Reader C.B. writes: The Gophers “slams” seem to be blocked at a much higher rate than we block the opponents. Last night, Michigan seemed much more effective at blocking than the Gophers.
[John: Michigan had 11 official “blocks” to Minnesota’s 8. But this stat only counts block-kills for a point. It does not count all the balls which were blocked back into the hitter’s court, and then dug up by the hittter’s teammates. As far as I know, no one keeps that stat.]
C.B. continues: Samedy, while getting a lot of kills, also got blocked a lot. Is this because she is the only threat? Could she do something different to avoid hitting into these effective walls? Landfair, when she got in, didn’t seem to get blocked much.
[John: Michigan certainly knew, coming into the match, that Samedy was the Gophers’ big gun, and especially knowing that the Gophers rarely set their middles, they presumably would have focused on blocking Samedy. And yet, she managed 30 kills; 30 kills is a lot, comparable perhaps to 30 points in a MN vs Mich basketball game. But as C.B. notes, Samedy also got blocked a lot.
As I’ve mentioned before, the Gophers need more weapons. Samedy hitting out of the back-row is harder to block, so that’s part of the answer. Landfair could be a big help because she is capable of hitting over most blockers. But if we are going to compete for the Big Ten Title, or claim a spot in the Final Four, we also need to generate some offense from our Middles.
Better offense from our Middles is complicated; we will need: 1. Better first-passes to Shaffmaster. Setting Middles is more difficult, with a smaller margin of error. Shaffmaster’s not going to set her Middles if she has to run halfway across the court to get the ball; 2. The timing between Shaffmaster and her Middle Hitters needs to be better; and 3. Our Middles, whichever two establish themselves, need to become better attackers.
It’s going to take al 3 of these things.]