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Post by valawee3 on Sept 18, 2024 20:19:11 GMT -5
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not let Markley go to the portal. We need her next year. I love her game. She reminds me so much of Megan Courtney. I have also been so impressed with Ava this year. Sadly, she had a bad night as well. I thought set decisions were strange. Jess also really needs to work on serve receive. PITT really exploited it and took her out of the offense. I still have high hopes for this team but to have everyone have a bad night at the same time gave me 2023 Louisville vibes. BTW, watching Nebraska and Stanford now... we have work to do if we want final four appearance. Final four đ¤. I hope we finish above .500 in the b1G right now. Baby steps.
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Post by kdo20001 on Sept 18, 2024 20:50:29 GMT -5
Ha ha. I said sweet 16 team but I believe Jess and the team are saying final four. She said that last year though with Mac. I not going to lie, I was hoping to win this and remain a top four seed for a home court advantage. It is great to look around at all these matches and see 7000+ fans. There is a definite home court advantage right now in womenâs volleyball.
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Post by nitwit on Sept 18, 2024 20:51:08 GMT -5
Some observations:
1. Iâve been watching the team play over the past weekend and it concerned me that they seemed to play down to the competition a bit. Going into the weekend, they had been playing great defense, holding teams to around .100 or less. But this weekend, weaker teams were suddenly around .250 - .280. I didnât like that they werenât more efficient, fine tuning things. But instead relaxing a bit.
2. Iâve been a bit concerned all year about their blocking, or rather their lack of blocking. Weâve traditionally had someone within the top ten in blocking and as a team, we have been pretty good. This year, that hasnât been the case. Itâs not just getting points off blocks, but getting hands on balls making defending and passing good balls to set easier. It showed its ugly head tonight, as we rarely got hands on Pittâs shots.Passing suffered as a result. Iâve been telling the wife all year, theyâve got to get better at blocking.
3. The defense seemed to be stuck in cement. Where in earlier games, they were laying out for balls, tonight, their feet seemed glued to the floor.
Would PSU have won? I dunno about that. Pitt looked really good and the atmosphere was certainly a factor, but it would have made things more competitive.
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Post by valawee3 on Sept 18, 2024 21:09:46 GMT -5
I would love to hear KSC post game presser
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Post by nitneliun on Sept 18, 2024 21:42:57 GMT -5
The team was not prepared. That's a coaching issue.
I don't want to hang this on one player, because it was obviously a team loss, but what was Grimes doing all match? She was flopping around like a fish out of water and was completely ineffective in every aspect of the game.
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Post by elliotberton on Sept 18, 2024 21:55:25 GMT -5
I attribute this result to Pitt's play. Their serving, passing, blocking and active back row made PSU look bad. One hopes that the ladies can regroup. While I did not think PSU would win this one, I thought they would show better.
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Post by 96psu on Sept 18, 2024 22:02:16 GMT -5
The team was not prepared. That's a coaching issue. I don't want to hang this on one player, because it was obviously a team loss, but what was Grimes doing all match? She was flopping around like a fish out of water and was completely ineffective in every aspect of the game. You are correct to say it was a team loss. Our serve didnât put pressure on Pitt. Our passing didnât help out Izzy. Izzy played like a freshman. Our bad passing had our pins facing a double block all night. Our middles were slow side to side closing the block and we never got the offense going well enough for the middles to be effective offensively. Blocking on the pins was non existent. Coaching was absent as there wasnât even attempt to make adjustments and take away what Pitt was dictating from the first serve. It takes experience to win big matches on the road vs top teams and our inexperience showed on the court and off the court. There was no leadership on the court and the coaches seemed stumped on the sidelines. The only ones who get an A+ tonight are the players not in the game who never stopped supporting the ones on the court with energy and sharing what they were seeing. I love to see that. And the Wrecking Crew who filled a bus to come support the team! Kudos to them for the school spirit. Onward. Next match in less than 48 hours. Better get better fast!
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Post by ethankasales on Sept 19, 2024 0:21:54 GMT -5
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Post by ethankasales on Sept 19, 2024 0:43:30 GMT -5
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Post by goteampsuvb on Sept 19, 2024 6:53:28 GMT -5
Now we know how Louisville felt after our match with them. And where are they currently ranked? ....#4 You have those nights where everything is going right for the other team and you're wearing snowshoes. This is a very talented team with potential national team players. They will learn a lot from this and use it. That's who they are.
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Post by jojonito on Sept 19, 2024 7:12:04 GMT -5
The team was not prepared. That's a coaching issue. I don't want to hang this on one player, because it was obviously a team loss, but what was Grimes doing all match? She was flopping around like a fish out of water and was completely ineffective in every aspect of the game. You are correct to say it was a team loss. Our serve didnât put pressure on Pitt. Our passing didnât help out Izzy. Izzy played like a freshman. Our bad passing had our pins facing a double block all night. ... I'm not sure you can blame Izzy for much of this. The SR and passing by PSU was bad, so that Izzy, in most cases, had little choice in where to set the ball. And Pitt did a great job blocking, and PSU did a poor job tooling the block/going high hands. When there were some really good passes, Izzy was able to get some good sets to the middle. But those good passes were few and far between. She was running around most of the night. Pitt's hitters were just better. On numerous occasions, the Pitt OH's were able to put the ball down on oos sets. This was something that the PSU OH's couldn't do.zf
This match reminded me of the NEB vs SMU match. In that match NEB couldn't do anything right. That pretty much described PSU tonight. And NEB just swept Stanford.
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Post by psuphdstudent on Sept 19, 2024 7:15:43 GMT -5
Not the result we wanted but hopefully a game that will motivate and give the team and coaches things to improve on.
I was at the game and we tried to counteract the vitriol the crowd was giving but alas, a few of us to 10000+. Pitt students kept asking where the energy was as if they were expecting the same noise from 50 students i don't think they understood math, acoustics or how voices worked đ¤ˇââď¸.
To Pitt's credit, the defense was fantastic. This was 100% their best defensive game so far and the best offensive game for Kelley, Stafford, and Jones. That being said, PSU played nowhere near their best. The players looked a little rattled and frustrated (most likely by the defense).
It gives me a little bit of relief that this happened at Pitt's best game (so far) in front of an almost full stadium against Penn State's ugliest game thus far. I would've panicked if the same result happened at PSU's best. Don't get me wrong that I am also frustrated by this loss but the season is still early and the there's lot of volleyball to play and learn.
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Post by lynnllp on Sept 19, 2024 9:19:55 GMT -5
We have plenty of depth and zero clue how to use it. Hopp and Markley have plenty of college volleyball experience, bring a big block, and would be starters at almost any other program, and yet we wonât make a sub even when we are getting drilled. Itâs absolutely mind boggling to ride that out and not even attempt to change the line up and find something that works. Again for some reason she seems to have loyalty to certain people even if they are having the worst night of their life.
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Post by traveler on Sept 19, 2024 9:25:56 GMT -5
The team was not prepared. That's a coaching issue. I don't want to hang this on one player, because it was obviously a team loss, but what was Grimes doing all match? She was flopping around like a fish out of water and was completely ineffective in every aspect of the game. You are correct to say it was a team loss. Our serve didnât put pressure on Pitt. Our passing didnât help out Izzy. Izzy played like a freshman. Our bad passing had our pins facing a double block all night. Our middles were slow side to side closing the block and we never got the offense going well enough for the middles to be effective offensively. Blocking on the pins was non existent. Coaching was absent as there wasnât even attempt to make adjustments and take away what Pitt was dictating from the first serve. It takes experience to win big matches on the road vs top teams and our inexperience showed on the court and off the court. There was no leadership on the court and the coaches seemed stumped on the sidelines. The only ones who get an A+ tonight are the players not in the game who never stopped supporting the ones on the court with energy and sharing what they were seeing. I love to see that. And the Wrecking Crew who filled a bus to come support the team! Kudos to them for the school spirit. Onward. Next match in less than 48 hours. Better get better fast! And several block touches and fierce attacks we leveled were handled w incredible agility by Pitt. Not easily, but winning the point. Some luck factored too. That did not help our confidence Iâm sure.
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Post by mrdibbs on Sept 19, 2024 9:32:23 GMT -5
A couple of general thoughts ... I highly doubt that many observers thought that PSU would be 8-1 at this point in a long season. Sweeping Louisville was very unexpected and the reverse sweep at Kentucky was a bonus.
Pitt is really loaded and they played very well in all facets of the match. From the first point (net fault?) throughout, Fisher's team executed to near perfection. Credit to the better team.
Can PSU play/coach better? O believe they can and the conference schedule grind will require that players who did not get any (or much) opportunity to play last night provide a spark. Hope Coach doesn't delay replacing a starter having an off night when it really starts to matter.
Sometimes a good butt whoopin can cleanse some things and the players and coaches can now get back to focusing on playing better volleyball. I am confident they will.
Sorry for rambling. Every fiber in my body dislikes losing to that particular school.
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