Not the good ones, unfortunately. Not the historic streak of beating mediocre teams at an impressive rate, or this season’s streak of splitting the weekends, certainly not the streak of competing for the Big 10 Title, or being ranked in the top 25 nationally. And likely, unless some sort of miracle occurs, not the streak of participating in the NCAAs in 23 of the past 24 years. (McCutcheon’s 2014 squad failed to make the Tournament.)
The streaks that continued this evening in Piscataway were the recent streak of losing to teams an elite team would beat, the streak of under-performing, and the streak of futility in delivering hittable balls to our Talented Outside Hitters. Rutgers in 4 sets, 20-25, 22-25, 25-16, 14-25.
Some readers might be skeptical of my reference to “Talented Outside Hitters,” but I continue to believe that the trio of Landfair, Wooker and Grote, solely in terms of their offensive skills, are probably the best trio of Outside Hitters in the country. They don’t look like it – because we can’t get them the ball. Melani Shaffmaster is no Samantha Seliger-Swenson, but she’s pretty good, and fully capable of turning good first passes into good second passes – when she gets one – which has been rare all season, and rarer yet tonight vs the Scarlet Knights.
Shaffmaster, who sat out last night’s match, and Set 1 tonight, due to illness, and shared setting duties with McGhie in Set 2, recorded 23 assists (i.e., she delivered a set which her hitter “killed) for the match, McGhie added 13, Murr 3, and the rest of the team another 6, for a total of 45. But we must have had roughly 180 to 200 first pass opportunities, and less than half of those reached the desired part of the court.
Part of this, of course, falls on Landfair, Wooker and Grote, and their own deficiencies as passers. No team at the D1 level (that I know of) expects their Middles to regularly receive serve or dig – that’s what Liberos are for. And you don’t need to have all 3 of your Outside Hitters to be great passers, that’s what D.S.s are for. (If only we had one). But opposing teams watch film; they know that Landfair will produce roughly one good serve-receive in three. And Grote must be worse, cause we hide her on serve-receive.
Last year, we had Jenna Wenaas, now playing leftside hitter for #8 ranked Texas. Wenaas wasn’t good enough to hit leftside for the Gophers (she really wasn’t), so McCutcheon played her rightside, where she wasn’t as good as this year’s rightside. (Grote is definitely an upgrade offensively. ) But Wenaas was an excellent passer; for my money, she was better than McGraw at serve-receive. And even then, with a serve-receive of McGraw, Wenaas and Kilkelly half the time, the 2022 Gophers were a mediocre passing team. The 2023 Gophers, with a standard serve-receive of Murr, Landfair & Wooker, are terrible. I doubt that this squad, which has remained ranked in the top 25, until the rankings get updated tomorrow night, are among the top 200 in serve-receive. And it ain’t Murr’s fault. (She misses one or two per match, but we’re asking her to do too much.)
And none of our 3 Middles could play for a top-16 team either. Davis was credited with 7 “partial” blocks tonight (I counted 3), but I suspect that’s because Rutgers isn’t great.
I shouldn’t bash the two East Coast Teams that whipped our butts this weekend, they obviously have rosters full of reasonably talented players. But Rutgers had never, in their entire history, beaten a “ranked” (i.e., top-25) team. And they didn’t tonight either; the 2023 Gophers are no top-25 team.
At least not now. It’s a long season, and maybe some miracle will occur. But given the nature of the problem, I think the unnamed Reader who predicted a 10 & 10 Big Ten finish was probably optimistic. But if you’re a true fan, like I am, keep wishing and hoping.