Match Thread - PSU @ Iowa 10-15-2022 8:00 p.m. ET

I should have prefaced my comment by acknowledging that the team didn't quit. To their credit, this team never quits, even in thàt blowout 3rd set to Nebraska. If they hadn't fought back from being down 8 to 10 in the 5th set, and hung tough in a tough situation, they clearly would have lost. But they did hang tough, so they won. Major kudos to them for doing that.

I also should have given credit to Iowa -- they played tough, and they didn't quit either.

Still, I can't remember that amount of sloppy, seemingly "casual" play by Penn State in more than a few of the many matches I've watched over the past 20+ years. Not unprecedented (actually, I can remember one versus Iowa at Rec Hall (I think it was this 2009 match, when Iowa won the third set 26-24 to break Penn State's streak of winning 141 consecutive regular season sets: gopsusports.com/news/2009/10/2/No_1_Penn_State_Defeats_Iowa_in_Big_Ten_Home_Opener.aspx ) when Russ Rose said to them during a time-out something like it was up to them to start playing) but pretty rare. Thus my comment. Others might disagree.

And for the record, I don't lay this on the coaching staff. They can only do so much to prepare a team. I think this was on the players not focusing. Maybe they haven't learned yet how to play on the road. Maybe they were still feeling the after effects of the loss to Nebraska. I don't know the reason. Maybe, the only thing that really matters is they pulled it out. So maybe it's a "Nevermind."