Gopher Volleyball 2021 - Spring Season

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MplsGopher said:
Hugh never gives anything up. He makes PJ Fleck look like a fountain of info.

As far as I know, both players suffered knee injuries to some extent (that part we'll never know). Myers has been injury prone.

I feel especially bad for her. She was a highl coveted transfer from Maryland, and could have gone almost anywhere. Like, for example, Ohio State. She would've played every single point for that surprising team this year.


Instead, Hugh benched her early on for Rubright, who to me still has a lot of development to do and adds very little on offense. She's still young and lots of room to improve, I'm sure she will.


If Pittman doesn't take her extra covid year for this fall .... that's going to be a huge gap. Literally and figuratively. That is possible where Myers could slot in as the M1 next fall, and maybe that was the plan all along?



As far as CC goes ... I feel like this has really not been her year. It's a weird year. Almost think at this point she should just shut it down and get ready to have a great fall.


On the plus side, it has allowed Wenaas to play DS for Landfair and really work on her passing, as well as get some back row attacks on occasion.
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Do you think the Gophers are stronger with Wenaas in the lineup? (I'm asking as a VB novice.)
 

Hrothgar said:
Do you think the Gophers are stronger with Wenaas in the lineup? (I'm asking as a VB novice.)
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There is no other option.

Normally it would be CC at libero and Kilkelly at DS. We did sign one other DS for the 2020 season, but she opted out of the spring season and I do not believe is with the team any longer.

With Kilkelly forced into libero, Wenaas is the next best passer for DS.

Otherwise, you could try to have Landfair play all-around, but that would be weaker. Though for whatever reason they were having Landfair serve. Not sure if that was a substitution preserving thing or what.
 

MplsGopher said:
There is no other option.

Normally it would be CC at libero and Kilkelly at DS. We did sign one other DS for the 2020 season, but she opted out of the spring season and I do not believe is with the team any longer.

With Kilkelly forced into libero, Wenaas is the next best passer for DS.

Otherwise, you could try to have Landfair play all-around, but that would be weaker. Though for whatever reason they were having Landfair serve. Not sure if that was a substitution preserving thing or what.
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The only reason I can think of why Landfair serves is that Hugh thinks her serve is better than Wenaas'. It seems whenever GT was in system on Landfair's serve, they went right after her.
 

Ski U Mah Gopher said:
The only reason I can think of why Landfair serves is that Hugh thinks her serve is better than Wenaas'. It seems whenever GT was in system on Landfair's serve, they went right after her.
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I doubt either of them have a dangerous servce, and Landfair's passing is clearly a liability, hence why Wenaas goes in for her, in the first place!

There could be unseen politics in there. Landfair and/or her family demanding that she be a six-rotation OH, etc. Wild pulling that out of my rear end, but would not surprise me what has to go on in the background to land the top recruit in the nation.
 

MplsGopher said:
Pitt "upset" 14 Utah 3-0. They will be a good matchup.

Hoping it will be something about like when we played Purdue, as they did not have Cleveland at that time.
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Looking at yesterday's results, I guess the "surprise" of sorts is how weak the PAC-12 teams have fared thus far. Not only did the two losing seeded teams (WSU and UU), come from that conference, but UCLA lost to BYU in straight sets (although not seeded) and Washington (seeded 6th), had to go to five sets to beat Dayton. Only Oregon (10th) is "unblemished" so far.
 


WSU had a very tough draw in WKU (undefeated, some people think this team could do some damage), and Pitt is usually one of the best in the ACC and would be an upper middle-pack team in the Big Ten most years.

BYU was seeded and UCLA wasn't, so that is what it is. BYU always is good in volleyball.

I don't know anything about Dayton and the A10 this year.
 

Anyone surprised that Wenaas didn't even get set once for a hit from the middle back? I thought she had been effective keeping teams honest the last 2 weekends of the B1G season.

OTH, after the rust got shaken off, Samedy, Rollins, and Landfair were pretty effective. And the middle/slide game with Pittman wasn't bad either.
 

Ski U Mah Gopher said:
Anyone surprised that Wenaas didn't even get set once for a hit from the middle back?
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The boxscore on gophersports .com does show zero total attacks, but I know for a fact she got at least one. I remember watching it.

People frequently complain about how inaccurate the online stats are, so I will chalk it up to that.
 

volleyballmag.com

She's a rising star on Brazil, but Julia Bergmann glad to be at Georgia Tech

She's a rising star on the Brazilian national team, but the Yellowjacket's Julia Bergmann glad to be at Georgia Tech with an eye on a future pro career
volleyballmag.com volleyballmag.com

More on Julia Bergmann:

On her Georgia Tech biography, Bergmann’s home town is listed as Munich, because she was born in Germany, but she went to high school in Brusque, Brazil, and was part of a team that won the South American U-20 Championships in 2018 and played in the last two editions of the age-group’s World Championships.
[...]

The 6-foot-5 outside hitter, who played for Brazil during both the FIVB Volleyball Nations League and the Pan-American Games in 2019, turned down offers to start her professional career and joined Georgia Tech’s program last summer as she pursues a physics degree.

While she’s Georgia Tech’s offensive leader and one of the top freshman in NCAA volleyball, her decision didn’t have the blessing of Brazil’s national team head coach José Roberto Guimarães, who said in an interview to Globo Esporte that in his opinion Julia should continue her career in Brazil and pursue her college dream later.

“I know that it looks like a risk to the future of my playing career, but I want to play professionally when I’m done here,” Bergman told VolleyballMag.com.

“There’s an age-limit for us to start our student-athlete careers, so I had to make this decision now and I thought it was a great opportunity for me to keep playing while I pursued my degree, which is not something so easy to do in Brazil. I wanted to continue playing and studying and I don’t think I could find a better situation to do so than this one as the American academic system is very well-structured for that.”
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I have trouble seeing the Gophers beating any of the top-ranked 5 or 6 best without CC and even Myers too. Who knows, though; with a kind of unsettled lineup they were still only 2 points from taking WI to 5 sets.
 

Hrothgar said:
I have trouble seeing the Gophers beating any of the top-ranked 5 or 6 best without CC and even Myers too. Who knows, though; with a kind of unsettled lineup they were still only 2 points from taking WI to 5 sets.
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I think the Gophers got the single best (easiest) path to the championship game of any team in the tournament.

I am not saying they are the second (or even 5th) best team in college volleyball. I am just saying I see a pretty straight path to the championship game.
 

Hrothgar said:
I have trouble seeing the Gophers beating any of the top-ranked 5 or 6 best without CC and even Myers too. Who knows, though; with a kind of unsettled lineup they were still only 2 points from taking WI to 5 sets.
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Myers wasn't playing well earlier in the year. She was fine defensively, but was not connecting at all with Shaffmaster. To be fair, none of the middles were, and only very recently has Pittman has some nice hits out of middle quick.

CC had ups and downs. Obviously she is more talented than Kilkelly. But at the moment, I think she would hurt more than help.
 

MplsGopher said:
I doubt either of them have a dangerous servce, and Landfair's passing is clearly a liability, hence why Wenaas goes in for her, in the first place!

There could be unseen politics in there. Landfair and/or her family demanding that she be a six-rotation OH, etc. Wild pulling that out of my rear end, but would not surprise me what has to go on in the background to land the top recruit in the nation.
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i think it's pretty plain in the stats...in their service chances wenaas has 2 aces and 6 errors, landfair has 9 aces and 6 errors. that's one off the ace total of both samedy and schaffmaster in way more limited opportunities. if one of them is going to have to serve, probably better the one with more aces than errors. no politics needed.
 



junc1929 said:
i think it's pretty plain in the stats...in their service chances wenaas has 2 aces and 6 errors, landfair has 9 aces and 6 errors. that's one off the ace total of both samedy and schaffmaster in way more limited opportunities.
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No one at Minnesota aces ... we don't serve hard. And Landfair doesn't pass. Makes sense
 

MplsGopher said:
No one at Minnesota aces ... we don't serve hard. And Landfair doesn't pass. Makes sense
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we're tied for 4th in the big ten in number of aces. and we are 6th in aces per set. that's out of 14 teams.

i'm not saying that wenaas isn't a better passer. but i think you're overestimating how much passing landfair has to do in one rotation in the back row to serve. i also think she's clearly the better server of the two. both from watching and from looking at the stats.
 


Highlights from the Georgia Tech match underscoring Pittman's skill set (slides, blocks and a set to Samedy).
 

junc1929 said:
we're tied for 4th in the big ten in number of aces. and we are 6th in aces per set. that's out of 14 teams.

i'm not saying that wenaas isn't a better passer. but i think you're overestimating how much passing landfair has to do in one rotation in the back row to serve. i also think she's clearly the better server of the two. both from watching and from looking at the stats.
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Usually you pass more when you're in the back row.

But fair enough. Obviously Hugh sees it the same way you do, that one half rotation of her passing isn't detrimental enough to overcome Wenaas' lack of serving stats.

To the eye test, neither's serve -- along with all of our servers -- does anything dominate looking.


Maybe I watch too much men's game.
 



The fawning from these announcers of Pittsburg is so bad. I know the ACC is basically owned by espn so I assume they have done other Pittsburg matches, but come on.
 

From the Parkinglot said:
The fawning from these announcers of Pittsburg is so bad. I know the ACC is basically owned by espn so I assume they have done other Pittsburg matches, but come on.
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ESPN is always highly biased in their commentary. Always have been. They have their favorites and the Gophers aren't one of them. Just the way they are.

The ladies have nobody to blame but themselves for the difficulties they're having today. They've mentally checked out time after time all afternoon and will be lucky if they can find a way to win. The backrow play has been pretty much awful.
 

Really want to see the Gophers pick it up. I know it's a loss to have McGraw out but I feel like we should have finished them off in that 4th set.
 

Frink said:
Really want to see the Gophers pick it up. I know it's a loss to have McGraw out but I feel like we should have finished them off in that 4th set.
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They should've. But they completely lost their focus and gave Pitt momentum. And a few of the plays were straight up lazy. They often have this sorta "too cool for school" vibe about them that often gets them into trouble because of how casually they play at times.
 

Landfair has missed a few shots that felt like momentum killers. Not going to get too down on her because she's a freshman but it definitely feels like big opportunities missed.
 

MRJ said:
They should've. But they completely lost their focus and gave Pitt momentum. And a few of the plays were straight up lazy. They often have this sorta "too cool for school" vibe about them that often gets them into trouble because of how casually they play at times.
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They are a one person team in Samedy. Everyone else is hit or miss. Has been all year.
 

Ladies are going to lose and fully deserve to. Pitt has wanted it way more than the Gophers from the start. Absolutely no fire from the ladies at any point during the match while Pitt acted like they were at a rock concert both on the court and on the bench.

Bad way to end the season. This team really needs to work on their approach to the game if they want to take the next step. Just way, way to lazy at times and back row play was just plain bad. Like I said: "too cool for school."
 

Not looking good at this point. Agreed with some laziness in these games today.
 

Disappointed to say the least in the end. They clearly had the talent, but for some reason decided not to use the talent today.
 

MRJ said:
ESPN is always highly biased in their commentary. Always have been. They have their favorites and the Gophers aren't one of them. Just the way they are.

The ladies have nobody to blame but themselves for the difficulties they're having today. They've mentally checked out time after time all afternoon and will be lucky if they can find a way to win. The backrow play has been pretty much awful.
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Espn does pay the ACC hundreds of millions of dollars a year so there is no surprise there.
 

They looked lazy, flat with no emotion. Pittsburgh definitely deserved the win. Gophers need to find players who can pass.
 

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