Gopher Volleyball 2021-Fall Season


Fans with tickets to the Volleyball match on Friday night against Rutgers can utilize their tickets for any one of the below Gopher home events on Friday or Saturday:

Friday at 6:00pm - Men's Basketball vs. Purdue Fort Wayne at Williams Arena
Friday at 7:00pm - Men's Hockey vs. Penn State at 3M Arena at Mariucci
Saturday at 3:00pm - Women's Hockey vs. St. Cloud State at Ridder Arena
Saturday at 7:00pm - Wrestling vs. Oklahoma State at Maturi Pavilion
Saturday at 8:00pm - Men's Hockey vs. Penn State at 3M Arena at Mariucci

To take advantage of this offering, please use your Volleyball vs. Rutgers ticket(s) at the event of your choosing. Your volleyball tickets will be scanned at the venue and you will be directed to the available seating at the arena. Volleyball fans who choose to attend Men's Basketball will be directed to seats in the 200 level behind either basket, Men's Hockey to seating behind the west goal (opposite the student section), Women's Hockey to the general admission seating areas, or Wrestling to the 200 level of the North Stands.
 




PISCATAWAY, N.J. – Friday's volleyball contest between Rutgers and Minnesota at Maturi Pavilion has been cancelled.

The decision not to travel to Minnesota was supported by the Big Ten Conference and was made out of an abundance of caution surrounding the health and safety of the participants due to matters unrelated to COVID.

The health, safety and well-being of the student-athletes, the program's coaching and support staff and event personnel are the guiding concerns of all decision making within Rutgers Athletics.
What were the "health and safety...matters unrelated to COVID"? Was that a typo, and it was related to COVID"? In Rutgers' last match (last Saturday), 11 players played, but it seems it was a medical decision. Maybe a mononucleosis breakout?
 
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If I had a ticket, my rank of replacement events:
Wrestling (just to see Gable Steveson in action)
Men's Hockey - Saturday (because they have sucked on Fridays)
Women's Hockey - Too bad it isn't Wisconsin or UMD, because SCSU is bad
MBB - Just to see Jamison Battle & Payton Willis dominate, and to see if the freshmen play more than 10 seconds.
Men's Hockey - Friday
 


If I had a ticket, my rank of replacement events:
Wrestling (just to see Gable Steveson in action)
Men's Hockey - Saturday (because they have sucked on Fridays)
Women's Hockey - Too bad it isn't Wisconsin or UMD, because SCSU is bad
MBB - Just to see Jamison Battle & Payton Willis dominate, and to see if the freshmen play more than 10 seconds.
Men's Hockey - Friday

Since we have men's hockey season tickets; it's the first half of men's basketball for us.
 

Wrestling (just to see Gable Steveson in action)
I don't understand why he's wrestling for the Gophers again. He has literally nothing left to prove in amateur wrestling.

He's the best in the world. He will win every match.

The team isn't good enough to compete for a team title. So, all he's doing is opening himself up to the risk of a historic upset and/or injury.
 


Did they change mask policy on campus? Nobody wearing them for wrestling meet thought all the volleyball matches they've been required
 



Did they change mask policy on campus? Nobody wearing them for wrestling meet thought all the volleyball matches they've been required
The policy remains mask up. I did notice that at hockey tonight that they were handing out masks to fans that didn't have them.
 

You're not supposed to jaywalk either. The battle has been lost, unfortunately.
 





Knew we were in trouble after losing the 17-11 long rally
 

What an epic match for senior day! Hard work for the crowd and harder work for the players. It was almost a return to pre-rally scoring marathons. Here's hoping Samedy and Miyabe still have a couple of matches remaining at the Pav.
 

I am obviously fairly well-known among many of the posters on the Volleyball and softball boards as a Gophers athletics program apologist but… that was… disappointing.
 

I am obviously fairly well-known among many of the posters on the Volleyball and softball boards as a Gophers athletics program apologist but… that was… disappointing.
Just more of the same. I honestly don't know when the ladies will be able to beat the Badgers again.
 

Excellent volleyball game between two great teams. Although it is disappointing to lose, I am not upset because they played an excellent team and they played well and hard. A couple of points were the difference. I think that the team has been improving and hopefully will make a deep run in the NCAA. Go Gophers!
 

Excellent volleyball game between two great teams. Although it is disappointing to lose, I am not upset because they played an excellent team and they played well and hard. A couple of points were the difference. I think that the team has been improving and hopefully will make a deep run in the NCAA. Go Gophers!
Walleye, maybe the game and the Gophers team is as you describe it if you are looking at the game as a 5 set whole.

I think the issue for some is that the last 25 points (half) of the 4th set were brutal to watch and the perfect example of this team in miniature. Some Minnesota fans are under the impression that this volleyball team doesn’t have it in them to strike their opponents with the killer blow. What happened yesterday in the back-half of the 4th set just bolsters their arguments suggesting our Gophers volleyballers are just not finishers.
 

Wow was that frustrating. A match that would have been huge for our conference title hopes, we have them 2 sets to 1 with a 17-11 lead in the fourth, and then we melt down. On the one hand, I was pleased to see a strong performance for most of the match against Wisconsin, but it was tough to watch it slip away when we should have had them.
 

Wow was that frustrating. A match that would have been huge for our conference title hopes, we have them 2 sets to 1 with a 17-11 lead in the fourth, and then we melt down. On the one hand, I was pleased to see a strong performance for most of the match against Wisconsin, but it was tough to watch it slip away when we should have had them.
Yes, extrtemely disheartening. You'd think with a possible 1st-place finish on the line, there'd be some way to get that match point. But as the saying goes in baseball, it's not over till the last out. IMO MN's problem is they don't have the depth of outstanding players other top-10 teams have & it shows in the end. When you have to rely on one player, Samedy, for 31 kills & 17 digs..... it's a roster badly in need of bolstering up next year or....
 

My unqualified opinions and observations

1.) This is still a top 16 program. Losing to Wisconsin or Purdue is disappointing but not embarassing. Wisconsin is very Senior lead and likely will step back next year although they also will still be a top 16 level program. Dana Rettke, Sidney Hilley, and Lauren Barnes are top level players and equal or better than their counterparts on every other team.

2.) I think the main problem with the Gophers seems to be the initial return of the serve. A poor reception gets the team out of system and leads long serving runs by the other team. Likely something that gets fixed after the season during training

3.) The team seems to be getting better and maybe a run in the NCAA tournament is possible. Who is in your bracket makes a different since matching up with teams can be a factor. Think back to losing in both regular season and tournament to Oregon in 2018 with the #2 seed. They did not match up well with Oregon.
 


My unqualified opinions and observations

1.) This is still a top 16 program. Losing to Wisconsin or Purdue is disappointing but not embarassing. Wisconsin is very Senior lead and likely will step back next year although they also will still be a top 16 level program. Dana Rettke, Sidney Hilley, and Lauren Barnes are top level players and equal or better than their counterparts on every other team.

2.) I think the main problem with the Gophers seems to be the initial return of the serve. A poor reception gets the team out of system and leads long serving runs by the other team. Likely something that gets fixed after the season during training

3.) The team seems to be getting better and maybe a run in the NCAA tournament is possible. Who is in your bracket makes a different since matching up with teams can be a factor. Think back to losing in both regular season and tournament to Oregon in 2018 with the #2 seed. They did not match up well with Oregon.
Only way they get to the final four is if they luck out and get a team like Louisville in 2019 that just had their Super Bowl upset of Texas, and was out of gas for the next match.
 


NCAA RPI through matches of 11/21/21: (It's looking increasingly likely that we'll have to spoil someone else's party)

1 Louisville
2 Pittsburgh
3 Baylor
4 Texas
5 Wisconsin
6 Georgia Tech
7 Kentucky
8 Purdue
9 Ohio State

10 UCLA
11 Miami
12 Creighton
13 Nebraska
14 Florida State
15 Florida
16 Marquette

20 Minnesota
27 Penn State
30 Illinois
 

We're not elite, we're not final four. That's just what it is.

Very talented, but this team will never be final four with zero middle attack. That's on the coaching staff.
you're so right. obviously retke is a special player...but their middles had 36 kills yesterday and our middles had 1. our middles have 164 kills on the entire season (95 sets - 1.7 kills per set). it makes it even more amazing that samedy is able to do what she does considering that the block can just key on her every single time and rarely ever get punished for it.
 

you're so right. obviously retke is a special player...but their middles had 36 kills yesterday and our middles had 1. our middles have 164 kills on the entire season (95 sets - 1.7 kills per set). it makes it even more amazing that samedy is able to do what she does considering that the block can just key on her every single time and rarely ever get punished for it.
More like, it's a ping pong between right and left sides.

When Wenaas is on, we can be dangerous. Miyabe doesn't get enough credit, too.

And they both (Samedy and Wenaas) can score on back-row. The back-row (middle) attack is the best we can do as a substitute for the middle. It doesn't get it done.
 

This was a very strange match. Both teams made more than one huge comeback. I don't know enough about the game to know if that was because of bad play by the team that was ahead or outstanding play by the team that was behind. In any case, it was highly entertaining in that neither team could be counted out of any set.

I'm not as pessimistic as some of you. I think the Gophers will be in the match with anybody in the tournament. They just have less room for error than the elite teams, which probably don't number more than four or five. But if the Gophers play at their best....
 

Are the Gophers consistent with other teams or do we mess up the first hit significantly more? Seemed like especially late in the 4th and 5th sets the first bump would be bad then making the set harder and a weak spike
 


NCAA RPI through matches of 11/21/21: (It's looking increasingly likely that we'll have to spoil someone else's party)
Except for Louisville and Pittsburgh, the ACC teams still seem to get little respect from the coaches. The AVCA poll has Georgia Tech at #14 (#6 in the RPI), Miami (FL) at #26 (#11 in the RPI), and Florida State at #30 (#14 in the RPI).
 




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