Illinois is solid, any info on UCF or Cinci?

Thanks for starting the new thread. I saw your post in the other thread and was going to quote it in a new thread, but hadn't finished the necessary research.

Illinois has struggled in 2012. On the strength of last year's national runner up finish, they were ranked #7 in the AVCA pre-season poll. They opened the season with sweeps at the hands of preseason-unranked/tournament host Dayton and preseason-#11 Pepperdine. They wrapped up that tournament with a 3-1 win over unranked Ohio. The next weekend they posted an impressive home sweep of Iowa State, but the next night ISU claimed a five-game win. In a tournament at Cincy they won 3-1 over the host, but lost another five-gamer to Louisville.

As a result of their 3-4 record and the surprising losses along the way, Illinois has fallen to #23 in the most recent poll. Conclusion: They are a dangerous opponent, but one struggling to find their way so far this season.

Cincy (1-8, the W coming against Drake, though five of the losses were against #s 10,11,12,15, and 20) and UCF (3-6, with wins over Columbia, Jacksonville, and Sacred Heart) are unranked and unlikey to scare anyone, though as noted above Cincy did win one game from Illinois, albeit on their home court, and also one game against Perdue.

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I skipped looking at stats and rosters for time and because UC and UCF don't look like big tests this year. I therefore missed the fact that UCF has four players from Central Texas (Austin, Round Rock, and San Antonio). Knowing how JE thinks, that probably has alot to do with why UCF is here. One of the CenTex contingent was one of the two setters running UCF's 6-2, another was a DS/L. Two or three are frosh. IIRC, UC has a player from Arlington.

UCF kept game one close through most of the single digits in game 1, but fell 25-15. Game 2 was 25-20. Game 3 wad close but wrapped up the sweep, 25-23.
 
P.S. PSU lost in five to unranked Oregon State in a tourney in Chicago last weekend, so even the opponents that don't scare anyone cannot be safely overlooked. We need FOCUSNESS, even if BiS isn't helping the ladies on that front this year.

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P.P.S Going by the rosters at the match, UC had a MB/OPP playing left, another MB inthe middle, and a third MB playing OPP. They were #8, #9, & #11. The MB playing left usually stayed in six rotations, contributing some good plays and some poor shanks in the back row. Overall those three were strong against UCF. We'll see tomorrow how they stack up against ranked opponents.

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Not so much the conference as the style of play. Think UCLA 2011.

My opinions:
- The #1 reason Texas lost was they fell back into their habit of playing long stretches of points that make you think their opponent is giving a live action demonstration to a bunch of 9th grade gym class girls. They do that when they lose FOCUSNESS.
- The #2 reason Texas lost is that Illinois has a real Libero and Texas does not. Texas should recruit elite high school Liberos to play Libero, not elite-but-too-short-for-the-college-ranks high school six-rotation outside hitters. Nothing personal against any of our squad, of course.
- The #3 reason Texas lost is that Illinois recruits outside hitters who may be less imposing but tend to be more well rounded. That was dramatically demonstrated when one Illini RS-FR OH dug and beautifully passed a high power attack, had that ball set to her in the back row, and delivered a kill from the pipe.
- The #4 reason is ongoing serving struggles. After several matches of tossing up lollipop serves, one player delivered a good line drive serve on her first attempt, then reverted to ugly errors. An attempt to use one of the front row players back there resulted in a probably out ball being kept alive by Illinois, and the point ending when the server made a diving pancake touch of a ball as it was about to land five feet out of bounds. Not surprising for a player with little to no backrow experience, but it sure stung when an experienced teammate decided "that looked like fun!" and did her best imitation thereof on a critical point.

Usually #3 by itself is not enough to overcome their advantages, but when Texas makes the mistakes it makes as in #1, passes poorly / fails to keep the ball alive due to the issues in #2, issue #3 is enough to be a clincher in a match decided by two points in the fifth game.

What is frustrating is that in the second match against Minnesota, Texas showed that they can play respectable to even impressive floor defense when they put their minds to it...but that did not carry through one week later. Maybe resting Khat last week helped her teammates rise to the occasion, but they need to understand they can, and need to, play at that level every match. With the right level of FOCUSNESS they can do that. It will take more than a return of the encouragement by BiS to get there, however.

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I thought the #3 reason was going to taken care of when Nicole Dalton was signed. She was known for being a 6-rotation, ball-control, pin-hitter coming out of high school but for some reason Jerritt wants her to set when clearly that's not what the team needs.
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Paatience s102!
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Remember I have always posted to encourage other UT teams. In fact it improves the synergy and focusness of our football team when all UT sports are supported. Go Horns!
 
Several of our teams have started slow this year but that may be a good sign. Remember the past few years some of them have started great but ended up slow. Perhaps this is a vice versa year. Let's hope so.
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