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Post by nyline on Nov 26, 2022 10:09:52 GMT -5
One aspect of the transfer portal that is, as far as I've seen, underappreciated, is that a school can bring in experienced players (in fact, that's a significant portion of the available player pool). So, Penn State was able to bring in Grad Senior setter Seleisa Elisaia, Gr Sr. Kash Williams, 4th year Junior (with one more season left after this one) Zoe Weatherington, and Soph Taylor Trammel. That's alot of experience, which I think generally showed throughout the season during crunch time. Even the best of freshmen do, on occasion, make freshmen mistakes, sometimes burn out a bit in late October into November (when their high school seasons would have ended). Though I'm sure every coach would rather have their chosen players play for them for all four (five) years, there are advantages (with the right players) to having an experienced cohort to provide leadership. Yes-and I think the portal totally changes recruiting. In addition to having to constantly recruit players one already has, now scholarships and recruitment needs to focus on other teams' players. Unfortunately, I think it likely that some tampering will occur. ("Hey-your second cousin plays for ... why don't you ask if she might want to come play for us?") To your point, one thing that is often overlooked, is that it is every bit as much a violation for a current player to reach out to another team's player to recruit them, prior to that player entering the portal, as it would be for a staff member (or booster) to do the same thing. But that kind of tampering is difficult (if not impossible) to prove. |
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Post by elliotberton on Nov 26, 2022 15:22:43 GMT -5
Yes-and I think the portal totally changes recruiting. In addition to having to constantly recruit players one already has, now scholarships and recruitment needs to focus on other teams' players. Unfortunately, I think it likely that some tampering will occur. ("Hey-your second cousin plays for ... why don't you ask if she might want to come play for us?") To your point, one thing that is often overlooked, is that it is every bit as much a violation for a current player to reach out to another team's player to recruit them, prior to that player entering the portal, as it would be for a staff member (or booster) to do the same thing. But that kind of tampering is difficult (if not impossible) to prove. On a less violative issue, tracking players who might go into the portal seems even more difficult than following players on high school and club teams. Having to do both sounds like multiple staff additions (is that even allowed?) and a large budgetary increase for schools. |
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Post by nyline on Nov 26, 2022 15:26:24 GMT -5
To your point, one thing that is often overlooked, is that it is every bit as much a violation for a current player to reach out to another team's player to recruit them, prior to that player entering the portal, as it would be for a staff member (or booster) to do the same thing. But that kind of tampering is difficult (if not impossible) to prove. On a less violative issue, tracking players who might go into the portal seems even more difficult than following players on high school and club teams. Having to do both sounds like multiple staff additions (is that even allowed?) and a large budgetary increase for schools. Although the Volleyball coach is limited as to the number of paid staff persons permitted (and to the number of volunteer coaches and grad assistants, I believe), the reality is that most schools have a limited number of scholarship slots available for a given year/years, and a limited number of positions to which they would allocate those slots. Further narrowing the field is that there is a limited number of athletes who a staff, such as Penn State's, would consider for those slots. So, with all that winnowing, my guess is that it's really not a huge field to follow. |
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Post by jojonito on Nov 26, 2022 18:05:02 GMT -5
I watched most of the WISC vs NEB match last night. One thing that really surprised me was that NEB setting wasn't that good. Hames has been setting for 5 years and there were a number of plays where the NEB hitter had no chance to get a good attack. What added to the problem was that Knuckles is out, so the NEB serve receive wasn't as good as it has been. WISC put NEB oos on a regular basis. One thing that NEB did do a good job on was getting the ball to their middles. Allick was 9-3-22 for .273 hitting, true not that great; Hord was 13-1-24 for .500 hitting, which is a lot closer to what we've seen when Hord was at PSU. The announcers showed a statistic where in the last 4-5 matches, NEB had only set their middles 17% of the time, whereas in the 6 matches before that, NEB had set their middles 24% of the time. Hord had the type of match that we've seen from her a lot. She was unstoppable. Has it taken this long for Hord and her setters to get on the same page? Or is the NEB serve receive not as good as it needs to be? Don't know. Losing Knuckles (for the season), really hurt, as the NEB serve receive was not very good. Hames and Orr were running all over the place, (or as nyline said about Leisa one time, she is out for track during the VB season  ). Terry Pettit tweeted before the match that he thought WISC and NEB were 2 of the 5 or 6 teams that could give Texas some trouble. Well, WISC showed, just like in the previous NEB match, that they are significantly better than NEB. Hart for WISC hit .385; Smrek hit .400. Smrek was back playing OH instead of MB. I just had assumed that Smrek, with her 6'9" height, would have played MB. I'm guessing that she doesn't because it's difficult for someone with her height to be mobile enough to cover both sides of the net. Or, maybe she just hadn't played middle much. I know that Stanfor had a 6'8" girl (Merete Lutz), who played MB initially and switched to OH for that very reason. She couldn't cover both right and left side attacks very well and so, to a degree, was a defensive liability at MB. Anyway, this match solidified my opinion that NEB isn't going to win a NCAA this year. It also makes me think that WISC has a pretty good chance of beating Texas. WISC has the height and offensive versatility to hold their own with Texas. I know some people on this forums favorite VB teams are PSU and whoever is playing NEB or WISC. My favorite VB teams are PSU and whoever is playing Texas. I have just been so tired of TEXAS seemingly always getting a real high seed in spite of the fact that they haven't played hardly any good teams. Not true this year, but it has been, OMHO, a honkin' lot in the last 10-12 years. Of course, I have been guilty of gloating when Texas gets knocked out regularly in the NCAA semis, after being given a cake walk thru to the semis. Hopefully, with 32 VB teams being seeded for the NCAA, it will avoid some of the situations that arise because of the travel restriction, (good teams playing a number of not so good teams because the not so good teams are close in location.) |
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Post by nyline on Nov 26, 2022 19:35:50 GMT -5
Really interesting piece, JoJo. Historically, lots of folks have leveled a similar criticism of Penn State -- cupcakes in the first weekend of the Tournament, and sometimes the second, giving an easy path to the Final Four. I don't think the criticism has been fair, but the critics don't hang on my every word.
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Post by nyline on Nov 27, 2022 8:40:02 GMT -5
Unexpectedly (to me, at any rate) Minnesota downed Nebraska at the Husker Mahal. It appears Penn State is not the only team to give up long runs to the opposing team: Set 1: Hated Huskers led 19-11 but Minnesota outscored the Hated Huskers 14-3 to close out the set 25-22. Set 2: After Cook's Team led 9-7, Minnesota went on an 11-5 run, winning the set 25-23. Set 3: After the Hated Huskers sprinted out to a 14-8 lead, Gophers responded with a 16-5 run of their own to build up a 24-19 lead, and finally close out the set with a 25-22 win, giving Minnesota a 3-0 win over the Huskerians. Here's the link to the stats for the match: stats.statbroadcast.com/mobile/?id=418481# |
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Post by traveler on Nov 28, 2022 10:19:04 GMT -5
Our 4-peat is better than your 4-peat. Just sayin' BTW: Not to be a jerk -- congrats WI -- but RR never seemed to be motivated by or use as a motivational tool the B1G. He always seemed to have his eye on the post-season. I think he called a B1G championship "nice." Or "that's nice but..." And not with any particular enthusiasm. |
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Post by nyline on Nov 28, 2022 10:29:00 GMT -5
Our 4-peat is better than your 4-peat. Just sayin' BTW: Not to be a jerk -- congrats WI -- but RR never seemed to be motivated by or use as a motivational tool the B1G. He always seemed to have his eye on the post-season. I think he called a B1G championship "nice." Or "that's nice but..." And not with any particular enthusiasm. I totally agree. I don't discount the accomplishment -- it's reflective of the fact that the Badgers have been really good for four straight seasons. But the unbalanced scheduling diminishes the accomplishment somewhat -- it's not apples-to-apples anymore. I held back when I saw Wisconsin fans on that other forum saying it's harder to win the B1G than it is to win the National Championship. And a greater accomplishment. I just don't understand that mentality. |
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Post by jojonito on Nov 29, 2022 12:12:16 GMT -5
Really interesting piece, JoJo. Historically, lots of folks have leveled a similar criticism of Penn State -- cupcakes in the first weekend of the Tournament, and sometimes the second, giving an easy path to the Final Four. I don't think the criticism has been fair, but the critics don't hang on my every word. PSU has had some easy teams to play in the first 2 rounds, mostly due to travel restrictions. BUT, for most of the time, IT DIDN"T MATTER. I remember one year where Utah was sent to PSU's sub-regional. Many critics of PSU said that, "NOW PSU has to play a PAC12 team. It'll be difficult for them." Right. PSU beat them 3-0. I've never quite figured out why some people feel so strongly about it. PSU was gonna beat whoever was sent to their sub-regional, didn't matter who.
This year some people were complaining that PSU got moved up further than their RPI should have allowed. They looked at just the RPI values, and then complained that PSU got moved up; (can't have your cake and eat it too; they don't look at the complete way that the selection committee selects a team and then they complain about it anyway. Great logic.) Problem with that statement is: 1) RPI isn't the be-all and end-all of rankings. Other criteria are used also.
2) RPI actually isn't a very good way of judging a teams strength. There are numerous teams that are in very low ranked leagues that have a strong RPI, in spite of the fact that the teams aren't that good.
As an example of that, UCF (27-1) has an RPI ranking of 16 (I think), while I think that PSU has an RPI ranking of 19. So according to this person, UCF should get the sub-regional instead of PSU. BUT, who has UCF played? I don't think they've played ANYBODY in the top 25. I'd wouldn't be surprised if PSU beat UCF 3-0; (they should meet in the 2nd round). Yeah well.
Another example that I've mentioned numerous times is Missouri (2013), when Missouri was 34-0 going into the tourney. They were beat in the 2nd round by Purdue, that year probably the 5th or 6th best team in the B1G.
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Post by dc155 on Dec 1, 2022 15:09:27 GMT -5
Considering that UCLA will (most likely) soon be B1G... Posting here:
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Post by ethankasales on Dec 3, 2022 17:47:43 GMT -5
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Post by elliotberton on Dec 3, 2022 21:17:52 GMT -5
Really interesting piece, JoJo. Historically, lots of folks have leveled a similar criticism of Penn State -- cupcakes in the first weekend of the Tournament, and sometimes the second, giving an easy path to the Final Four. I don't think the criticism has been fair, but the critics don't hang on my every word. PSU has had some easy teams to play in the first 2 rounds, mostly due to travel restrictions. BUT, for most of the time, IT DIDN"T MATTER. I remember one year where Utah was sent to PSU's sub-regional. Many critics of PSU said that, "NOW PSU has to play a PAC12 team. It'll be difficult for them." Right. PSU beat them 3-0. I've never quite figured out why some people feel so strongly about it. PSU was gonna beat whoever was sent to their sub-regional, didn't matter who.
This year some people were complaining that PSU got moved up further than their RPI should have allowed. They looked at just the RPI values, and then complained that PSU got moved up; (can't have your cake and eat it too; they don't look at the complete way that the selection committee selects a team and then they complain about it anyway. Great logic.) Problem with that statement is: 1) RPI isn't the be-all and end-all of rankings. Other criteria are used also.
2) RPI actually isn't a very good way of judging a teams strength. There are numerous teams that are in very low ranked leagues that have a strong RPI, in spite of the fact that the teams aren't that good.
As an example of that, UCF (27-1) has an RPI ranking of 16 (I think), while I think that PSU has an RPI ranking of 19. So according to this person, UCF should get the sub-regional instead of PSU. BUT, who has UCF played? I don't think they've played ANYBODY in the top 25. I'd wouldn't be surprised if PSU beat UCF 3-0; (they should meet in the 2nd round). Yeah well.
Another example that I've mentioned numerous times is Missouri (2013), when Missouri was 34-0 going into the tourney. They were beat in the 2nd round by Purdue, that year probably the 5th or 6th best team in the B1G.
So now after the match was played-do we think UCF may have won if the match was there? Obviously, UCF was a worthy opponent. |
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Post by ethankasales on Dec 6, 2022 0:28:50 GMT -5
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Post by dc155 on Dec 6, 2022 9:15:00 GMT -5
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Post by ethankasales on Dec 7, 2022 11:21:55 GMT -5
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). 
