As close as it gets; a see-saw set in which the two teams were rarely separated by more than a point, and the Gophers and Bears would each serve at set-point twice before the Bears prevailed 28-26.    The Gophs looked like the Gophers we know, relying heavily on their “pins,” 6 kills for Samedy and 5 each for Wenaas and Miyabe, and the Bears relied heavily on their star, Pressley.

SET 2: Two entirely different teams; our outside hitters disappeared ( 3 kills from Miyabe and 1 each from Wenaas and Samedy), and yet the the Gophers led wire-to-wire, posting leads of 5-1, 13-7, and 19-12 before coasting to the win. Instead of outside hitters, the Gophers relied on fierce blocking (block-kills from Husemann, Shaffmaster and Samedy and at least another dozen blocks that kept points alive; and aggressive serving (aces from Myers, Shaffmaster and Wenaas). And the Bears contributed to their own demise with seven service errors.

SET 3: This time the Bears jumped out to a 1-6 lead. The Gophers pulled to within a point at 7-8 and 13-14, but never caught up. And like Set 2, minimal offense from our pins (2 kills from Samedy and 1 each from Wenaas and Miyabe). In other words, the Gophs played consecutive close sets while getting a total of 9 kills from the three outside hitters that we depend on — and got a split! How were we even competitive? Answer, continued determined blocking plus the emergence of the offensive diversity we’ve been seeking all season, 4 ! kills from Shaffmaster, 3 from Husemann, plus 1 from Myers. It was discouraging to see Samedy shut down the way she was, but encouraging to see the Gophers find other ways to score.

SET 4: The Bears were so close they could taste it, leading 9-4 early, but again sabotaged themselves with missed serve after missed serve, letting the Gophs back in the game. The Gopher aces continued (Samedy & Myers), Husemann had 2 block-kills, and Shaffmaster another kill. And the Gopher pins re-emerged, 5 kills from Miyabe (she led the Gophers for the match with 18, a career-high for Airi), 4 from Samedy (including the set-winner) (she finished with 16), and 2 from Wenaas (who finished with 13). From a 16-16 tie, the lead changed hands a couple times, including a Baylor lead at 21-22, but the Gophers took 4 of the last 5 points.

SET 5: Determined not to make it easy on my angst-ridden bride, the Gophers fell behind early, 2-5, but scratched and clawed back to a 9-7 lead. The scratching and clawing included a challenge won by Coach McCutcheon (he lost his first two). And from a 10-10 tie, the Gophers ran the string on Kilkelly’s serving. The winning run even included a scoring dink from Wenaas (her only scoring dink on about a dozen tries).

Maureen and our guests for the evening, G.H. and S.H. (they don’t get ESPNU) insist that I mention behavior, by announcer Karch Kiraly, that they found offensive. (I’m not a big Karch fan myself, but he did coach the U.S. Women to a Gold in Tokyo.) Karch’s post-match interview should have Miyabe, or Husemann or even Shaffmaster, but instead he picked Samedy and asked her why she had such a poor match. Samedy handled the question with grace, but it was not a move that endeared Karch to the crowd at my house.

NEXT UP: The Gophers 3^rd chance to beat the Badgers, Saturday, 7:00, in Madison. The Gophers will be underdogs, but upsets happen.

Reader R.A. writes: This was the best, most complete match the Gophs played all season, and at a perfect time. They were solid on serve receives and passes (mostly).  Kilkelly, subbing for CC, played her best match, diving for short shots and coming up with good passes. The attack was balanced, with Samedy, Wenaas and Miyabi all scoring in double figures. Plus more productive middles, Husemann had 4.  Stanford serves were good, but Kilkelly, Miyabi and Wenaas handled them well.

[John: The Gophers looked great, and R.A. says, this is exactly when we want them to look great. Maybe they found the key to peaking at the right time, or maybe they were inspired by Samedy and Miyabe’s last match at the PAV, or maybe Stanford was overrated. Hard to say. I agree that the Kilkelly, Miyabi and Wenaas receiving combo was excellent last night, but where we miss McGraw even more is as the alternative setter, where McGraw is under-appreciated but excels. Someone in the stands last night said McGraw is out for the season, but there was nothing about her in this morning’s Strib. I hope she is back for Baylor.]

Reader B.J. writes: The Cardinal name, which was adopted after dropping “Indians” in the 70s, remains controversial. “Cardinal” was one of their colors, but it also means “the tallest tree in the forest,” hence the lone pine tree in the school insignia. Stanford has no real mascot. The pine tree was thought up by some guy in the band and has kind of stuck. The student body once voted to use the nickname “Robber Barons,” referring to founder Leland Stanford. But for some reason the school refused to use it.  

[John: I don’t know what color the cardinals in California are, but the male of the pair that nest in my yard every summer, is bright red. Not the dull, almost maroon that the school’s teams wear.]

No broadcast either. I appreciate readers like R.A., C.B., K.T. & M.G. who came up with suggestions for watching or at least listening to tonight’s match versus the Stanford ???. I thought it was “The Cardinal,” singular, but they don’t wear real red and their logo features a pine tree, so ???

Anyway, the Gophers had surprisingly little trouble, winning 25-20, 25-18, 25-17; set-point in all 3 sets coming on Stanford errors. We lost the first point in one of the sets, but otherwise never trailed at any point in the match. This was not the Stanford Team that won 3 National Championships in 4 years (2016, 2018, 2019) behind Kathryn Plummer.

Watching BTN, one hears constant reports that the Big Ten is the strongest Volleyball, Basketball, Football, Hockey, Wrestling, etc, conference in the country, but when the playoffs come around it often turns out not quite true. But the Gophers needed 5 sets to beat 9^th place Michigan at the Pav, and not only will all 5 seeded Big Ten Teams be joining the Gophers in the Sweet Sixteen, but so will unseeded Illinois, who knocked off the #7 overall seed Kentucky. So maybe the Big Ten is pretty strong. 

One example of Stanford’s inferiority to most Big Ten Teams is that the Gophers, normally terrible at dinking, averaging about 1 point per match, scored 6 points in 3 sets against Stanford. Maybe we suddenly got better at dinking?

As usual, our “pins” accounted for most of our offense. The official stats aren’t up yet, but I had Samedy with 16 kills (including 3 dinks), Wenaas with 13 kills (including 3 dinks), and Miyabe with 10 kills (no dinks that I can recall). But the rest contributed also, I had Husemann with 3 kills and 2 blocks, Myers with a kill, a block, and an ace, and Shaffmaster with 2 kills and 2 aces.

And the Gophers, missing McGraw, who was rated the 2^nd best libero in the Big Ten, and playing MIyabe in all 6 rotations, alongside Kilkelly and Wenaas in the receive, had surprisingly little trouble handling Stanford’s serves. Can we really be that good?

Hard to find much wrong with the Gophers performance tonight. But I’ll try. I’ve mentioned this before, but we are terrible at putting away our opponents overpasses. It seems to me that a strong front line ought to hit at least .750 on overpasses (I’d swear the Tapp Sisters used to hit about .900), but this year’s Gophers are lucky to hit .100 on overpasses.

But as predicted here, the Gophers are once again a Sweet Sixteen Team. And on our way to play the #5 seed Baylor, who beat us in 4-sets (also at Madison) back in August. If the Gophers play as well as they did tonight, we’ve got a chance.

Driving to the PAV I was thinking that the Coyote players must be mostly girls the Gophers and Huskers didn’t want. I mean who would turn down an offer from the Gophers or Huskers to play in South Dakota?

But when the Gophers warmed up without C.C.McGraw (she did not appear later either, does anyone know?), I started to worry a bit. And then they introduced the Coyote starters – almost all seniors, and I started to worry more. But when the often slow-starting Gophers jumped out to an 8-2 lead in Set 1, I stopped worrying.

I give the Coyotes credit for grit, they fought back to within 1 point at 9-8 and 14-13 in Set 1, and Set 2 was tied at 17-17. But then Samedy crushed one from the back row and I thought, “Hmmm, they don’t see that in the Summit League.” Gophers in 3 sets, 25-19, 25-22, 25-17.

Mainly, the Coyotes couldn’t handle the Gophers’ serves, allowing the Gophers 10 aces in a 3-set match, surely a season high. And Ellie Husemann had 8 blocks, one short of her season high. As usual, Samedy led with 13 kills, 6 in Set 3.

The primary source of drama was McGraw’s absence, which sets off a downward spiral:

• Kilkelly filled in at Libero (she’s not quite as good at serve receive); requiring
• Miyabe to play all 6 rotations, and of course the Coyotes targeted Miyabe, and her serve receives are not quite as good as Kilkelly’s; resulting in more balls that Shaffmaster couldn’t reach; and
• When Shaffmaster couldn’t reach the first pass it is normally McGraw who makes the set; but
• McGraw wasn’t there.

At 4-4 in Set 3, Miyabe limped off the court and was replaced in the back row by freshman Natalie Glenn, who has played hardly at all this season. I didn’t see what happened to Miyabe, so I figured she was out for the match and probably tomorrow night also. But a few points later (the Gophers took an 11-8 lead with Glenn in the game), Miyabe was back on the court. Apparently, something on her knee-brace broke.

The best point of the night was set-point in Set 2. The Coyotes had pulled to within 24-22, and served a tough serve at Miyabe. Miyabe coughed up an over-pass ( a too frequent occurrence), and the Coyote Middle went up to crush it. But Shaffmaster stuffed her for set-point. To the uninitiated, a joust over a ball at the net might look like a 50-50 proposition, and given that Shaffmaster was almost as tall as the Coyote Middle, why shouldn’t she win the joust. But an over-pass is not a 50-50 proposition; the hitter on the other side of the net has the ball coming to her, a major advantage. Players block stuff-the-overpass attempts now and then, but it’s always a great play!

TOMORROW NIGHT: A VERY TOUGH MATCH

Stanford, winners in 4 sets this afternoon over Iowa State. The Gophers beat Stanford on a neutral court in early September, so we ought to beat them tomorrow night at the PAV – even without Landfair.

But if we are also playing without McGraw, this could be tough!

The Gophs are the 12-seed in the NCAA Tournament, and will host 1^st & 2^nd Round matches next Friday and Saturday, including a Friday matches between Iowa State & Stanford at 4:30 on , and the Gophers and South Dakota.at 7:00 (or 30 min after the conclusion of the 4:30 match). The winners of Friday’s matches will meet at the PAV at 7:00 on Saturday. I am unclear about the television arrangements, but probably ESPN2 or ESPNU or not at all. Probably not BTN or BTN+.

Saturday’s winner will advance to the Madison Regional to play in the Sweet Sixteen vs the team emerging from Baylor, Texas A & M CC, N. Colorado and Washington State. And the winner of that would most likely play the Badgers.

HOW GOOD IS THIS TEAM? AND HOW FAR CAN THEY GO?

This is a very good team. It might, despite obvious flaws, be the best Gopher Volleyball Team ever. And the rationale for this claim is obvious, Steph Samedy is the G.O.A.T. – the Greatest (Gopher volleyballer) Of All Time. She seems a shoe-in for Big Ten Player of the Year, and a strong candidate for National Player of the Year. Coach McCutcheon insists that she is the best Opposite in the country, and she might be the best Opposite to ever play Women’s Collegiate Volleyball.

Samedy’s hitting percentage, .261, is modest because, one, everybody in the building knows she’s getting the ball, and two, she gets a lot of mediocre sets. But she has proven that she can lead this team to victory over good teams despite the defensive attention she gets.

The absence of one over-powering, go-to hitter the team can depend on was a significant flaw in some of our recent Final Four teams. In my mind, Samedy makes this team even money in a fantasy match against one of the teams with Seliger-Swenson, the Tapp Sisters, Wilhite and Alexis Hart.

I fully expect this year’s Gophers to reach the Sweet Sixteen, if we beat Stanford in Oregon (early Sept) we ought to be able to beat them at the PAV. But there are reasons to doubt that this is a Final Four team. The biggest of which is that every team in the country is loaded with outstanding 5^th-year seniors, playing collegiate careers extended by Covid. Wisconsin certainly is, and so is Baylor, the #5 seed. They don’t have Samedy, but the Bears and the Badgers have plenty of weapons.

And there is also our lack of offensive production from our Middles. Even the Middles of a bottom-six team like Maryland out-scored our Middles. Some of this can be blamed on our serve-receive (Shaffmaster is still chasing the ball around the court), some of it is Shaffmaster herself (never goona be Seliger-Swenson), and we just don’t have great Middles. Over the course of this season, McCutcheon has tried 3 different Middles, he’s tried running slides, he has diversified the offense with Samedy and Wenaas hitting from the back row, and he has even tried out a middle-set tactic.

At this point, we have to accept that this is a team with limited offensive options. And also without our potentially second-best outside hitter, Taylor Landfair (whatever her injury might be), even if she was miraculously cleared to play, there is no chance she would be 100%. So we go into the NCAA Tournament with an offense totally dependent on Samedy, Wenaas and Miyabe.

Samedy has proven that she can carry the team on her back, even against a good team, and Wenaas and Miyabe are good enough for the Gophers to beat a good team when Samedy is merely good. But this is a single-elimination tournament with a field full of teams as good or better than the Gophs, two of them in our region. Turning the tables on Baylor (they beat us in Madison back in August) and Wisconsin who beat us in Madison and at the PAV to advance to the Final Four will require a lot of luck. But stranger things have happened; keep your fingers crossed.

RETRACTION: Maureen insists that she does read GopherVBallRocks and is offended that I suggested otherwise.

It was tense at our house for a while, because it wasn’t as easy as Maureen expected (she never reads my blog), but the Gophers finished their regular season with a 4-set win at Maryland, 23-25, 25-23, 25-20, 25-18.

The relatively slow start, losing Set 1 and struggling to win Set 2, has multiple potential explanations:

• Maryland isn’t a great team (7 & 12 coming in), but they beat Wisconsin on their home court, and this was their final match of the season, so one could imagine the seniors were fired up.
• The Gophers have not been a good first-set team all year.
• The Gophers played and won a tough 4-set match at Penn State last night. Two matches 23 hours apart, in different states, isn’t easy, even against an inferior opponent. 

I cannot provide much detail on SET-1, because I was trying to watch the end of the football game at the same time, which is even harder using BTN+, because you can’t just flip channels. But I think the score was close all the way, as was true of SET-2, and like Set 2, which the Gophers were lucky to win, could have gone either way.

SET-3 looked liked trouble when the Gophs fell behind 13-17, but then the Gophs went on an 11-2 run, to build a 24-19 lead. McGraw, and later Shaffmaster served a lot of those points, and Wenaas came on (she led the Gophs with 17 kills) strong.

But the set also featured an interesting tactic, which I don’t recall seeing from McCutcheon before. High-level volleyball teams almost always position their front-row setters on the right-side, to feed the power shoulders of their generally right-handed middle-hitters and right-handed left-side hitters. But as we know, the Gophers generate almost zero offense from their Middles.

So, in the middle of Set-3 (this might have happened earlier and I didn’t notice on BTN+) the Gophers moved Shaffmaster to a middle position, and their “Middles,” Myers and Husemann, to right-side hitters. This didn’t exactly turn Myers or Husemann into another Steph Samedy, but they did generate a little offense from the right-side. This tactic also allows a stronger outside block against opponents left-side hitters, which Myers took advantage of to record a team-leading 8 blocks.. And it worked, turning the tide of the match.

Whether it was the Gophers being tired or the Terrapins being pumped, the Gophers’s 11-2 run late in Set 3 burst the bubble. SET-4 was less about the Gophers playing great, and more about the Terrapins looking ragged and dispirited.

FINAL STANDINGS

The Gophers weekend sweep elevates them into a three-way tie for 3^rd place (with Purdue and Ohio State) 2 games behind Wisconsin and 1 behind Nebraska. A respectable finish in the rugged Big Ten.

[Speaking of Purdue and Nebraska, within the last month, Nebraska lost to the Gophers in 3 sets, and to the Badgers (in 4 sets, I think); and the following weekend Purdue beat the Badgers in Madison and swept the Gophs at the PAV. So I was fairly sure that Purdue was the stronger team. And then tonight, the Huskers destroyed the Boilermakers in West Lafayette.]

NCAAs:

The brackets for the 2021 NCAA Volleyball Tournament will be announced Sunday night (7:30 p.m. Central) on ESPNU. Expect the Gophers to be a top-16 seed, which should mean they will host first & second round matches at the PAV.

PITTMAN MYSTERY SOLVED

Reader C.B. turned son-in-law M.C. on to GopherVBallRocks, and reviewing past postings, M.C. was intrigued by the question, What’s up with Pittman? Why is she practically the only senior in the Big Ten NOT taking advantage of her Covid-bonus year of eligibility? M.C. a better sleuth than I, found this report https://www.brainerddispatch.com/sports/volleyball/7162200-Volleyball-Pittman-hopes-her-life-is-an-inspirational-example-for-young-females

 in an Aug issue of the Brainerd Dispatch. Pro-fishing, maybe?

Not pro-fishing, actually. I encourage you to read the whole article – but I know some of you lead busy lives, so here is a synopsis: Turns out, Regan wanted there to be more in her life than volleyball. Pittman is humble about her accomplishments (3 time All-American), but knows her resume is one reason people will listen to her, so she started the Stand Tall Volleyball Academy to teach her powerful, personal, message through volleyball. “I was bullied in middle school and high school, and I want to help other kids go through these moments. If volleyball doesn’t work for you because you’re not 6-5, find something else. Choir, whatever.”

Pittman’s skills camps and leadership clinics can be booked through her website Standtallvolleyball.com.