VB: National Championship vs Stanford!

I've really enjoyed watching this. Most volleyball I've ever seen. Without sand and bikinis.

One thing that bugs me, though. After each point, both teams meet in the middle and celebrate. It's hard to tell who scored and who didn't. Wtf?
 
Your ladies never had that defeated look, positive to the end.I just wanna celebrate their amazing season...No negative stuff on this thread. Want our ladies know how extremely proud we are of Texas Volleyball. I Was right there with ya. I hate the couldaa shoudaaa fans....sigh
 
Proud of our team.
Going to be good again next year. 3 great recruits.

Thanks to the 3 seniors for all you have done and accomplished.
 
Great season ladies! That said I still think Jerritt might have cost us a NC. It seems like he's always been a lot like Mack Brown, great recruiter but mediocre when it comes to strategy. I like PPC, she's great against smaller blockers but struggles against big ones. We couldn't score a point to save our lives with Ebony or Micaya out and PPC getting most of the hits in the 1st 2 sets. We dominated when Micaya and Ebony were both on the front row but when PPC came to the front Stanford went on two 10-3 runs in the first set and something like a 12-4 run in the 2nd.

We finally started clicking when Yazee was moved to OH and won the 3rd, but blew the 4th on a lot of errors. It certainly would have gone 5 had Jerritt made the change in the 1st set and you never know what can happen in a 5th set.

We lost the match on Lawrence and B12 title due to Yahzee not playing OH and it almost cost us the match to BYU. Also like Mack Brown, I wonder if Jerritt is a little too loyal to seniors.

The future is bright though. We have a great class coming in and if Lexi Sun is anything close to what's advertised she'll certainly be much better than PPC. She has a great arm and can jump to the moon. The only ? will be setter, but I'm confident Ashley or Riley will step up.
 
Have to disagree with you a bit, Run. Texas doesn't get to the Finals without Yazee moving to the middle and Collins, Cerame, et. al getting in sync, all of which helped Texas overcome its weakness in the middle. There was a huge hole at the MB position when Ogbogu became academically ineligible. What Texas faced against Stanford was the same problem they faced when BYU knocked them out of the semis 2 years ago in OKC. A very tall (and long) front row that Texas did not have an answer for. In order to beat Stanford, Texas had to play a quick offense to avoid the Stanford block and negate their height advantage (Stanford was able to run 6'6", 6'8", 6'6" across the front line). Collins had to be on her A-game again and her setting had to be on so the hitters could find the lanes and allow Texas to finish fast. Collins wasn't on top of her game, nor was Cerame (obviously).

I think Texas overachieved this year given its sometimes-glaring weaknesses (middle deficiency, serve, lack of bench depth up front, etc.). Texas had been playing its best volleyball all year, and moving Yazee to the middle (out of her natural position as OH to fill a need that no one else could fill), Cerame playing consistently well, and Collins getting into a great setting groove in which she was seeing how the blocks set up and was passing the ball to the open hitter--be it opposite, right side or middle-- really well. Texas had also minimized its service errors. All of things that helped Texas roll to the finals didn't materialize on Saturday. Stanford, who had won 15 of 16 matches (only losing 6 sets in those 15 wins), had a lot to do with that.

That said, Texas' future is extremely bright bright. They'll be back.
 
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Well Danno you're arguing against an argument I never made. I too think that Chloe's improved play and Yazzie's move to the middle is what made us better the 2nd half of the season. There's no doubt about that.

However, you have to adjust to you competition and it certainly wasn't working against the huge tree's, literally and figuratively. Every time PCC was our primary attacker we couldn't buy a point for $1 million bucks and Tree went on huge runs. 2-26 and -.231 hitting % is a whole lot more than just having an off night. It wasn't til Jerritt finally made the change we were finally able to sustain a run and win a set. Again, I like PPC as a player and think she's perfect against some teams, but her game just doesn't match up well with others like Tree.

I agree with the serving too and quite honestly I've never understood the theory behind Micaya's power serve and even back to Haley's also. It may be cool to the crowd but we win more points on Chloe's floater serve than Micaya's and the errors just kill momentum. I've played enough VB myself to know a fast predictable ball is easier to return than a knuckleball. All you have to do is watch the matches too see how easy good teams pass and set Micaya's serve. In fact, Cat had just as many aces as Micaya with her easy floater serve with no errors. And, taking a deeper look on the season Micaya had 24 aces, Chloe had 23, Cat had 20. Micaya had 68 SE's, Chloe had 23, Cat had 24. It doesn't take a genius to figure out Texas won a much higher % of points with Chloe and Cat serving than Micaya and my understanding of the game is to win as many points as possible not to impress the crowd with how hard you can hit a serve.
 
Run Pincher said:
Well Danno you're arguing against an argument I never made. I too think that Chloe's improved play and Yazzie's move to the middle is what made us better the 2nd half of the season. There's no doubt about that.

However, you have to adjust to you competition and it certainly wasn't working against the huge tree's, literally and figuratively. Every time PCC was our primary attacker we couldn't buy a point for $1 million bucks and Tree went on huge runs. 2-26 and -.231 hitting % is a whole lot more than just having an off night. It wasn't til Jerritt finally made the change we were finally able to sustain a run and win a set. Again, I like PPC as a player and think she's perfect against some teams, but her game just doesn't match up well with others like Tree.

I agree with the serving too and quite honestly I've never understood the theory behind Micaya's power serve and even back to Haley's also. It may be cool to the crowd but we win more points on Chloe's floater serve than Micaya's and the errors just kill momentum. I've played enough VB myself to know a fast predictable ball is easier to return than a knuckleball. All you have to do is watch the matches too see how easy good teams pass and set Micaya's serve. In fact, Cat had just as many aces as Micaya with her easy floater serve with no errors. And, taking a deeper look on the season Micaya had 24 aces, Chloe had 23, Cat had 20. Micaya had 68 SE's, Chloe had 23, Cat had 24. It doesn't take a genius to figure out Texas won a much higher % of points with Chloe and Cat serving than Micaya and my understanding of the game is to win as many points as possible not to impress the crowd with how hard you can hit a serve.
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I hear you. Moving Yazee to OH for the 3rd set was certainly a good change of pace but I didn't think it was sustainable given the other weaknesses that resurfaced. I'm not so sure that moving Yazee earlier would've made that much of a difference in the ultimate outcome, especially since there was no one to really fill the void she would've left in the middle. Who knows? Hindsight is always 20/20. Stanford was a bad match-up for Texas from the get-go, and I don't think Texas had the personnel to beat them without playing a near-perfect match. Hopefully, all of the holes soon will be filled for next year and beyond.

All that said, I'm proud of the run the ladies made to get to the Final Four and then to the title match. It's always a tough gauntlet to run. They'll be back.
 
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