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Post by nyline on Oct 3, 2015 12:31:09 GMT -5
Friday night was hugely disappointing for the Penn State fans, the Penn State coaches, and most certainly for the Penn State players. Here' an excerpt from our match write-up on DigNittanyVolleyball that we think puts in perspective the question of what losses mean, and learning from defeat:
It was a stunning turn of events. As Megan Courtney said after the match “You’re up 2-0 against the No. 4 team in the country, you’ve got to feel pretty confident.” But after the break, the wheels came off.
Coach Rose described it this way:
Courtney put the result squarely on the Penn State players: Aiyana Whitney added: Which raises the question, was this just an off night for the Nittany Lions, or is Nebraska the better team? The Huskers were ranked #4 before the match, and most certainly will move up if they win against Ohio State tonight — though that is not a given. Responding to a similar question about his football team, which had suffered a couple of unexpected losses, former NFL head coach Bill Parcells famously said “You are what your record says you are.” After Friday night, one would have to say that at least for now, Nebraska is better (3-0 in the B1G) than Penn State (2-1 in the B1G). And in fact, in his post-match comments, Coach Rose invoked that Parcells quote: |
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Post by bob2061 on Oct 3, 2015 13:32:48 GMT -5
Coach Rose doesn't sound very confident about the team.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 3, 2015 13:47:19 GMT -5
Coach Rose doesn't sound very confident about the team. I'm still dismayed over last night's result and the similarities in the team's performance against both Minnesota and Nebraska. I guess I find it hard to watch another team react to what PSU does and not see PSU respond to the other team's counter. From Coach Rose's statements, it pretty much looks like there's not more that he can do. We'll have to hope that's gamesmanship.
Seen another way; I remember feeling pretty down after the Illinois match last year and things worked out OK.
What the team does tonight against Iowa will show us a lot about their character.
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snj
Sophomore
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Post by snj on Oct 3, 2015 15:50:09 GMT -5
This team right now is missing some of the "win or die trying" that we have seen from previous teams. Hope that the coaches and upper classwomen can get that going. Very very quickly.
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Post by nyline on Oct 3, 2015 19:01:40 GMT -5
We played poorly in the first set. They made just enough errors for us to win. Much better in second set.
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Post by Onthebench on Oct 3, 2015 20:00:00 GMT -5
We played poorly in the first set. They made just enough errors for us to win. Much better in second set. Along with their serve receiving, which is a major concern, lack of blocking against Iowa, is also a concern. Schools like Iowa, who in the past had no business competing with PSU, are taking sets to mid twenties. Unless we all were fooled by their recent success, team will have major trouble reaching the FF as they are constituted now. Just hope Coach Rose will make the necessary adjustments soon. |
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Post by tillie1014 on Oct 3, 2015 20:43:35 GMT -5
Seems like the fans are more easily swayed to be negative than the players are. So we lost one so what. This is October not December. I recall one of coach's sons telling his Dad some years ago, "Now you don't have to worry about an undefeated season." If this is the best league in the game then others are going to challenge and likely no one goes home undefeated.
Russ and company with dedicated players will not disappoint but if your goal is winning the NCAA every year. It ain''t going to happen all the time.
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Post by nyline on Oct 3, 2015 21:17:18 GMT -5
Seems like the fans are more easily swayed to be negative than the players are. So we lost one so what. This is October not December. I recall one of coach's sons telling his Dad some years ago, "Now you don't have to worry about an undefeated season." If this is the best league in the game then others are going to challenge and likely no one goes home undefeated. Russ and company with dedicated players will not disappoint but if your goal is winning the NCAA every year. It ain''t going to happen all the time. I'll have a write-up tomorrow (probably afternoon) with quotes from Coach Rose and Kendall Pierce. Bottom line:they know they have things to work on. Iowa is a goood team -- they took Nebraska to two deuce sets and took a set from Ohio State. They'll beat some B1G teams this season. |
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Post by psumaui on Oct 3, 2015 21:37:49 GMT -5
Yea, the team does have things to work on but from what I am seeing this year in the BIG is that Penn State's success is driving these other teams to up their game and results are that Iowa is not the same Iowa of old. For us, too many balls hitting the floor on our side.
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Post by Onthebench on Oct 3, 2015 21:50:36 GMT -5
Seems like the fans are more easily swayed to be negative than the players are. So we lost one so what. This is October not December. I recall one of coach's sons telling his Dad some years ago, "Now you don't have to worry about an undefeated season." If this is the best league in the game then others are going to challenge and likely no one goes home undefeated. Russ and company with dedicated players will not disappoint but if your goal is winning the NCAA every year. It ain''t going to happen all the time. It's not the loss that some of us are crying over, it's the way they lost. It's not that they simply did not played well, it's that they showed some glaring deficiencies. I did not expected this team to be undefeated, so it's not a big deal that they lost to #4 ranked team in the nation. As some others mentioned, when Courtney is in front row, serve receiving suffers greatly. Thus, the settings become erratic, which leads to many hitting errors. Even though Lee had a better game tonight, she still has hard time hitting above tall blockers. PSU is not going to win NC every year, but the goal is absolutely to win it every year. That is the goal for many programs every year. If the goal is anything less than that, then you don't even have a chance at all. After this weekend, I am less confident that this team can win it all, but they have the players who are capable of. |
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Post by seeyajohn on Oct 3, 2015 21:52:28 GMT -5
Things are never as bad as they seem after a weak performance and never as good as they seem after a strong one. It's a long season.
Anyone else noticing that Taylor Krause has been playing well lately? If she continues to play that way and our freshman setter and libero mature during the year, things could look considerably better in December. |
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Post by bob2061 on Oct 3, 2015 22:36:08 GMT -5
Nice effort by team to sweep Iowa. We now know every team is going to try to serve Holcomb and Frantti, so it makes them more predictable and hopefully easier to beat.
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Post by nik12 on Oct 4, 2015 8:25:02 GMT -5
Lee seems to have had a nice game, which is good.
Hopefully the coaches can find the lineup and substitutions they feel put the team in the best position to win, and then the players can get the reps they need at their positions to improve as quickly as possible for the tournament.
I was pretty down in the dumps last year after the Nebraska loss, worse after the subsequent Illinois loss, and then still not so great after heart-attack match against Purdue. That was the turning point though; it came in mid-to-late October. Hopefully this team finds theirs in the next few weeks.
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