Panther Pride and Musings.

[phijo]

I am proud of these ladies. They have been a marvelous team to watch this year. Often playing like poetry in motion.

I am going to miss Rachel. What a quarterback. I hope she finds a prominent role on the Women's national team. I would really like to continue to watch her play. 4 years as setter with 4 final 4's. Will probably not be matched again at Pitt.

I am sure they are all hurting right now.

This is the beauty of sport. Its easy to root when a team is winning. Important to be supportive in loss.

I hope they continue to retain Coach Dan.

I know college sports now is filled with transfers all over the place. I hope this doesn't sting Pitt. I would really like to see what Pitt looks like with Haiti as the setter and Blaire playing a more prominent roll. Building around Olivia and Torrey and Bre is a great base to start with.

 

[Fk_Pitt]

I am proud of these ladies. They have been a marvelous team to watch this year. Often playing like poetry in motion.

I am going to miss Rachel. What a quarterback. I hope she finds a prominent role on the Women's national team. I would really like to continue to watch her play. 4 years as setter with 4 final 4's. Will probably not be matched again at Pitt.

I am sure they are all hurting right now.

This is the beauty of sport. Its easy to root when a team is winning. Important to be supportive in loss.

I hope they continue to retain Coach Dan.

I know college sports now is filled with transfers all over the place. I hope this doesn't sting Pitt. I would really like to see what Pitt looks like with Haiti as the setter and Blaire playing a more prominent roll. Building around Olivia and Torrey and Bre is a great base to start with.

Blaire? Help me to understand your thought here. Because Dan didn’t appear to have any faith in her when it mattered. I’m an optimist. I think we will be fine. But I wasn’t really thinking much about her contributions moving forward.

 

[121rum]

Blaire? Help me to understand your thought here. Because Dan didn’t appear to have any faith in her when it mattered. I’m an optimist. I think we will be fine. But I wasn’t really thinking much about her contributions moving forward.

Blaire has a much more powerful and dominant swing then VVG, VVG just did the other stuff better at this point. The hope is Blaire will develop those other parts of her game and be able to play more back row

 

[phijo]

Yeah, I agree with this sentiment. These coaches have been great at developing players. Look at the teams prior to Olivia and Torrey. I would like to think we would see that with Blaire. Fisher alluded to the fact that at times it was a tough call between VVG and Bayless. Maybe that was coachspeak.

 

[latz66]

I dont know if Blaire can be a more conistant passer and defender and can play all six rotations like VVG but I agree she has a hammer for a swing and can block well. When we hit the transfer portal , lets hope Dan can pull some top talent from another team for Setter and Libero. I'm sure he will. I want to be at the point where we just 'reload' instead of having to drop off.

 

[pittdan77]

Blaire? Help me to understand your thought here. Because Dan didn’t appear to have any faith in her when it mattered. I’m an optimist. I think we will be fine. But I wasn’t really thinking much about her contributions moving forward.

VVG is a way better defensive player. We'll see what happens. Pitt has some good young hitters coming in. Won't be shocked to see Bayless transfer out.

 

[pittdan77]

Pitt is going to be fine. For as talented as this team was, I think Fischer will accumulate an ever better team before Stafford and Babcock graduate.

Just want everyone to appreciate how good Babcock is and what she's doing. Right now, her trajectory has her heading to the international stage as early as 2028. She is just an unbelievable talent and does so many things so well. The scary part is that she will only get better.

 

[121rum]

Pitt is going to be fine. For as talented as this team was, I think Fischer will accumulate an ever better team before Stafford and Babcock graduate.

Just want everyone to appreciate how good Babcock is and what she's doing. Right now, her trajectory has her heading to the international stage as early as 2028. She is just an unbelievable talent and does so many things so well. The scary part is that she will only get better.

I was talking to my GF last night about how Liv never hits off speed or tools anything (not that she really needs to) and imagine if she added those to her arsenal.

 

[runshadyrun]

Blaire? Help me to understand your thought here. Because Dan didn’t appear to have any faith in her when it mattered. I’m an optimist. I think we will be fine. But I wasn’t really thinking much about her contributions moving forward.

Wouldn't be surprised if Blaire transfers to smu, she's from dallas

 

[phijo]

VVG is a way better defensive player. We'll see what happens. Pitt has some good young hitters coming in. Won't be shocked to see Bayless transfer out.

We will see. I think a lot of the defensive stuff improves the most from real action. The nice thing is, with OH coming in, that competition will only make everyone better.

 

[vantheman1976]

VVG is a way better defensive player. We'll see what happens. Pitt has some good young hitters coming in. Won't be shocked to see Bayless transfer out.

I think that could happen….and if it does SMU would be the likely place she ends up

 

[pittdan77]

I think that could happen….and if it does SMU would be the likely place she ends up

Perhaps. There are a lot of landing spots down there.

 

[mike412]

Blaire has a much more powerful and dominant swing then VVG, VVG just did the other stuff better at this point. The hope is Blaire will develop those other parts of her game and be able to play more back row

And, if she doesn’t? There is nothing wrong with having an outside hitter who doesn’t play in the back row. Andi Jackson was by far Nebraska’s best player yesterday and she is a 3 rotation player. She nominally is a MB but yesterday she played a lot on the right side with their other MB in the match. She didn’t hurt us much yesterday, but Robbins from Louisville never plays in the back row. And she has played very well against us in other matches. Jurevicious was the key to PSU’s win and she was a 3 rotation player. In fact, she was pretty much only a right side hitter. That is her wheelhouse — lining up outside the right sideline to limit the block and going cross court with her hitting.

Yesterday, Bayliss was served twice and made two errors. After two years here, I don’t see her suddenly transforming herself into a six rotation player. But, I think she is a very good hitter from the front row and also a good blocker.

Yes, it’s nice to have someone who can kill from the back row. But, we already have Olivia and Torrey. I would be thrilled if Bayliss becomes a bigger threat than VVG just from the front row.