2019 PSU OH Recruits -- Rankings (thread renamed)

You have her listed at 6'1" on this site.

Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds?  Or, who knows?  Or, we'll check? Or dang slacker staff?

I'm still curious to find the actual height of incoming setter, Gabby Blossom.

She's now listed at 5-10 in FloVolleyball reporting.   I'll be doing an update on all the recruits this weekend.  For any of you that read various articles on recruits in volleyball, or other sports, you'll notice that reported heights and weights are all over the place.  I pick what looks like the most likely one.  In the case of Lauren Clark, 6-0 was the height listed in the report itself.  My guess is she is between 6-0 and 6-1, but I have no idea -- for her or any of the players.  Nor, I suspect, do most reporters. Maybe the players don't really know.  I believe that Karsta Lowe, the great UCLA player, went from 6-1 in high school to 6-4 or 6-5 in college (I've seen her listed both ways).  The real question is not how tall are they, but do they make the team better.

In reading this thread it looks like two of the 2019 OH recruits are not in prepvolleyball.com top 50 junior list. That is troubling. Are they both scholarship or walkon?  It will be interesting to see where they are on the senior aces list.

The odds are against a player outside the top 50 helping to win a national championship. Of course there are plenty of exceptions. But statistically the odds are against it.

2018 Rosters - Senior Aces for #1-ranked BYU


BYU: 6-3 OH Taylen Ballard - #21;  6-4 MB Heather Gneiting - #6;  6-1 OH McKenna Miller -#43.  It must be difficult with only three players "helping."

Now, do I think BYU will win the National Championship?  No.  But they could.  And they are ranked #1.  And they only have three players who were top-50 ranked Senior Aces (fwiw, Penn State has eight.)

Pitt fell back to earth and is now ranked #10.  But I'll check them next.

"Beat the odds to be helpful"  (i.e. not top 50 Senior Ace) players from Penn State's National Championship teams (I've only included players who started or contributed regularly, though I would argue that everyone on the roster "helped" their team win the National Championship).

Just a side note, Lexi Sun, the #1-ranked recruit in her class, is hitting .169 for Nebraska.  


2007
Melissa Walbridge 
Roberta Holehouse

2008
Kelsey Ream
Roberta Holehouse
Cathy Quilico

2009
Kelsey Ream
Cathy Quilico

2010
Cathy Quilico
Ali Longo

2013
Kendall Pierce
Dom Gonzalez
Lacey Fuller
 
2014
Lainy Pierce
Kendall Pierce
Dom Gonzalez
Lacey Fuller

Bottom line -- are top 50 Senior Ace players more likely to be key frontrow players than those not as highly-ranked?  Yes -- on average, over time, big sample.  But two things: There are so many exceptions (see my posts on "What Penn State Might be Getting . . . ." that for me it renders the assumption essentially meaningless for any given player unless you are a skilled evaluator of volleyball talent and you have seen the player in question play frequently enough to form a valid opinion.  I satisfy neither of those criteria for any player.  Second, back row players often don't get ranked in the top 50, but if you think the back row players like Roberta Holehouse and Cathy Quilico and Kendall Pierce and Dom Gonzalez and Lacey Fuller and Lainy Pierce didn't help their teams win National Championships, then you and I differ in our assessments of their value.  I'd bet Coach Rose doesn't agree with that either.

I love the rankings.  They're fun to talk about, and argue about, and they give essentially fact-free fans like me some vague basis for thinking about how incoming players may perform.  But they aren't gospel.  And teams are built by coaching and connectedness and talent, and certainly those factors outweigh rankings and press clippings.