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A successful trip to Maryland for our Gophers, running their match record (which is what counts) to 4 & 0, and their set record (bragging rights only) to 12 & 0. Absent non-conference competition, it’s hard to know how good Maryland is, but the Terps went 5 sets in both matches at Ohio State the previous weekend, so they can’t be that bad.

The 3^rd set of the weekend (on Friday) was the most dramatic. After dropping the first two sets, the fired up Terps led the inconsistent Gophs for most of the 3^rd set on the way to a 23 – 19 lead. After a timeout, the Gophs won the side-out and then, with Kilkelly serving, ran 5 more points (6 counting the side-out) to save the set 25 -23. Rollins got the set-winning block.

The 4^th set of the weekend (1st on Saturday) was the second most dramatic. The Gophs had a comfortable lead for most of the set, but pissed the lead away late, to create a 22 – 22 tie, before winning 25 -23. Rollins got the set-winning kill.

Overall, I give the Gophers an A-. The A for sweeping 6 sets against a decent team, and the minus for the inconsistency that led to a 23 – 19 deficit in that 3^rd set. (Plus, I’m saving A and A+ for matches against stronger teams.)

INDIVIDUAL PLAY:

Rollins, McGraw, Kilkelly all played well, I give them a collective A-. (Wenaas, Miyabe and McMenimen did not play.)

Samedy continues to demonstrate, set after set, why she is an All-American and the leader of this team; I give her an A+.  Samedy crushed the ball from the front row, she crushed the ball from the back row, she blocks, and she digs. And when the team struggles and is in danger of dropping a set, Shaffmaster and anyone else handling a two-ball looks for Samedy, and Samedy puts it away.

Pittman is also a legitimate All-American, who also does everything well. She blocks, 2^nd on the team with 11, she serves aces, leads the team with 7, she hits, 8 kills in 9 swings for the weekend, and she even sets. (I have no doubt Pittman would play setter if McCutcheon let her.) And not to take anything away from Samedy, I sense that Pittman is the emotional “heart” of this talented squad. I give Pittman an A for the weekend. The problem is that the connection between Shaffmaster and Pittman is still shaky. Pittman got 8 kills in 9 swings this weekend, but I think 6 of the 8 kills were on “overpasses,” i.e., sets from the other team; not from Shaffmaster. (Consistently, during the McCutcheon era, the Gophers have been exceptional at putting away overpasses.) The “connection” problem is likely more on Shaffmaster’s end, but Pittman’s a senior and Shaffmaster’s a freshman, so there’s that.

Landfair: My personal fan-hope for this second week-end, was to get freshman Taylor Landfair, the #1 rated recruit in the country, going. (I shared last week my thought that Landfair has the potential to become Gopher V-ball’s G.O.A.T.) Last week, Landfair started tentatively, blocking well but not hitting efficiently, and eventually got benched. And she came out tentative again during Friday’s 1^st set. But she came on strong as the weekend progressed, tying Samedy with 20 kills for the weekend. And she didn’t match Samedy only in statistics, she matched Samedy in raw, how-could-anyone-dig-that power. I give Landfair an A-.

Shaffmaster, to me, plays like the talented, highly-rated, freshman that she is; which is to say, showing both great potential and noticeable flaws.  I guess I’d give her a B+ for the weekend. On the positive side, Shaffmaster (last week’s Big 10 Freshman of the Week) played every point in a 6-set sweep, running her total assists to 99 in her first two weekends of collegiate play, and she has a remarkable 15 kills (more than the combined total for Gopher setters last year) and a team-leading kill rate. Though not our primary weapon, this is significant in that Shaffmaster’s potential to attack the 2-ball will make it much harder for opposing teams to focus on other Gopher Hitters. And her blocking improved over the first weekend. On the negative side, Shaffmaster doesn’t have the quickness of a Seliger-Swenson (admittedly an un-fair expectation) and she hasn’t found her middle-hitters yet. Hopefully, the latter will come as the season evolves.

Myers came to Gophers with a stronger rep for blocking than hitting, and so far, that’s who she is. After 4 matches, she leads the team in blocks (19 in 12 sets), but ranks 6^th (in a 5-1 system) in kills. I give her a B+. Hopefully, her “connection” with Shaffmaster will improve, but it’s not like the Gophs are short of offensive weapons.

UP NEXT: The schedule gets much tougher from here (at least until mid-March). This week the Gophers travel to #13 ranked Purdue, (Friday at 6:00 – BTN, and Saturday at 4:00 – BTN+), for their toughest test so far.  (Let’s hope the Gopher Women V-ballers represent better than the Men’s B-ballers did yesterday.) Followed on successive weekends by Penn State here at the Pav, and Nebraska at Nebraska.

Different coaches, across all sports, have differing philosophies regarding substitution. The Twins Rocco Baldelli, at one end of the spectrum, is clearly an advocate for liberal use of his bench, presumably with the twin goals of not over-working his starters, and keeping his bench “ready” for when they are needed. At the other end of the spectrum are former T-Wolves coach Thibadeaux and the late Gophers’ coach Bill Mussleman. Tibs wanted his best players on the court as much as possible, and Mussleman was clear that actually fouling out was the only reason for a substitution.

Coach McCutcheon seems on the Thibadeaux –Mussleman end of the spectrum. I understand that he is trying to integrate 3 new players into his “Starting 8,” and is eager to maximize their time together in a competitive environment. But I worry about Wenaas, Miyabe and Rubright getting the experience they’ll need if called on later, and Maryland seemed like a chance to give them some.

The Gophers play at Maryland this Friday at 7:30 (BTN) and Saturday at 5:00 (BTN+), subject to change as always. I did figure out how to get BTN+ on my TV, as did at least some other readers of this blog. I’m no techie, but if you call me (612-724-7620) I can share how I and others did it.

The Terrapins are led by #9, senior left-side hitter Erica Pritchard, a pre-season All-American (an honor shared with the Gophers’ Sammedy and Pittman), but they are also excited about their highest-rated recruitment class in school history, including highly-rated setter #8 Sidney Dowler. Maryland opened their season last week at Ohio State (where the Gophers have occasionally struggled), battling but eventually losing a pair of 5-set matches.

An interesting story-line will be the return to College Park (a D.C. burb, I think) of now-Gopher Graduate Student (a junior, in terms of eligibility) Katie Myers, who led the Terps in blocks last year. I do not have any insider knowledge of Myers’ thinking (academics, maybe?), but I’m guessing that she thought that being a contributor on a potential Final Four Gopher Team sounded like more fun than being the star of good-but-not-great Terrapin Team. Let’s hope her return proves successful.

Not everyone that reads this blog plays BAJ Volleyball (“geezer ball” to the uninitiated), but many of you do. And we just got the news that our season, suspended in mid-Nov due to Covid, is back on (3 days/wk) beginning this Monday. (Masks required.)

My personal mental health / outlook on life went up a click when it was confirmed that Gopher V-ball was back on; another click last week when I got my first vaccination; a half-click when I figured out how to get BTN+; and now two more click upon learning that I get to play V-ball again – from like 4 on a scale of 1 to 10, to about 8. That’s a BIG improvement!

Reader D.S. writes: I’ve enjoyed reading the blog, John, and your insights into the 2021 Gopher VB squad. Their depth appears to be their greatest strength with excellent young players just waiting their chance to play. Two questions: 1) Where do you see Miyabe, Rubright and Husemann finding quality playing time? and 2) With Division 1 athletes given an extra year of eligibility due to Covid, do you foresee the possibility of seniors coming back next year (e.g., Pittmann ,Samedy) impacting recruitment for next year?

JOHN: Thanks, D.S., I agree with you regarding the depth.

I think Miyabe’s role (and McMenimen’s) were defined in this first match. They’ll be available if someone gets injured, but their primary role will be to “shake things up” when the team isn’t performing at the level McCutcheon expects. (What an asset!)

Rubright and Husemann are both great athletes, and I assume both arrived on campus, in the summer of 2019 — Husemann local (Eagan), and Rubright, from Yakima, WA (herself highly-recruited) expecting to be starting middles by August of 2020. There must have been some sense of disappointment to see Myers (a junior) transfer in and grab the other (besides Pittman) middle position. Maybe one of these two will end up playing an important role before the season is over, or next year. Or maybe one or both will take advantage of the dramatically loosened transfer rules. Hard to keep 14 athletes happy when the court only holds 6 at a time.

The NCAA’s extra year of eligibilty due to Covid, the chance of this year’s seniors coming back next year, and the impact of this on recruiting is a topic I am planning to address in the future. In the mean time, maybe other readers have their own thoughts???

Reader G.U. writes: I like your blog and I agree with most of your comments.  I know you are in love with the new kids playing and from watching yesterday I agree with your grading, but a couple observations:

The image in my head of top volleyball players, male and female, is long and lean. But Pittman, a terrific player, isn’t lean. And the new setter is a big gal.  Just sayin’.

JOHN: Thanks, G.S., you raise an interesting point. You know I am not lean; are you not impressed by my “credit card vertical?”

Pittman’s weight hasn’t changed significantly since she was a freshman. The first time I saw her I thought, uh-oh; she’ll need to lose some weight before she can be any good. But she didn’t or couldn’t, and she was good as a freshman, and better each year so far — GREAT hands for a big gal. Could she be better/quicker if she lost 25 lbs? Maybe, but who knows?

Shaffmaster’s not “heavy,” but at 6-3 with broad shoulders, she is big. I too am concerned about both her quickness and her endurance. Can she really play all 6 rotations for 5 sets on back to back nights versus Penn St. or Nebraska — without running out of gas?

I’ve previously mentioned Coach McCutcheon’s success with the 2012 London Olympics. McCutcheon ran a 5-1 one throughout that grueling tournament, with the Gopher’s own Lindsey Berg as his setter. Berg wasn’t skinny either, and she was 32 yrs old (and at 5-8, not able to block much). Berg and McCutcheon lost the Gold Medal Game to Brazil in 5 sets, but walked away with Olympic Silver Medals. So let’s give Shaffmaster the benefit of the doubt.

The Gopher opened their delayed 2020 season on Saturday by wining straight sets over Michigan State, 25-18, 26-24, 25-16; and repeated the feat on Sunday, beating the same Spartans (this is the new, pandemic, scheduling format) 26-24, 25-22, 25-12. The Gophs, who struggled in the 2nd set Saturday, struggled in the first 2 sets on Sunday, but remember — this Michigan State squad is tall and talented (3rd in blocks in Big 10 last season, top twenty nationally). Understandably discouraged, MSU folded in the 3rd sets of both matches, but they’re a good team. Overall, the Gopher seniors played like seniors, the freshman played like freshman (see “GRADES”), and they did what they needed to do.

Stephanie Samedy was a star from her first match as a freshman, but the team, Samedy’s freshman & sophomore years, belonged to Samantha Seliger-Swenson. With apologies to Regan Pittman, Samedy was probably the Gopher’s best player last season, but with the injuries and a “gap” setter, 2019 was a disjointed year, despite their Final Four finish.

But this first pair of matches made it clear – this is Samedy’s Team! Other Gophers contributed to the 152 points the squad racked up in a 6-set sweep of the Spartans, and Samedy made errors here and there. But every time the Gophers were at risk of losing a set, as they were in 3 of the 6 sets, they turned to Samedy. And she delivered every time!

Pittman played well, Junior left-side Adanna Rollins actually had one more kill than Samedy (24 to 23), and a higher kill-%, and transfer middle Katie Myers tied Samedy with 8 blocks. But when sets were on the line, Shaffmaster and anyone else who happen to play the 2-ball, tried to get the ball to Samedy, and Samedy rewarded their efforts.

Something you definitely won’t find on the official Gopher Website, I intend to grade the team, the players, the coaches and anything else of note, on a 2-match basis. DISCLAIMER: At this point, I’m watching the games on TV. I apologize to the players for not noticing their off-camera contributions. If I was in my season-ticket seat, slightly farther from the court than Coach McCutcheon, but with the slight elevation perhaps just as good a view, I could grade more accurately – but this is a pandemic. I’ll do the best I can.

TEAM: A- The minus is for almost losing 3 of the sets; the A for winning all six!

VETERAN STARTERS:                                                            Samedy gets an A+ (see SAMEDY’S TEAM)                                 The rest, collectively, an A Pittman, Rollins and McGraw were all steady, even working with a significant number of newbies. Rollins in particular got the Gophers off to a strong start in the season’s first set; easy to overlook, but important. I can’t help but wonder if Rollins is hearing “footsteps.” And if she is, maybe that’s a good thing.

FRESHMAN AND TRANSFER STARTERS:           SHAFFMASTER gets a B Her timing on the quick sets to Pittman was off, but her setting overall was good enough (50 assists) to sweep six sets. And she played with confidence, earning 6 kills in 6 sets (Miller and McMenimen had 13 kills between them in 118 sets last year). Oddly enough, she didn’t record a single block (Samedy, blocking in the same position got 8). At least this first weekend, she needed a lot more help setting than Seliger-Swenson used to, but that’s a high bar. All in all, a good showing in her first Big Ten Weekend.                                                                      LANDFAIR gets a B- She started a little tentative the first set on Saturday, then came on strong, hitting and blocking impressively. Then she struggled again on Sunday and got benched. But what an athlete, unlimited potential, a chance to be the G.O.A.T. of Gopher volleyball.                                                                                       And MYERS gets a B+ A junior transfer from Maryland (the Gopher’s opponent this coming weekend) where she was known more for her blocking than her hitting, did not disappoint.

BENCH                                                                                                                                                   McMenimen and Miyabe both get an A+ The junior setter and the senior outside-hitter proved last year that they could keep the team winning when starters were hurt or struggling, and they demonstrated this weekend that it was no fluke. It appears unlikely that either will appear in the starting line-up this season, and last year, when they were forced to play extensively, weaknesses of each were exposed. But they proved that they can come in for a few rotations and change the momentum from negative to positive.              WENASS gets a B+ for the two sets she played. Merely the 3^rd-rated overall recruit in the country, Wenaas spent he first 4 sets on the bench (can you imagine the 3^rd-rated overall recruit in any other sport not starting?), getting her chance when Landfair struggled. She got 4 kills and zero errors, in 8 attempts, for a strong 500%, but didn’t really attract much attention.                                                                                                                    COACH MCCUTCHEON gets an A I thought the way he used McMenimen and Miyabe off the bench was brilliant!

Wife Maureen (who, oddly enough, is a reader) asks, “Why do they take Samedy out, when she’s their best player, even getting kills from the back row?”

John: It’s about “rotation position.” Samedy plays what we used to call “right-side hitter,” but now many people call this position “opposite,” because she rotates opposite the setter, i.e, she and the setter are never in the front row at the same time. When the Gophers were struggling and Coach McCutcheon wanted to shake things up, the most meaningful “shake-up” would be to sub the veteran back-up setter McMenimen in for the freshman Shaffmaster. But he can’t sub McMenimen into the front row because she is vertically impaired, so he subs McMenimen into the back row for Samedy. And simultaneously subs Miyabe into the front row for Shaffmaster – the “double sub.”

Reader W.P. asks, “Michigan State got called for ‘back-row attack’ at least 3 times on Sunday; how come Samedy is allowed to attack from the back row?”

John: A “10 ft line” (“3 meter line” in the Olympics) delineates the front row from the back row. A back-row player can not attack or block a ball while standing in, or jumping from, the front row. Samedy is allowed to hit, and is effective at hitting, from the back row by taking a running start and leaving the floor behind the 10 ft line. She is, in a sense, well in front of the 10 ft line when she strikes the ball – but she hasn’t touched the floor yet. Samedy’s skill at this allows the Gophers to have 3 hitters in every rotation; the front-row middle, the front-row left-side, and Samedy, regardless of where she might be in the rotation. I think that one of the calls against Michigan State involved a back-row player trying to do what Samedy does so effortlessly.

A back-row setter, on the other hand, is allowed to set from the front row (in fact, this is a standard feature of modern offenses) – but she is not allowed to block. I think the other two calls you refer to were against their setter trying to set balls that were passed so tight to the net that they actually broke the plane of the net – allowing Gophers to attack them; and the setter’s hand got in the Gopher’s way – constituting a block. You can’t do that.

(On the topic of the “10 ft line,” libero McGraw is allowed to make overhand sets from behind the line, but in front of it she is only allowed to “bump-set.” If you watch close, you’ll notice McGraw overhand setting from a couple feet in front of the line – but like Samedy, hanging in the air.)

M.S. asks, “What do you mean Sammedy telegraphs her dinks?”

John: A volleyball dink is, in a sense, analogous to a change-up in baseball. The most effective change-up I can remember was thrown, frequently, by former Twin Johan Santana. I remember a split-screen video of Santana throwing his 92 mph fastball and his 78 mph straight change. Santana’s grip, invisible to the batter, was different of course, but his stride, his arm angle and his release point were identical. Watching side-by-side, you couldn’t tell which was which. And Santana loved to throw it, especially when he was ahead in the count.

Sammedy has thrilled us, over the past 3 years, with an effective variety of power shots, especially her sharp-angle cuts and her surprisingly right-down-the-line shots. But Sammedy seems not a natural or instinctive dinker, mostly dinking out of frustration when her power is temporarily not working. Much harder to see on TV, but when I’m watching at the Pav, I can tell when she’s going up for a dink — and usually the defense can too. Maybe she’ll get better — if it’s important to her.

W.P. asks, “When we were training for the Geezer Nationals, you told me my sets would be called carries if there was any side-spin on the ball. But there was usually side-spin on Shaffmaster’s sets in this opening match, and she never got called?”

John: Referees vary. The last time we played in the Geezer Nationals, that one ref whistled us more times in one match than all the other refs in our other 9 matches put. together. MN high school refs are notoriously fanatic about side-spin sets. And I think Big Ten refs are much harder on non-setters than on setters. (Especially when Pittman was a freshman, I remember her drawing whistles more than once for sets that looked good to me; the refs didn’t believe that a gal that big could have such great hands.)

But as the level of play and the level of officiating goes up, there is more emphasis on letting great athletes play. (How many times did you ever see Michael Jordan get called for traveling?) Big Ten refs assume, correctly, that Big Ten setters have great hands, and therefore rarely call carries on them. And even though Shaffmaster is a freshman, her reputation proceeds her; and she gets away with a little side-spin.

Son Ethan (taller and stronger than even Landfair, who played men’s club-volleyball for the Badgers) asks, “Why don’t McCutcheon’s teams ever run ‘high-tempo’ attacks? (Meaning a quick, flat, set to a hitter already in the air.)

John: Never is a strong word. During the 2018 season, All-American Seliger-Swenson fed a steady diet of quicks to her under-sized and lightning quick Middle Taylor Morgan, occasionally even when setting from the 10-ft line (an amazingly-high-degree of difficulty). But generally, Ethan is correct, the Gophs don’t run a lot of high-tempo stuff. And when I was in London watching the 2012 Olympics, I didn’t see McCutcheon’s Silver Medal American gals running much high-tempo either.

Of course, McCutcheon’s Silver Medal squad had Destiny Hooker, at that time the dominant, most powerful Women’s Volleyball hitter in the world. And this year’s Gopher squad is absolutely loaded, with more power than his line-up can accommodate. I don’t have any secret link into McCutcheon’s mind, but if I had to guess, my guess would be that his thinking is, “Don’t beat yourself.” Run a high-tempo (and high-degree of difficulty) attack once in a while to keep the defense honest, but when you’ve got the bigger, stronger, front line, stick with the basics.