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State College is a tough place to win, especially against a Nittany Lion team that swept the Gophers in 3 sets at the PAV, but the Gophs won in 4 sets, 27-25, 25-21, 23-25, 25-18. It was closer than the box score indicates. The Gophs took a 19-12 lead in Set 1, but a Penn State run tied the set at 19-19, and it was 21-21, 23-23 & 25-25 before the Gophers escaped with the win. Samedy had 11 kills, and Miyabe added 7. A single kill from Myers was the only hint of Middle Offense.

The Gophers never led in Set 2, even trailing 17-13, until clawing their way back with a 12-4 run. Penn State slowed Samedy and Miyabe down, 5 kills and 2 kills, but the Gopher scoring started with aces from Samedy and Myers, and finished with blocks by Myers, Husemann & Wenaas. A single kill from Husemann was the only hint of Middle Offense.

The Gophers never led in Set 3 either, but after falling behind 8-12, they came back to tie the set at 12-12, 15-15, 18-18 & 22-22, before losing. Husemann had one of her best sets of the season with 2 kills, a block and an assist on a Samedy kill. Miyabe, who had been so effective in Set 1, was off her game, and was replaced for one full rotation by Glenn. (Glenn had one kill and one error in maybe 4 swings.)

The Gophers never trailed in Set 4, and after an 8-8 tie began to dominate, leading 13-10 & 20-14 on their way to victory. Their final run included back-to-back serves by Wenaas that hit the tape and dropped on the Penn State side of the net. Wenaas also contributed 4 kills in Set 4, her most productive set.

The Penn State Middles out-hit and out-blocked Gophers, but it wasn’t enough to off-set Samedy’s 25 kills (and 13 digs). And by my count, the Gophers once again had zero kills on dinks.

The BTN announcer suggested that Samedy is a shoe-in to repeat as Big Ten Player of the Year, and campaigned for Samedy as National Player of the Year. She gets my vote – or would if I had one.

[But this same announcer drove me nuts constantly babbling about hitters swinging for “High Hands,” i.e., deliberately trying to smash the ball out-of-bounds off the fingertips of the opposing blockers. Big Ten Volleyball is clearly a higher level of competition than I have ever participated in, so maybe this is actually more common than I’m just not aware of — but I am skeptical. I think that this would be like a pitcher trying to induce a pop-up. I think, mostly, they are blasting away with the expectation that if they can hit the ball really hard, any number of good things might happen – and sometimes the ball goes out-of-bounds off the fingertips of the opposing blockers.]

NEXT: The Gopher finish their Big Ten Season tomorrow night at Maryland, 6:00 on BTN+. Maryland is 7 & 12 in the Big Ten, but one of League-leading Wisconsin’s 3 losses came at Maryland, so lets hope our 14 & 5 Gophers don’t take Maryland for granted.

Several readers enjoyed the memories I shared of the Mussleman Era.

Several readers agree with my adoration of Samedy. R.N compared her athleticism to Michael Jordan’s.

Reader R.A. was critical of McCutcheon’s decision to sub McMenimen in to serve for Myers at a crucial point in the 4th set, “Bad decision may well have sealed Gophs’ fate. With match point at 25-24, McMenimen came in to serve her mediocre serve.  No way she would ace it, and she’s a back row liability. We lost that set, and ultimately a match we could have won.  Why?”

[John: I also wondered about the decision to sub a conservative server, McMenimen, in for the most aggressive of the starters, Myers, at match point. McMenimen did exactly what she was supposed to do, serve over the net. And the Badgers crushed the return. Myers had 3 Aces in the match, and an ace at that point would have won the set. But Myers also had 3 service errors in the match, and R.A. hates service errors.Reader D. S. commented that they could have subbed in Glenn, an even more aggressive server than Myers, at any of the match-point serves. It seemed like McCutcheon was playing it safe. If it had worked. no one would be second-guessing him; but it didn’t.]

It almost doesn’t get any better. Coach Zimmer’s Vikings beat the Packers on a chip-shot field goal as time expired, and a couple hours later, Coach McCutcheon’s Gophers served at match-point three times, late in the 4^th set. But the Gophs couldn’t quite put it away, and the Badgers came back to win in 5 sets, 24-26, 25-19, 25-27, 28-26, 15-12.

SET 1: The Gophers started slow, as they often do, falling behind 0-6 and 4-12, before closing the gap on a run that included 2 aces by Katie Myers. After finally earning a 20-20 tie, the Gophers again fell behind 22-24, before a final run that included 2 aces by Steph Samedy to win the set.

I feel like the Gophers’ consistently slow starts are caused by McCutcheon’s desperate search for a balanced offense – which unfortunately is almost never available, The Gophs inability to generate any hint of offense from their middles (at any point during the match) was compounded, in set 1, by Airi Miyabe’s matching ineffectiveness. Miyabe came out tentative and seemed completely over-matched by the Wisconsin players across the net. It is shocking that the Gophs could steal Set 1 with only 2 hitters (Samedy & Jen Wenaas).

SET 2: The momentum we should have had from the thrilling come-from-behind-win vanished during the break, and the Gophers started slow again, trailing 2-7, and never getting any closer than 3 points.

SET 3: “Slow start by Gophers” is an understatement for the beginning of Set 3; the Gophers were down 1-9 by the time the ladies in front of me returned from the restroom. The Gophers chipped away and chipped away, but at 19-23, it felt too-little, too-late. Then surprisingly, Miyabe came to life, getting 3 kills in an 8-5 run to win Set 3.

SET 4: A complete reverse of sets 1 & 3. For a change, it was the Gophers who came out strong, on effective hitting from all 3 “pins,” Samedy, Miyabe & Wenaas, taking leads of 6-2 and 11-7 (our only leads of the match), before the persistent Badgers pulled back to an 18-18 tie. The Gophers got to match-point at 24-23, 25-24, & 26-25 – we could taste the victory. But the Badgers wouldn’t quit.

SET 5 was, in a sense, the least dramatic. The Badgers eased ahead by 1, then later by two, and eventually by 3. A bitter loss – to a very good team.

Samedy finished the match, her final performance at the PAV (barring possible post-season, NCAA action, keep your fingers crossed), with 31 kills and 20 digs. Wenaas, who was solid all night, finished with 20 kills and 15 digs. And Ellie Husemann, replacing Rubright in the lineup contributed 9 blocks! (No offense, unfortunately.)

FANTASTIC VOLLEYBALL

Maybe as good a collegiate women’s match as we have ever seen or will ever see. I say this for several reasons:

• A 5-set match, between two strong teams, with 3 of the 5 sets going into overtime, and all 3 of the overtime sets won by teams that had trailed by at least 6 points.
• Both teams were led by 5^th-year seniors who had already been stars for 4 years, and were then granted a 5^th year of eligibility due to covid. (Unlikely to be repeated.)
• And the Senior Night performance of the AMAZING Steph Samedy. Wisconsin’s Dana Roettke and Sidney Hilley are both tremendous volleyball players with profession careers awaiting, and their team beat the Gophers home-&-home and will likely win the Big Ten.

But if the folks who get to pick the Big Ten Player of the Year saw this match, there is little doubt that Samedy will win again (as she did last season). She might well win National Player of the Year (I haven’t seen everybody, but can’t be many like her).

Maybe a third of Samedy’s 30 kills came off of perfect sets, and when Samedy gets perfect sets, she hits 1.000! Wisconsin was, on occasion, putting up triple-blocks of 6-6, 6-8, and 6-9, but the 6-3 Samedy was pounding the ball right over the top of them and down to the floor before the Badgers’ strong defensive players Barnes and Ashburn had a chance to dig them.

Somebody will play right-side hitter fro the Gophers next year, probably somebody good. But we will never see another Steph Samedy.

NEXT UP, A RUGGED FINAL WEEKEND:

• Friday at Penn State, 7:00, on BTN. Penn St. beat our Gophs in 3 sets at the PAV.
• Saturday at Maryland, 6:00 on BTN+. Maryland sits 9^th in the Big Ten, BUT one of Wisconsin’s 3 losses was at Maryland, and the 2^nd match of back-to-back road matches can be hard on a team with so little depth as the Gophs.
• Selection Sunday – when we find out where and against whom the Gophers will begin their NCAA effort.

Last place Rutgers did not show up at the Pav to play our Tied-for-3^rd place Gophers, citing non-covid medical issues. The Gophers get the win and Rutgers the loss. The big losers in this are the Gopher bench players who might have seen some action had the match been played.

Ticket holders were given the option of swapping for tickets to other Gopher events this weekend, including Men’s and Women’s Hockey, and Men’s Basketball. Maureen has some bizarre aversion to hockey, so we took the opportunity to check out Ben Johnson’s surprisingly successful all-transfer squad against Purdue-Ft Wayne.

Our V-ball tickets allowed us to sit anywhere in the balcony, so we hurried upstairs and grabbed a pair of mid-court seats in the 2^nd row of the balcony. This immediately took us back to our first year of marriage, when Maureen was still in school and we had student-season tickets and the entire balcony was student G.A. The doors opened 2 hrs before game-time; we’d be in line already (even in sub-zero weather, every game was sold-out) and race other students to the balcony, often grabbing the exact same seats we had tonight.

But we soon noticed that a few things had changed:

• The Gopher warm-up routine involved neither Sweet Georgia Brown, nor a guy on a unicycle.
• The starting lineup did not include Brewer, Behagen, or Clyde Turner.
• The 2021-22 Gophers, though earnest, did not seem as talented as the 1971-72 squad, missing their first 12 shots (maybe 11, I lost count). They did come back to beat PFW by 30 after spotting them a 9-0 lead. (I doubt that will work against the real Purdue.)
• And before long, I was reminded we gave up the regular season tickets we later held for years (downstairs, in the corner) when they remodeled Williams Arena. Oddly, given that it is a basketball arena, the “seats,” formerly bleachers, are spaced such that no one over 5-9 can sit in them, even the first 5 rows of the balcony. So after a few minutes of discomfort, we relocated up to row 6 of the balcony, mercifully still bleachers, and watched the game from there.

One last thing about this basketball team: Head Coach Ben Johnson gets the “stool” on the raised court, and presumably has the last word when he chooses to use it. But 95% of the coaching, both during the live action and during time outs, comes from Asst. Coach Dave Thorson. This is somewhat similar to Gopher Volleyball Games, where Asst. Coaches Laura Kasey and Matt Houk are often more animated than Head Coach McCutcheon – but it didn’t feel the same. Then again, if it works for Johnson and Thorson and the players, it’s fine with me; I assume Johnson will grow into the position. Either way, I wish Johnson’s squad, and Lindsey Whalen’s squad, all the best.

The Gophers are good, ranked #8 in the country coming in — but they aren’t good enough to beat another good team (Purdue came in ranked #9)  without playing their best. Purdue won in 4 sets, 25-18, 14-25, 25-16, 25-22. The Gophers have started slow all season (I think they are unbeaten when they win the first set) — FRUSTRATING. Purdue won the first point of the match, then served to Miyabe. Miyabe bumped it high, but to the wrong spot, near the intersection of the left sideline and the 10 ft line. Shaffmaster, not as quick as I would like, couldn’t get there –and no one helped her! Only 1 point, but an inexcusable mistake for a D-1 volleyball team, an an indication that they didn’t have their heads in the game.

SET 1: Purdue was almost flawless. I remember one error by Purdue the whole set. There might have been 2 or 3, but they were close to perfect. Are the Boilermakers that good? Or did the Gophers fail to put any pressure on them? Probably a combination of the two. Purdue jumped out to a 3-0 lead, which grew to 13-5, and traded side-outs the rest of the set for an easy win. The Gophers hit .028 for the set.

SET 2: A complete reverse – hard to believe these were the same two teams. The Gophers led 5-1, 10-4 before a long run (in the rotation with McGraw serving and Samedy and Wenaas are at the corners) making it 18-8. From there the Gophers coasted to an easy win. The Boilermakers did everything they could do to help; they hit the ball long, they hit it wide, and they missed serves.

SET 3: The Gophers started strong, leading 8-4, and then the roof fell in as Purdue went on a 17-5 run to take a 21-13 lead. The Gophers fell apart, Wenaas and McGraw shanked serve-receives, Myers missed serves, we even got called for an over-lap, another inexcusable mistake, Purdue blocked like demons, and the Gophers were clearly rattled.

SET 4: After 3 lopsided sets, the 4^th was the most competitive, tied most of the way until the score stood 20-20. The Gophers edged ahead 22-20 and appeared to take a 23-20 lead on a (Wenaas? I think) blast ruled a touch. Set 4 was in the Gophers hands, and I felt confident about Set 5. But Purdue challenged the touch, and won the challenge to change the Gophers’ lead to 22-21. And then ran 3 more to take the match.

A REVEALING DETAIL:

Samedy, who finished the match with 23 kills, had 6 in Set 1, which we lost, 6 in Set 3, which we lost, and 8 in Set 4, which we lost; but only 3 in Set 2, which we won. We can’t blame Samedy for being brilliant in Sets, 1, 3 & 4; the problem is that she wasn’t getting any help. And as great as Samedy is, she can’t beat a team as strong as Purdue all by herself. In Set 2: Wenaas had 5 of her 10 kills (plus a block), Miyabe had 2 of her 6, Myers had 2 of her 4 (plus 2 blocks and a beautiful assist on one of Miyabe’s kills), and McGraw had 2 aces. That’s the sort of balance necessary to beat a good team.

I started today’s blog expressing my frustration over the Gophers habit of starting slow. Are they not warmed-up? Is the problem psychological? Possibly; but here’s another theory. I think Coach McCutcheon knows he needs a balanced attack, and directs Shaffmaster to look for it right away in Set 1. But it just isn’t there. Eventually, Shaffmaster (and McGraw and Kilkelly) shifts gears to feeding Samedy – who adds to her astonishing career stats – but it’s too little, too late. The Gophers might play stronger in first sets if we just fed every ball to Samedy right away – but I think that McCutcheon thinks, that this is not a path to playoff success. So we keep looking for offensive diversity.

ONE ENCOURAGING SIGN:

One slightly diverse flavor, dating back a couple of seasons, is Samedy hitting from the back row. But that’s still Samedy. Starting at the beginning of this season, we were also setting Wenaas from the back row. At first it seemed pointless, the first third of the season she was hitting close to .000 from the back row. But now, in the 2^nd third of the season, Wenaas is starting to score from the back row. I think that at least 4, maybe 5, of her 10 kills against Purdue came from the back row – 2 of them back row dinks! (And while I’m on the topic of Wenaas, her passing is really excellent – maybe as good as McGraw’s and probably better than Kilkelly’s. I’m coming to understand why she was so highly rated coming out of high school.)

But we need more options. Miyabe has looked great in a set here and there, but she hasn’t established herself as a reliable option. Shaffmaster has also contributed as a hitter, and I’d like to see more of it. I think she had 2 kills today, on 5 attempts; I’d like to see her attack at least 2 balls per set.

And then there’s Landfair. She hasn’t played in a month, and maybe she never will this season, maybe never ever. But she seems to be getting closer:

• 4 weeks ago, she wasn’t even warming up;
• 2 weeks ago, she was participating in some of the warmup, but not the hitting drill;
• 1 week ago, she was participating in the hitting drill, but only for the timing, never hitting the ball hard;
• Today, she was participating in the hitting drill, and hitting the ball medium hard, 80% maybe.

Landfair isn’t going to help us at 80%, but it’s at least encouraging.

NEXT UP:

• Last-Place Rutgers at the Pav on Friday, 7:00 on BTN+, and
• The First-Place Badgers at the Pav on Sunday, 4:00 on BTN.

I got quite a bit of feedback re my reference to Stella Swenson, the next super-star setter from the Twin Cities. Apparently I was not the only one who didn’t know she existed.

New Reader R.N. and his wife, J.N., that I met at the H.S. Tournament, relays that J.N. spoke with Stella – and her twin sister, Olivia, in the stands after their quarter-final match. (An inside scoop!) The Swenson Twins haven’t officially committed yet, but J.N. felt they were definitely interested in becoming Gophers.

I didn’t mention Olivia, a 6-3, sophomore, outside hitter for Wayzata, because I didn’t notice her. I hadn’t seen Wayzata play before. Stella stood out immediately, but she had several good hitters to feed great sets to, there were two matches going on at the same time, and the other match was more competitive (Wayzata won handily). But it turns out that Olivia is the #2-ranked prospect in MN (after Stella) in the class of ’24.

Apparently, there was some bitterness in Hopkins, where Samantha played, when the Swenson Twins enrolled at Wayzata. I get it; there are those that don’t approve of kids transferring schools for athletics. Then again, if you are an elite athlete with legitimate professional prospects, I don’t know that’s any different than transferring schools for better academic opportunity. And it’s certainly not new, Hopkins (the “victim” in this complaint, has had a lot of basketball players, boys and girls, from North Mpls.

I am also reminded of the story of Marcus LeVessure. LeVessure, who grew up in the Mpls Roosevelt neighborhood, was a star wrestler (in the late 90s?) – I think he was undefeated in his high school and college careers, winning 5 MN State Championships, and I guess 4 NCAA (D-3) Championships (at Augsburg). But Mpls City Conference Wrestling wasn’t very strong in those days, and no one would wrestle him in Conference Meets.  LeVessure would try to wrestle up a weight-class, or sometimes 2 or 3 weight-classes, and still the other team’s coach would decline to send anyone out to wrestle LeVessure. Eventually, LeVessure transferred to Bloomington Kennedy – not the strongest wrestling program in the area, but at that time part of the powerful Lake Conference – just to find competition.

I give Mother Swenson the benefit of the doubt regarding the Twins H.S. career – as long as she steers them to the Gophers.

As expected, the Gophs beat the Hawkeyes for the 48^th straight time, 25-22, 25-15, 25-17. Not much excitement on or off the court. BTN-broadcast matches get a BTN announcer, and BTN+ matches are generally announced by a student or something. But tonight’s match at Iowa had no announcer, and virtually no fans – maybe 100 people? So sort of – is this a real Big Ten Match?

SET 1: The Gophers have not been a great first-set team all season, and they stayed with the script again tonight. We scored the first point, then Iowa tied it up — repeated until it was 15-15. The Gophs, with Kilkelly serving, ran 4 to go ahead 19-15, but then the Hawkeyes, serving at Kilkelly, tied it again at 19-19 and the teams traded 3 more side-outs to 22-22. Finally, behind 2 of Miyabe’s 3 kills for the set, the Gophers put it away. For a change, the offense was well-distributed; I had Wenaas with 4 kills, Miyabe and Rubright(!) with 3 each, Myers and Samedy with 2 each, and Shaffmaster got 1. The Middle slides weren’t working, but the “quicks” were.

SETS 2 was less close. The Gophers led 11-5, 14-7 and 24-14, and the scoring was once again balanced. SET 3 was tied at 5-5 before the Gophs pulled away to18-12. Either Coach McCutcheon got tired of forcing Shaffmaster distribute the ball evenly, or maybe Shaffmaster did, because Samedy had 7, SET 3 kills, and none from the Middles.   

Throughout SETS 2 & 3, the Hawkeyes gave the Gophers the most trouble with soft, short serves. Soft, short serves sound like they would be easy to receive, but I remember a match at the Senior Nationals in Cleveland, where my 65 & over team got killed by a team that kept dropping soft serves on the 5-ft line. We should have been able to adjust; never did. But I expect more from the Gophers.

RECRUITS, 2022 AND BEYOND

Recruiting is a critical component of any successful college program. We got a bonus year from Samedy, Miyabe and Myers, but we won’t get another one for those 3 – they’re out of eligibility for sure in December, and have to be replaced.

The Gophers’ 2020 recruiting class, Landfair, Wenaas, and Shaffmaster (plusand a libero that never arrived on campus) was the #1-ranked 2020 recruiting class in the country, which bodes well for coming seasons, but we need to keep filling the glass.

Yesterday’s signings included:

• Carter Booth, a 6-7, first-team High School All American middle-blocker from Denver;
• Julia Hanson, a 6-1, second-team High School All American outside-hitter from Prior Lake; and
• McKenna Wucherer, also a 6-1, second-team High School All American outside-hitter from Brookfield, WI.

Booth began her H.S. varsity career at Breck, where she started as a 7^th grader, and Benild-St.Margaret’s, where she started as a 8^th grader, before relocating to the Denver Area. McCutcheon’s quote was “Carter has the ability, work ethic and experience to have an impact right away.” I think that means he sees her as a starter, next year, replacing Myers.

Hanson is the Strib’s Metro Player of the Year, a two-time, first-team All-Metro Player, and was the MVP of  an American 17 & under team in a European tournament.

Wucherer was a 2020 U17 first-team All American and was first team all-tournament at the U18 World Championships.

I doubt that anyone can “replace” Samedy, but someone will join Wenaas and (hopefully) Landfair as the 2022 Gophers’ third outside hitter. I’m guessing it will be Hanson, Wucherer or current freshman Glenn.

FURTHER DOWN THE ROAD

Between playing Geezer volleyball and intensely following the Gophers and the Washburn 9^th-grade team (plus other sports my G-kids are in, like soccer and swimming and football and wrestling) I don’t get to as many H.S. volleyball matches as I used to. But I was at the Excel Center yesterday for part of the State Tournament.

If you have never been to a State Volleyball Tournament, you should; if not this year, then next year. One admission, and a seat multiple rows up from the curtain (it’s general admission and there are plenty such seats) provides the opportunity to watch simultaneous action on two courts, featuring 24 of the best teams in MN, starting at 9 a.m. and running until approximately 9 p.m. (You don’t have to watch all-day.) When a match concludes on one court, there is a half-hour gap while the next pair of teams warm up, but usually there is a live match going on the other court. I brought the Strib along to read during “down-time,” was there roughly 6 hours, and didn’t get half the paper read.

The quality of volleyball is amazing. Even the matches in Class A (the smallest schools) consolation rounds are really good — skilled athletes playing their hearts out. The best match I saw Wednesday was Eden Prairie’s 5-set AAA quarter-final win over Forest Lake – the 5^th set, to 15, ended 21-19.

And oddly enough, among all these great players, the two best players I saw were a sophomore and a freshman. The freshman was Rogers’ Anya Schmidt, a 5-9 setter/opposite (I think they were playing a 6-2). She set well and hit well (though, at 5-9, she couldn’t be a D-1 hitter; but she’s only a freshman, she might still grow), but she dominated the match with her top-spin, jump serve. Perhaps I am misled by the fact that Schmidt was serving at High School girls, but I would swear she has a more powerful serve, right now, than any Gopher — at least since Daly Santana. And Schmidt’s serve will get better, over the next 3 years, whether she grows or not.

And then there was Wayzata’ sophomore, 6-1 setter, Stella Swenson – who just happens to be the younger sister of the Gophers’ 3-time, first-team All American setter, Samantha Seliger-Swenson. Again, it’s a distinctly different level of competition, and I could be biased by my admiration of Samantha, but I thought Stella, the Strib’s All-Metro setter (the only sophomore on an all-senior team) played better than Shaffmaster has some matches this year.

The Strib listed Stella’s choice of college as “undecided,” which makes sense since she hasn’t finished her sophomore season. But surely the Gophers, the Badgers, and probably every top program in the country will want her. I think that Samantha had a good experience, not only as a Gopher, but playing for Coach McCutcheon, and I think her mom enjoyed the convenience of watching Samantha’s entire career at the PAV. Keep your fingers crossed.

NEXT UP:

Our 8^th-ranked Gophers host the 9^th-rated Purdue Boilermakers at the PAV, Sunday @ 3:30 on BTN.

IN FOOTBALL.

Coach McCutcheon’s 2nd place in the Big Ten volleyballers, on the other hand, had little trouble in sweeping the Illini in Champaign, 25-22, 25-16, 25-14. As the scores indicate, Illinois played the first set tough, leading the Gophs 15-11 (giving the Gophers trouble with their aggressive serving), and tying the set at 22-22, before a Rubright block finished them off.

Illinois’ disappointing first set loss seemed to take the fight out of the Fighting Illini. (Can anyone explain why they can still be the Fighting Illini, but the team in Grand Forks had to change their name?) It didn’t help the Illini that, midway through the 2nd Set, 3 consecutive, apparent, Illinois points were turned into Gopher points by McCutcheon challenges. I think it would have been tied-up, but instead the Gophers were ahead by 6. It seemed to me that the challenge-review got it right all 3 times, but it had to be hard, emotionally, on Illinois. Set 3 was never close, the Gophers leading 12-4 and 19-8 before putting the Illini out of their misery.

Led, as usual, by Samedy (15 kills), Wenaas (13) and Miyabe (9), and with help from the rest of the squad (Rubright, Myers and even Shaffmaster), the Gophers hit a sizzling .330.

I’m not being as specific as I sometimes am, because I had trouble with BTN+. I tried to tune my big-screen to BTN+ at 6:00, but all I got was a blank screen. I was able to get it on my laptop, but I missed the first few points (7-8, Illinois, when I got in). Later, my laptop froze up, causing me to miss the first few points of Set 2. And when I did get it back, I somehow had a live (I think) video feed, but a delayed audio. And then the match started on my TV. So now, I’ve got Set 1 playing (audio & video) on TV, Set 2 audio from my laptop, and Set 3 video on my laptop screen – all at the same time. And I’m reluctant to turn any of the 3 off for fear I won’t get it back. Sort of a confusing way to watch volleyball.

I did pick up some interesting data:

• The Buckeyes, whom the Gophs beat in 4 sets on Thursday, gave Nebraska their 3^rd conference loss, and dropping the Huskers into a 2^nd place tie with our Gophs.
• The Gophers are 11 & 0 when they win the first set.
• The Gophers have now won 8 of their last 9 matches;
• And 4 of their last 5 against teams ranked in the top 25, nationally;

It seemed plausible that the Gophers, who, 2 weeks ago, were sitting at 6 & 3 and facing 4 matches against nationally ranked teams, would lose at least one of the 4. Maybe we, or at least I, underestimated this team.

NEXT UP, a trip to Iowa City to play the Hawkeyes. I think we’ll make it 6 in a row..

— On the Gophers weekend trip to #7 ranked Ohio State & #25 ranked Illinois. But after watching the Gophs squeak out a 4-set, 25-23, 16-25, 25-15 25-23 win in Columbus, I’m feeling greedy. A sweep on the road against two nationally-ranked teams would be sweet!

I say “squeeked out a win” because the total score for the match was only 91-86 in the Gophers favor. But I’m not complaining, not even about the Gophers mediocre 2^nd set; any win on the road against a highly rated team is an accomplishment to be proud of. (Also a “signature win” when NCAA seeding time comes around.)

As we’ve said often, this was Steph Samedy’s Match. I had her with 4 kills in the Gophers’ Set 1 win, 2 in the Set 2 loss, 4 again in the Set 3 win, and an astonishing 9 kills in the close-out Set 4! Plus 7 blocks (a season high?), and a ton of digs to go with her 19 kills. According to one of tonight’s BTN announcers, Samedy has more digs for the season than 3 Big Ten starting Liberos! That’s a heavy workload; good thing the Gophs get a day off before playing at Champaign,

Miyabe had 13 kills and Wenaas 11. (Wenaas had a tough night at the serve, with several service error and a foot-fault. And she still can’t dink. But she dug great.)

And Rubright had a nice match, with 3 kills and 6 blocks. Once again a BTN announcer (possibly the same one from 2 weeks ago) explained that, “Rubright is in the line-up because she is the biggest offensive threat of the Gophers’ Middles.” Rubright is not yet reminding me of the Badgers’ Roettke, or even the 2019 Gopher’s Taylor Morgan, but 3 kills and 6 blocks in a 4-set win is a good match by current Gopher standards.

The announcer also reported that the Gophers rank last (among 14 teams) in the Big Ten in the % of sets to their Middles. (13% compared to #1 Wisconsin’s 33%.) I’ve written extensively about the Gopher’s struggle to diversify their offense. One new wrinkle tonight was an unprecendented number of times Shaffmaster attacked on the 2^nd touch. She only got 2 kills out of maybe 8 or 9 attacks, but I was happy to see it. You expect a short setter to dump the ball over “on 2” about once a set just to keep the opponent off balance; but Shaffmaster is 6ft-3 (and maybe not the quickest setter in the Big Ten, which is part of the no-middle-offense problem), so she ought to attack more. She didn’t attack as often, or as successfully as I had hoped, during her first season, or early this season; but maybe tonight’s performance indicates growing confidence. And even if her kill % isn’t great, one-kill-a match by our setter would do a lot to improve the diversity of our offense.  

Reporting on the Gophers’ 4-set win over the Buckeyes a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned the amazing digging, all-match long, by C.C. McGraw and her teammates, and their Buckeye counterparts. Once again there were countless balls seemingly down for a point, only to be kept alive by spectacular saves. These two teams are fun to watch.

UP NEXT:

#25 Illinois (losers tonight at home to Nebraska) at Champaign, Sat @ 6:00 on BTN +   Sweeping the weekend won’t be easy, but if Samedy plays as well as she did tonight, it’s doable.

The paper, or the Big 10 website, gives us the overall standings, Wisconsin & Nebraska on top at 10 & 2, the Gophers tied at 9 & 3, and a 4-way tie between Penn State, Ohio State, Purdue & Illinois at 8 & 4. Let’s call these “The Top 7.”

But given that some of these teams have already played each other twice, and other pairs not at all, I thought it would be interesting, just past the halfway mark in this grueling Big Ten Season, to look at how The Top 7 have fared against each other.

TOP SEVEN STANDINGS:

Wisconsin       6 & 1*   with 3 games remaining  

PURDUE          4 & 3    with 3 games remaining       

NEBRASKA     3 & 2    with 5 games remaining  

MINNESOTA    2 & 2*   with 5 games remaining  

PENN STATE   2 & 4    with 3 games remaining  

ILLINOIS          2 & 4    with 3 games remaining       

OHIO STATE   1 & 4    with 4 games remaining

* Also lost to a team in the bottom 7.

What does this tells us?

Maybe not much that we didn’t know. The Badgers’ 6 & 1 record confirms that they are probably the cream of the crop – exactly what I thought from watching them crush the Gophers and Nebraska.

It also suggests that our Gophers, who have played the fewest Top 7 matches, and have the most left, have a tough road the rest of the way through the schedule, starting with matches this weekend. (Thursday, 6:00 @ Columbus. on BTN. And Saturday, 6:00 @  Champaign, on BTN+.)

Ohio State and Illinois currently sit at the bottom of the Top Seven, but they are both very good teams. The hype about the Big Ten being the toughest volleyball conference in the country is exaggerated, of course, you can’t count on two Big Ten teams in the Final Four every year. But if you set up a tournament for just the 6^th and 7^th best teams in each conference, I would definitely bet the Buckeyes and the Illini.

I’d feel good about my Gophs if they could finish “the Top 7” at 5 &4. A split this weekend keeps that hope alive, but a sweep would be better..