Match Thread - PSU vs. Purdue: Th. Nov 21, 2024 6:00 p.m. ET

57 digs in three sets is fantastic.  Won this match with defense-in many ways even more impressive than the pounding in West Lafayette

I feel like their defense and SR has gone up since adding in Nathan to the lineup. Really liking the play from the back-row trio lately. Grimes has been getting a lot better digs and touches over the past few games. If the defensive coverage continues at this level they’ll continue being hard to beat throughout the postseason. Hoping they have a solid win against Washington and Rutgers. Beating Nebraska would be the perfect ending for the regular season. KSC has got to be top choice for Coach of the Year at this point right?

Hard to know if having Jocelyn instead of Angie is easing Gillian's work.  Overall, Angelina played pretty well and I think improved her defense compared with last season. But it appears that Jocelyn has done enough in practice and then in the last few matches to earn the spot.  I am expecting Angelina to play some on Senior night.  But again so much is attributable to the opponent.  We match really well with Purdue which is even more OH dependent than are we.  Announcers did a good job pointing some of those nuances out tonight. Our block was set up to stop the left side and funnel right to where Gillian was situated.   What was less obviously game planned was the effectiveness of our defenders against Purdue's back row attacks.  

Nyline, I respect your opinion but I feel like I need to defend my position here. Tonight CJ terminated one ball from the right side. Her other 2 kills were a PUR net violation that they dug and a tip from the left side. She seemed to hit hard into the block again and avoided negative numbers because our littles did a great job covering. The one block assist she recorded was blocked by one of the middles. In my opinion, she’s not getting set more because she’s not scoring and when Izzy has options she is going to send an in system ball where she thinks we have the best chance to score. By the numbers or by the eye test, thats not very effective.

You mention her total kills vs MD, but that was largely due to the last set. In the first two sets, she had as many errors as kills. Hitting errors in general were a big reason we lost the second she had three of them in that set and was hitting .000 for the match until another error was overturned on a challenge in the third. Now, she did finish the last half of the third set clean and had a good fourth to help the overall numbers for the match but my point is in sets when she’s not productive, Izzy gets, and rightfully so, left side dependent and we are vulnerable. She’s played one, maybe one and a half sets in the last two matches where she was a contributing factor offensively and she’s not blocking as well as Izzy does during her three rotations.

Cam played very well vs MD and tonight, and we got two more B1G wins. All is well when that happens, but if it doesn’t we’re in trouble. I just can’t recall watching a match this season and being as impressed as you all tell me I should be. Maybe it’s coming, but her transfer to PSU was billed as a Merritt Beason UF to UNL level coup. I’m not seeing it, and there are comments on the other chat board that shall not be named saying KSC will go to the portal again looking for a more productive right side. Welcome to college volleyball in the portal era, where everyone is a free agent and if you have scholarships available, and I think we will, and a setter like Izzy to attract talent, no one is ever safe.

PS…Raina Terry hits 6 rotation and mostly from the left side. Not an apples to apples comparison from a player who gets set almost every out of system ball Illinois has no matter where she is on the court to one who only plays 3 rotations in the front row and is mostly set in system. Fair to use the same logic to say it’s not fair to compare kills, but if we’re putting all the numbers up, Terry also had 19 kills and hit .500 vs our triple block. Show me that kind of effectiveness and I’ll concede. How many times has CJ scored double digit kills and/or hit over .300 this season? I’ve also seen Taylor Landfair play several times over her career at Minnesota. I thought she was lazy and had a bad attitude toward her coaches and teammates. Minnesota is a better team this year without her. It doesn’t mean much to me how many awards she won as a freshman. I think she’s been coasting the rest of her career on that reputation and she’s just not a player I’d want on our team, or anyone in a PSU jersey to emulate.

Peace, love, and volleyball my friends. On to Washington. Let’s get through that and Rutgers unscathed and then put all the chips on the table.

I agree that there was an improvement in passing and defense in this game, but I thought that part of that was that PUR didn't, IMHO, put much service pressure on PSU.

I wouldn’t be surprised at all if KSC goes to the portal for a more seasoned RS, but I’m sure she’ll be doing the same for MBs and OHs with majority of pin hitters on the team going to be freshmen next season and Mendelsen being the only returning starting MB. I think CJ’s effectiveness has come from her ability to score in side out situations. It does seem if she is getting set during a rally she is less likely to score as effectively, but I think she is doing a much better job finding seams in the block and tooling. Unfortunately there is no back up that would make that big of a difference if they started over CJ at this time. From whatever the coaches have seen during practices dating back to their Europe trip and preseason , CJ has earned the starting spot. IMO the only real effective other option to me would be putting Hannah on RS. If she had been playing RS this season I believe she would be ranking a lot higher statistically in the B10. But that of course would leave a hole in the other OH spot and I believe the coaching staff realized they can give up production from the RS to have more consistent hitting with their OHs especially in OOS situations. Penn State hasn’t really had a “productive” RS since Jonni Parker from what I can remember. I think Kash and Cam would’ve made great RS’s for the team, but again would cause more issues to the OH spot. I do think with CJ’s talent she can be a terminal RS, but will take more time for her development to that. This is her first real season getting significant play time with 3 more to go so I do believe she will become the Beason-esque player before her career is done. I think for now all we can do is hope for the serve and SR/defense to continue to improve so Izzy can keep her options open.