Pittsburgh Regional Perspective From Volleyballmag.com

[vantheman1976]

For your interest....

Pittsburgh regional​

No. 5 Louisville (26-4) vs. No. 12 Creighton (29-4): Louisville, which played in the 2021 national semifinals and then lost in last year’s NCAA title match to Texas, hit the ground running in August. The first weekend the Cardinals served notice as they swept Washington State and beat eventual Horizon League-champion Wright State in four. Before September ended they beat Missouri and Dayton, swept Penn State and Kentucky and closed out pre-conference play with a five-set loss to visiting Stanford. Louisville, which was 16-1 at home, went 10-3 on the road. Louisville was riding high before a stunning, four-set loss at NC State on October 1. Its other two ACC losses were in four at Georgia Tech and then in five at Pitt after it won the first two sets before falling 19-25, 24-26, 26-24, 25-21, 17-15. Louisville led 14-13 in the fifth. When on, Louisville’s starting seven are as good as anyone’s, including outsides Anna DeBeer and Charitie Luper, setter Elle Glock and libero Elena Scott.

There are two Creightons. The one with Norah Sis and the one without. With the 6-foot-1 junior outside hitter on the court, the Bluejays are 21-1. Without her, 8-3, which includes one of Creigton’s two Big East losses, a five-setter at Xavier in late September. There are a lot good pieces on this team, especially Kendra Wait, who is a tremendous setter. Creighton, which has been snake-bit the past two NCAA Tournaments with tough injuries, is healthy and riding a 17-match winning streak, losing just one set during that run. Its other three losses were in five to Duke at Purdue in August, in four at Nebraska on September 6, and at Marquette, its Big East rival, on October 6.

No. 4 Pittsburgh (27-4) vs. No. 13 Washington State (26-7): Pittsburgh bounced back from that aforementioned season-opening loss with six wins in a row, including back-to-back wins over Kentucky and a sweep of Marquette before losing to Oregon in five. The Panthers’ other two losses were at Louisville, a sweep in mid-October, and in five — 25-18, 25-21, 23-25, 18-25, 16-14 — at Florida State a month ago. Pitt has an incredible mix of youth and experience, including two freshmen in 6-5 right side Olivia Babcock and outside Torrey Stafford. Babcock leads the team in kills and aces and is second and blocks, and Stafford is second in kills and third in digs.

Washington State is the mystery team. The Cougars are loaded with talent and experience, but have some rotations they can’t get out of. But when it’s all going well, Washington State, the United Nations team of college volleyball, is as good as anyone. It lost only to Louisville in the pre-conference season, which it punctuated with a four-set win at Texas. The Cougars were 17-2 overall, 7-1 in the Pac-12 when things went South. A five-set loss at USC on October 22 started a stretch in which they lost five of seven, including a five-set defeat to visiting UCLA. Two days later, with the season literally on the brink and down 2-0, they rallied for a five-set victory that gave new life. They finished the regular season with four Pac-12 wins, including in five over Arizona State. Don’t be surprised if Washington State gets swept by Pittsburgh or advances to the national semifinals or anything in between.

 

[RightSaidTed]

WSU seems like a slightly better version of USC: very talented but inconsistent. Pitt is so good at exploiting the downswings of teams like that. Hope they can do it again Thursday.

 

[levance2]

WSU seems like a slightly better version of USC: very talented but inconsistent. Pitt is so good at exploiting the downswings of teams like that. Hope they can do it again Thursday.

We only had one day of prep to dedicate to USC and almost a whole week for WSU, so that is one advantage. We've also already played Louisville twice, including quite recently, so we may be able to devote more attention to WSU than in other scenarios.

I think the biggest issue will be our habit of slow starts this year. I hope they come out firing in a full Fitz.

 

[chrisran24]

WSU seems like a slightly better version of USC: very talented but inconsistent. Pitt is so good at exploiting the downswings of teams like that. Hope they can do it again Thursday.

One big difference though is WSU's best player is a middle, whereas USC's was an outside hitter. So the keys will be going on runs when she is out of the game based on their rotation, and getting good first passes when she is in the game so we can run our offense and not be forced into hitting out of system where they can set up their massive block. I believe Jehlarova, the WSU MB, is now the all-time NCAA block leader, so its key to not give her easy block opportunities. Good first passes, keep it in system and keep her guessing on which way we are going on offense

 

[Chaos]

One big difference though is WSU's best player is a middle, whereas USC's was an outside hitter. So the keys will be going on runs when she is out of the game based on their rotation, and getting good first passes when she is in the game so we can run our offense and not be forced into hitting out of system where they can set up their massive block. I believe Jehlarova, the WSU MB, is now the all-time NCAA block leader, so its key to not give her easy block opportunities. Good first passes, keep it in system and keep her guessing on which way we are going on offense

Do they have a lot of service aces as a team? You make a lot of good points-good serve receive allows Fairbanks to be more deceptive with the location of her sets, which slows down their blockers and gives the hitters more single blocks.

 

[chrisran24]

They have 186 aces in 121 sets, good for slightly over 1.5 aces per set. For comparison we have 150 aces in 104 sets for 1.4 per set, so slightly less but close. Louisville, who is a top serving team, has 192 aces in 107 sets for 1.8 per set. So WSU is closer to us when it comes to serving than LV. They don’t have one dominant server but do have 4 with over 25 aces while Pitt only has 2 (Babcock and VVG) so it’s pretty spread out for WSU. I may rewatch the WSU/Dayton match tomorrow to see the details on what the serves look like but I don’t remember anyone standing out when I watched it live

 

[chrisran24]

Here’s another way to look at it, WSU’s OOS percentage on their serves is slightly below average, fairly close to Pitt actually, while their service error rate is about a percentage point below ours. So they have a slightly better serve. But we have better defense/setting/attacking

 

[imrealangry]

What I'm looking for is how Pitt's defense looks against a top-16 seed in the tourney. Right now they're the best defensive team in the dance through two rounds. If we keep up the dominance, it bodes extremely well for us.

 

[pittdan77]

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Here’s another way to look at it, WSU’s OOS percentage on their serves is slightly below average, fairly close to Pitt actually, while their service error rate is about a percentage point below ours. So they have a slightly better serve. But we have better defense/setting/attacking

Best way to keep a middle out of a teams offense is to keep them OOS. Just really hard to get a solid back row pass to a middle. I think Pitt is strong enough with it's setting that they can keep Jehlarova from being too big of a defensive threat. USC did a pretty decent job early with setting blocks but the tempo just got the best of them as the match wore on.

Pitt does a good job with creating OOS play with their serve but that's sort of an overly simple way to look at it. Good offense, both in and out of system, really forces a team to play from behind and Pitt gets a lot of free balls because of how strong and fast they attack. With USC, it got to the point that I would cringe a little every time USC sent a free ball over the net because you knew the attack was going to be brutal.