Gopher Volleyball 2022 Season

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4EverAGopher said:
Unfortunately, that first touch of the ball has been INCONSISTENT for years and SSS is the only setter we have had that could CONSISTENLY better the second touch, when our passing game broke down. Better serving teams will always serve us tough for these reasons.

We have a very young team and many new players. The mixture of these players still needs to develop cohesion on the court.....especially, when we our OOS. In past seasons we have played a lot of OOS volleyball and it will continue this season.

Again, Hugh has his work cut out for him. Hopefully, we will be clicking a lot better come post season. There is a lot of volleyball left to play and lot of time for these players to improve. They all know what they need to work on.
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I don't believe that Schaffmaster is the answer at setter.

She has all the things that make you an elite player, if you were already a great player on the rest of it. She has an awesome serve, she's tall and puts up a solid block, and is very capable of scoring points by herself on 2nd touch, also almost always wins jousts at the nets on overpasses. Decent defense too ... when she is in position to make a play on the ball.

But the actual, fundamental things that make you a great setter ... I'm not seeing it. She is relatively slow, in terms of physically getting her body to a location quickly. That's never going to change. And her hands ... I don't think they're great. I think they're borderline good enough, and I'm not sure at this point how much better they can be. The consistency of the height of her sets, is still all over the place.

Sure, you're always going to be able to say that some degree of that last bit is due to poor passing. You'll never be able to decouple those things. And as you say, our first touch is just so inconsistent.
 


Monday NCAA RPI Through games of 9-12-22.

1 Texas
2 Ohio State
3 Louisville
4 San Diego
5 UCF
6 Minnesota
7 Oregon
8 Nebraska
9 UNLV
10 Wisconsin
11 Houston
12 Marquette
13 Penn State
14 Pitt
15 Stanford
16 Mississippi State

18 Purdue
26 Michigan
50 Northwestern
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Gophers_4life said:
I don't believe that Schaffmaster is the answer at setter.

She has all the things that make you an elite player, if you were already a great player on the rest of it. She has an awesome serve, she's tall and puts up a solid block, and is very capable of scoring points by herself on 2nd touch, also almost always wins jousts at the nets on overpasses. Decent defense too ... when she is in position to make a play on the ball.

But the actual, fundamental things that make you a great setter ... I'm not seeing it. She is relatively slow, in terms of physically getting her body to a location quickly. That's never going to change. And her hands ... I don't think they're great. I think they're borderline good enough, and I'm not sure at this point how much better they can be. The consistency of the height of her sets, is still all over the place.

Sure, you're always going to be able to say that some degree of that last bit is due to poor passing. You'll never be able to decouple those things. And as you say, our first touch is just so inconsistent.
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Schaffmaster may not be the answer but she is the best setter that we have until Samantha's sister shows up, and that is not a guarantee or immediate solution. I think there were worst performances and aspects of the Gopher's game against Stanford than Schaffmaster's setting. She may not be an All American but she is a very elite player. We need some other players to raise the levels of their games a notch.
 

walleye said:
Schaffmaster may not be the answer but she is the best setter that we have until Samantha's sister shows up, and that is not a guarantee or immediate solution. I think there were worst performances and aspects of the Gopher's game against Stanford than Schaffmaster's setting. She may not be an All American but she is a very elite player. We need some other players to raise the levels of their games a notch.
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There are very few setters that can turn chickenshit into chicken salad. SSS was one of them, and it disguised how so-so the Gophers were on first touches during her 4 years.

Schaffmaster is a quality setter in system. Just get a good first touch.
 

I hear all of you. I have attended volleyball at the U of M for over 25 years. Our program has certainly come a long ways thanks to two coaches....Mike Hebert and Hugh McCutcheons. However, IMO there is absolutely a lot of difference in their coaching styles. Personally I feel Hebert was more focused on the LIbero/DS positions and Hugh more the 6R Pins/Setter.

Gentil-Peniata-Tan-Granquist under Herbert and most notably Lawmaster-Rosado-McGraw under McCutcheons. This game has evolved so much over their time as coaches. In today's world the hitters are much more physical in their hitting and the serve has become more difficult to receive/pass. However, every year since Hugh has been HC I keep wondering are these highly recruited Liberos being taught by Hugh and/or one of his assistance on how to, in their eyes, "properly receive/pass the ball"? I ask becasue it appears we have the same issue year after year after year.....inconsistency on the first touch. I just don't recall that with Mike Herbert's teams.

I think most of us have witnessed how important a very good to great passing game is and what a difficult position the Libero has become. I do recall hearing or reading that Hugh feels CC is still to have her "BEST YEAR YET", which I did find that comment interesting.

I feel coaches have to admit their part in this issue in order for the program to become better by post season. Otherwise, we will continue to see low hitting percentages by some EXTREMELY TALENTED PINS and MIDDLE BLOCKERS and IMO a not so good second touch by a limited Setter.
 
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That first set was way tougher than it needed to be. A rotation error and a center line violation, all the years I've watched Gopher volleyball and have never seen those calls.
 

Figured Landfair would've realized where the 10 foot line is by now. Seems like she has been called for a back row attack every match this season.
 


This is starting to look like the Stanford match all over again. Guess I'm watching football for the rest of the night.
 


Disgusting play. Lack of effort. Not enough enthusiasm. Too many people just want to play at the net. Need to dig and fight for every point. C.C. was not throwing her body at every ball like she normally does--maybe, she is worn down or has an injury. But, everyone needs to dig. They have lots of talent but they need to get their confidence and mental game back.
 

What do you do when your two best players are such a liability on defense? They need to get this figured out before conference play starts.
 

There's NSYNC, there's outta sync and then there's the sink that sunk us tonight. That was the least combative performance in recent memory. Pepperdine just kept jamming the ball right back at us and we had no response.
 

Not a whole lot of consistency so far this year. When the Gophers are good, they are very, very good; when they are bad, they are horrid. Clearly, the Gophs have more talent than Pepperdine, but you've still got to play all facets of the game. Hopefully, it was just because Mckenna was added into the mix, though it often has looked like more fundamental issues -- pun intended on "fundamental."
 

Didn't see any of game was pepperdine taller? That seems like biggest liability when outsides are too short vs some of the beach schools
 

rowdaboat said:
Didn't see any of game was pepperdine taller? That seems like biggest liability when outsides are too short vs some of the beach schools
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Coming into this match, Emily Hellmuth was hitting .147. Against the Gophers, she hit .516 on 21 for 31 with 5 errors. Yes, she's 6'3" but I don't think that was the problem.
 


Maybe I missed this but what happened to the blonde female coach on Hugh’s staff? She always seemed heavily involved and I do not see her on the current or any past rosters.

Her name escapes me so google is unhelpful.
 

Laura Kasey. She left coaching for now. I have no idea the reason for her leaving. I thought she was doing a very good job. She has not taken any other coaching position.
 

rowdaboat said:
How are they losing to such a shitty school?
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WCC is quality in volleyball, like the Big West. U of San Diego, BYU, and Pepper I believe all top 25. Lot of California players, which is one of the main hotbeds in volleyball.

That's of course no excuse for the (supposedly) #6 team losing, at home, to the #22 team.

Gophers are not at all playing like even a top 25 team.
 

let'sbeclear said:
Not a whole lot of consistency so far this year. When the Gophers are good, they are very, very good; when they are bad, they are horrid. Clearly, the Gophs have more talent than Pepperdine, but you've still got to play all facets of the game. Hopefully, it was just because Mckenna was added into the mix, though it often has looked like more fundamental issues -- pun intended on "fundamental."
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*have more hitting and blocking (maybe ...) talent. That's clearly all Hugh McCutcheon cares about.

He doesn't care about fundamentals like passing and quality setting.


Without a major change in that philosophy, I don't care how many Landfairs and Wucherers you have. You aren't even getting to another Final Four.
 


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