Very interesting! Playing back-to-back may explain why some very good teams like Nebraska, PSU, and WI lost 4-5 conference matches and why MN looked pretty weary vs. some weaker teams recently. I'll resist the temptation to call into question the academic standards of other conferences.
Gopher Volleyball 2018
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Very interesting! Playing back-to-back may explain why some very good teams like Nebraska, PSU, and WI lost 4-5 conference matches and why MN looked pretty weary vs. some weaker teams recently. I'll resist the temptation to call into question the academic standards of other conferences.
UpAndUnder43
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I think it helps when you reach NCAA tourney play. Lots of back to back matches. Gophers are prepared for it
Survive is one thing. Excel is another. Lately the Gophers have survived and won. They haven't excelled.
Sparlimb
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Wow, didn't see that coming. My goodness, you sure wouldn't want them in your region. Well I say put them in the Stanford regional. Then we can play the best from the west...
beavergopher
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One of their best players was lost for the year with an injury a couple weeks ago.
Sparlimb
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That always sucks. Hate to lose someone like that late in the season. Everything can go off off the rail...
With BYU losing, I think the issue of the third and fourth seeds is now a three-way conversation between BYU, Texas and Illinois. I also think the Gophers and Stanford will be the top two seeds regardless of whether the ladies sweep this weekend or not. With that said, selection committees are somewhat unpredictable or, in the NCAA's case, straight up political (see Gopher softball, 2017), so anything is possible.
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Gophers_4life
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SEC called in a favor to send Gophers to Alabama that year. Bad match up. Horrible calls. Predictable result. SEC is big time invested in softball. They'd like to have other avenues to dump their football money into. They'd love to get better at volleyball.
We (Big Ten) need to call in favors to suppress that from happening, as hard and as long as we can muster. Can't stop it forever .... money is money. You build better facilities, buy off top coaches, buy off top recruits ... that's how they do.
Sparlimb
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I'd guess Stanford #1, Minnesota #2 and Illinois #3 no matter what. You also could see Pitt sneak in the conversation, but their RPI is pretty low. But it will end up being Texas. I don't see any other way. Hopefully they get Nebraska, because everyone wants to see Lexi Sun return to face the Longhorns... In fact, knowing the NCAA, I'd guarantee that match up...
Ignatius L Hoops
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http://www.startribune.com/gophers-...n-but-penn-state-stands-in-its-way/501099531/
Penn State is 12-1 at home this season, the lone loss coming in five sets to Purdue.
The Gophers have lost their past 12 visits to State College. The last time they won there was in 2004, which was also the last time they advanced to the NCAA championship game.
Penn State is 12-1 at home this season, the lone loss coming in five sets to Purdue.
The Gophers have lost their past 12 visits to State College. The last time they won there was in 2004, which was also the last time they advanced to the NCAA championship game.
UpAndUnder43
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Winning set 1 was nice. Been struggling at the start of matches lately.
GringaGopher
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Now down 2-1 with too many service errors. Power up Goldy !
The ladies just stopped making plays in the second and third sets. Had a chance to close out set three and didn't get it done. Disappointing.
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They stayed composed to win the 4th. C'mon ladies close this out !
Yep, great run in the middle of the fourth to come back from 19-15 down.
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It seems to me the Gophers have played sort of in a daze the past 4 or 5 matches. They had a lead late in sets 3 & 5 tonight and then disappeared. They seemed to let PSU play nearly the whole match in the forecourt and easily go on the offensive. I don't see how that will work in the NCAAs. Any views that will help me understand?
They were very fatigued in the fifth set imo. Not sure if that PSU run was fueled by any more than the ladies being in a hostile environment. Play that fifth set at the Pav and the ladies win it by five or six.
The late giveaway in set three reminded me a lot of the Oregon and Stanford matches where they gave themselves chances only to give it right back. Since those matches, they had responded to virtually every challenge except for tonight.
At the end of the day, all those service errors and some spotty back row play really cost them. That and their lack of defense at key points bit them hard.
But to be honest, I still think they've locked up a top-three seed regardless, which is all that really matters at this point.
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I thought of the Oregon & Stanford matches, too. Tonight I had the feeling it was SSS, Hart, Samedy, & Pittman taking on the whole PSU team by themselves. My knowledge of VB is very limited, but it's depressing seeing them lose to a team that's clearly not as good as they are. Even if the match result doesn't matter in the final standings, they still should have won it. IMHO.
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I think losing might be good.. Takes away the pressure of “undefeated” and a 25+ match winning streak. Still won the conference, still a top 4 seed nationally. I also think the loss might light a fire under them. Not tasting defeat for so long can lead to complacency. They’ll be fine in the NCAAs. Home crowd will help a ton!
Penn State deserves some credit. A young team with maybe the best coach in college volleyball history has gotten better later in the season and played great. We haven't won there since 2004 and it's hard to go undefeated in the Big Ten. Gophers played very tough last night. It was a great match. While all Gophers didn't play great, some of them did, and they made it very difficult for a good Penn State team playing a great game at home to beat them.
Maybe we played better in October than November because the schedule was more difficult in October than November and we were busy winning the Big Ten championship. That task has been accomplished. They didn't need last night's victory. If they haven't earned a top seed that is the committees error and out of their control. Now they need victories in December.
My advice is wait until the tournament is done. If they win, we can say how how this team took care of business in the regular season, and then they took care of business in the post season. What a great team!
If they lose, we can comment how the team got worse as the season went along this year just like last year. What a bunch of schmucks!
Either way we can say "I knew it all along"
Not really worried about the NCAA seeding to be honest. First, as you stated, it's completely out of their hands. On top of that, if the committee doesn't seed a Big Ten champion who dominated the league this season while going a soon-to-be 19-1 in the top four, then I'm not sure what the committee expected. As it stands, I expect a No. 2 or No. 3 overall seed when the pairings are finally announced. BYU losing to Loyola Marymount in three-straight I really believe puts the ladies at No. 2 in the seeding process. But, we'll find out for sure
As for last night, Penn State played out of their minds. The first time the two teams played, it was a neat and tidy three-game whitewash.
Last night, the Nittany Lions played with somewhat reckless abandon and at times out-hustled the Gophers. The defense wasn't good at times, serve receive let them down at key moments and they gave away a ton of points with sloppy service errors. Even through all that, the ladies outhit Penn State by more than 30 points and if not for losing a 9-6 advantage in the fifth set, would still be unbeaten heading into Rutgers today.
In other words, the ladies are still clearly the class of the Big 10 despite the loss last night. We should all keep that in mind was they enter the NCAAs.
And one more note: if another team can come into the Pav and take three sets in one match from the Gophers (where the ladies dropped three sets ALL SEASON), I'll tip my cap.
So to sum up, they almost won despite some big mistakes and will almost certainly be home throughout the NCAAs (up until the Final Four), where they have proven to be just about unbeatable. No worries at this point.
Really good comments by Tucker and MRJ. I admire your balance and calmness. And your optimism. Being a pessimist at heart, I figure the best way is to go out and beat everybody every time, unrealistic as that is to expect or attain. My gut feeling is that PSU didn't win the match; MN handed it to them by making errors and giving the other team the belief they actually could win. Tonight's another match.....a new winning streak? We can hope for the best!
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If we don't start a new wining streak tonight, I'd say pack it in and decline a tournament invitation. But that's only if we lose to Rutgers...
Crazy that they're now on an 0-for-70 streak in conference play.
We all know how tough the Big 10 is, but my goodness, you'd think they would've been able to steal one somewhere along the way.Crazy that they're now on an 0-for-70 streak in conference play.
If nothing else, you'd think that somewhere along the way some Big Ten team would have gotten lost trying to find Piscataway, NJ, and just decided to forfeit the match. Isn't that kinda what the Rutgers baseball team did last spring --- decided not to be bothered showing up in Mpls. for a weekend series?
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Might have been two or three years ago. I know because the baseball team won the regular season conference title at Rutgers last year. But I do seem to remember Rutgers deciding not to come out to Minneapolis for some odd reason a few years back. Maybe one of the baseball wonks will remember the specifics.
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Adanna Rollins seems to be hitting freshman wall. Have to be concerned with her play going into NCAA tourney. As much as the team has relied upon her, will promise an early exit if they don't find a contingency plan to replace her midseason stellar play.
Also I hate the dependence this team has on another freshman in CC Mcgraw. There were many balls she just did not defend in the same fluid manner she did midseason. I think reliance on here is going to add another element of uncertainty in the same manner as our reliance on Adanna Rollins.
This goes again to Hugh's inability to coach at the collegiate level, in my opinion. He has shown to be one of the best volleyball coaches of adults at the highest level of play where his strategy and process can be implimented by adult athletes. He has been at the U of M for 7 years now and has still not shown the complete ability to know how to develop, not just young players within a season, but a collegiate team through the grind of a season. His best teams were the ones with a senior laden roster where they were essentially very adult, professional and developed players, and he still couldn't win the national title. It is concerning he has stayed with the roster of players throughout the season similar to all the seasons previous. We haven't seen another promising player arise within a season to buoy the grind of a long season. This is a retirement job for him, nothing more.
Also I hate the dependence this team has on another freshman in CC Mcgraw. There were many balls she just did not defend in the same fluid manner she did midseason. I think reliance on here is going to add another element of uncertainty in the same manner as our reliance on Adanna Rollins.
This goes again to Hugh's inability to coach at the collegiate level, in my opinion. He has shown to be one of the best volleyball coaches of adults at the highest level of play where his strategy and process can be implimented by adult athletes. He has been at the U of M for 7 years now and has still not shown the complete ability to know how to develop, not just young players within a season, but a collegiate team through the grind of a season. His best teams were the ones with a senior laden roster where they were essentially very adult, professional and developed players, and he still couldn't win the national title. It is concerning he has stayed with the roster of players throughout the season similar to all the seasons previous. We haven't seen another promising player arise within a season to buoy the grind of a long season. This is a retirement job for him, nothing more.
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