She also did not come out with the team for pre game drills. When she did show up…she left again….back to the locker room. Something was clearly not right with her.
WVB Tournament Thread
- Thread starter pittdan77
- Start date
I wonder if we are tired because of the lack of substitutions along with all of the sweeps we had. Obviously, when you only play 3 sets you are not going to be as physically challenged as you are if consistently playing 4 or 5 sets.
I watched Stanford, who uses a 5-1 like Pitt. Like us, they used two MBs albeit one played a lot more. But, they rotated 5 outside hitters. Four of them played a lot. I haven’t seen the stats, but I imagine for us only Babcock and Stafford had 10 plus kills. VVG was ineffective as a hitter and Bayless didn’t get many swings. By contrast, on match point Stanford set Elle Rubin, who was 3rd or 4th on the team in kills tonight.
Florida’s key player by far is Kennedy Martin. She had 21 kills on 50 swings. But, they rotated 3 other outside hitters and kept them relatively fresh.
We have glossed over the fact that except for server substitutions and the MBs we haven’t played a lot of players this season. I wonder if that is coming back to bite us.
I watched Stanford, who uses a 5-1 like Pitt. Like us, they used two MBs albeit one played a lot more. But, they rotated 5 outside hitters. Four of them played a lot. I haven’t seen the stats, but I imagine for us only Babcock and Stafford had 10 plus kills. VVG was ineffective as a hitter and Bayless didn’t get many swings. By contrast, on match point Stanford set Elle Rubin, who was 3rd or 4th on the team in kills tonight.
Florida’s key player by far is Kennedy Martin. She had 21 kills on 50 swings. But, they rotated 3 other outside hitters and kept them relatively fresh.
We have glossed over the fact that except for server substitutions and the MBs we haven’t played a lot of players this season. I wonder if that is coming back to bite us.
I had a moment of panic pre match when I didn’t see her on the floor. Heart of a champion- she played through something.
Oregon was the team I feared the most on our bracket. They fought us in in the first match in August - gave us more of a fight than just about anyone not named Louisville all season. Oregon beat us at the Field House last season and they have a really good coach. A pretty veteran team too.
Also- they served out of their minds this afternoon- not only were they forcing so many poor passes and aces - they had like 0 service errors. I’m sure they had a couple - but I can’t recall one after the first set. Just unreal .
Survive and advance.
The fourth set was the worst we played all year. Serve receive was awful and communication was terrible. I’ve never seen so many balls hit the ground with this team, not just first balls but passes too. Hats off to them for grinding it out. I feel like this team is due for a dominant performance. Hopefully that is Saturday.
Also, shout out to Mallorie Meyer who had her best match of the year today. Excellent serving and some great digs.
Also, shout out to Mallorie Meyer who had her best match of the year today. Excellent serving and some great digs.
It seems our middles were slower in reading and setting up then usual, later in the match our blocking rate when pretty far down. Bre didn't seem to be moving super well. I wonder if she's one of the players not 100%, that would explain why the timing seemed off at times with setting the middle.
It's like the b-ball tournament....survive and move on. Pitt is #1 so every match is the other team's "superbowl" match and gunning for us with nothing to lose. We played a bad match according to our standards and still won. Over a long season, no team can blow out every team. Just gotta win now by one.
I think I heard that Rachel is graduating this month. I could be wrong. If she is, that, finals, the tournament, annd her impending future are a lot for a young person to digest all at once.
sounds like almost wishful thinking to suggest injury or illness but if Rachel ran off the court THAT seems more likely to be a factor for her and iirc someone said she had a heat pack applied to her back so....
my guess is that this is 99.99% mental and while they've been coached to think differently this year(hunter/hunted, underdog, etc), that's what will ultimately allow them to overcome or not
Pitt doesn't have many weaknesses but obviously these other teams are great too and certainly the underdog mindset is easier for our opponents to legitimately hold and benefit from than us
looking forward to Saturday with confidence that Fish is the right guy to steer this and if they get through Kentucky, I have a sense that while Louisville looked great in their sweep, the mental advantage comes back to Pitt even without the home court
if it happens, it will be extremely interesting to see and hear what the Yum Center NC game crowd does in support of Pitt
my guess is that this is 99.99% mental and while they've been coached to think differently this year(hunter/hunted, underdog, etc), that's what will ultimately allow them to overcome or not
Pitt doesn't have many weaknesses but obviously these other teams are great too and certainly the underdog mindset is easier for our opponents to legitimately hold and benefit from than us
looking forward to Saturday with confidence that Fish is the right guy to steer this and if they get through Kentucky, I have a sense that while Louisville looked great in their sweep, the mental advantage comes back to Pitt even without the home court
if it happens, it will be extremely interesting to see and hear what the Yum Center NC game crowd does in support of Pitt
I feel Kelley and Jones played very well. Bre hit .400....12 kills...only 2 errors...2 solo blocks....6 block assists. She accounted for 17 points in the match. Ryla wasn't as productive but she still was dependable....no errors....a few kills and a couple of block assists.....4 points. Taken together that was a good night. Both Pitt and Oregon are very good with blocks. Oregon had 12 blocks.....Pitt 10 blocks....pretty close I would say. Oregon also had 4 blocking errors....Pitt just 1.
I thought Rachel looks hurt. She was limping at one point.
So far as setting middles, Oregon was consistently serving to the “5 zone” and Pitt was struggling with receive because the serving was just on. Trust me, there was some good serves coming from Oregon all night. Forced a lot of sets from the 3 meter line. Very difficult to set middles from there. Oregon also blocks well out of the middle so I didn’t expect to see Pitt run a lot out of the middle.
Really hard to fool teams when they’re forcing your hand. Rachel normally runs good tempo and can get teams to be late to the block. There were runs during that game where she was able to do that. In the end, Pitt scrapped and managed to win.
So far as setting middles, Oregon was consistently serving to the “5 zone” and Pitt was struggling with receive because the serving was just on. Trust me, there was some good serves coming from Oregon all night. Forced a lot of sets from the 3 meter line. Very difficult to set middles from there. Oregon also blocks well out of the middle so I didn’t expect to see Pitt run a lot out of the middle.
Really hard to fool teams when they’re forcing your hand. Rachel normally runs good tempo and can get teams to be late to the block. There were runs during that game where she was able to do that. In the end, Pitt scrapped and managed to win.
Fisher said in the press conference that they thought about taking Rachel off the court for rest when the 4th set got out of hand, but decided against it. She obviously has been playing through something all year, but continues to deliver in the most important moments. True warrior.
I've said it before, replacing her next year is the most important thing necessary for Liv and Torrey and Pitt to continue to have success
I saw that too, re: limping, but it seems the full leg compressions sleeve was there before that.
Yet, she still had 54 assists, unbelievable! Man, are we going to miss her next year
"Trust me, there was some good serves coming from Oregon all night"
Fisher said the same thing....in different words during his postgame remarks. Pitt committed 21 errors in the 2nd and 4th set which they lost.....7 from receiving errors and 3 from service errors.....and this doesn't even take into account the Oregon service game that was forcing Pitt out of system for a good part of the night. Pitt lost by a total of 6 points in sets 2 and 4......and gave back over 10 points/set to Oregon in those 2 sets. We won this match because Oregon actually gave back more points/set than Pitt did over the course of the match.
This has become a trend over the last several matches.....including GT (9.1 pts given back/set)....and Oklahoma (9.0 pts given back/set). All season long...Pitt was only giving back about 6 pts/set.....now it's 9 pts/set. This a trend that has me worried. Mick Haley....the former USC, Texas, and women's national team coach.....likes to remind people that if a team is giving back more than 9 points/set....they are not a final 4 team. Is Pitt a final 4 team? We find out tomorrow.
Are you ever anything besides negative and/or worried ans scared?
They’ve also been playing around with the lineup and running some different rotations. It’s worrisome but you’re also going to see more errors when you’re so aggressive.
One thing I didn’t mention was that VVG was essentially playing DS after she got pulled. She came up pretty big in that last set despite struggling earlier in the game.
She did have a good serving game in the fifth set. We had our runs on her serve and Fairbanks’ serve. For the match, she had 3 aces, most on the team, and only one error.
Her offense was a different story: One kill in 5 sets and a negative 0.200 hitting percentage. Bayless had 4 kills and a positive .200 hitting percentage. Oregon’s third outside hitter had twice as many kills — 10 as Bayless and VVG combined. But, she also had 9 errors.
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They've played aggressive all season.....but all of a sudden they're giving back way too many points.
No tears from me.....burnt orange is just another shade of red IMO!
Those Arthur Murray dance lessons are finally paying off for Fish!
It will be interesting to see how well Dayton can keep up with Nebraska. Dayton's KPI was 14....but the committee seeded them 19th. Based on KPI....they are a tougher draw than Oregon, Florida, Purdue or Marquette.
I guess they will have to sign 6 new transfer portal players. They had 4 hitters hit less than .200, with Skinner the best at .194. Only their MB hit over .200!
All 4 sets were close, but Texas had 5 errors on the last 8 points of the fourth and final set.
It should be pointed out that after the second set Vazquez Gomez was rotated out when she got to the front row. She was poor attacking in the first two sets, and then basically didn't get any attacking chances after that.
Love her enthusiasm and she's a hell of a team player.....but man oh man....she can sometimes have some pretty bad sets.
Yeah, she was really bad yesterday, especially on the attack.
Hopefully she comes out and plays much better tomorrow.
No surprise.....looking like the regional finals will have 3 matches with #1 vs #2.....and Pitt's will be a #1 vs #3. The Dayton - Nebraska match is worth looking at later tonight because Dayton actually has a much better RPI than the committee seeded them....14th in RPI....but seeded 19th. I don't expect Nebraska to lose....but I want to see if Dayton can at least compete with them.
