(09-12-2022 02:32 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(09-12-2022 02:09 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  

(09-12-2022 01:51 PM)dragon2owl Wrote:  Rice gains votes but just missed being in the Top 25.

1. Texas (1595)
14. Baylor (731)
17. Creighton (629)
20. Oregon (361)
21. WKU (343)
25. Illinois (83)

Others receiving votes and listed on two or more ballots: Rice 73; Towson 51; UCLA 44; Utah 40; Mississippi State 33; UCF 26; Miami (FL) 15; UNLV 15; Washington State 13; Colorado 10; Northwestern 9; Michigan 7; Southern California 7; Houston 6

https://www.avca.org/polls/di-women/2022...-2022.html

Sneaking up on my them. Surprised TT isn’t getting some some votes. At times on Sunday they looked to be the better, more disciplined, more aggressive team.

Sunday was a fun match to see in person with a good and engaged crowd. Lot’s of young (HS & club players) there. Good to see!

A couple of next year's recruits were here, as well. I saw Genny great them before the match. As for TT, I think they outplayed us. Our backline defense is slightly better, but they had the superior service game, blocking game and offensive game. Having said that, I do think our offense will continue to improve as the season progresses and Carly had a rare off-day yesterday in her setting game.

The Tech win positioned us where we needed to be heading into next weekend. I still don't understand how WKU is getting more votes than us, let alone almost 5 times our vote total as our resume at this point is superior to theirs. They just barely beat Northern Kentucky in a 5-setter at home and got blown out in home sweep by #4 Louisville. They may be 9-1, but they have yet to beat anybody of note. This week they play 4 matches against Tennessee on the road, and Tennessee Tech, A&M and Indiana at home. A&M is having a down year, and Tennessee and Indiana are not strong P5 programs in volleyball.

Not sure how Bichelmeyer can CUSA Offensive Player of the Week over Courtley, but whatever. Nia has won all three CUSA Defensive POW honors so far this season.

I hope they stay highly ranked... until we beat them!

(09-12-2022 02:57 PM)dragon2owl Wrote:  The VolleyTalk group has Rice at #24.

https://volleytalk.proboards.com/thread/...k-rankings

Who are the voters in the VT poll? They have Rice one spot and 9 votes behind WKU. TT at least got a vote in this poll. Genny maybe? Rice was ranked as high as 15 by one voter while WKU’s highest vote was for #17.

(09-12-2022 04:18 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  

(09-12-2022 02:57 PM)dragon2owl Wrote:  The VolleyTalk group has Rice at #24.

https://volleytalk.proboards.com/thread/...k-rankings

Who are the voters in the VT poll? They have Rice one spot and 9 votes behind WKU. TT at least got a vote in this poll. Genny maybe? Rice was ranked as high as 15 by one voter while WKU’s highest vote was for #17.

It's basically a dedicated group of posters from the message board. Folks who actively try to watch numerous teams play. There is also a mid-major poll that some folks do.

To give you an idea how good Texas is-- #5 Ohio State has already beaten 3 ranked opponents, but they lost 5 of six sets to UT (two back-to-back matches) in Columbus. They also swept #9 Stanford in Palo Alto and beat #4 Minnesota in 4 sets.

With this Rice team we could go 2-0 or 0-2 this weekend. Both Kansas State and Creighton are beatable. Yea Creighton went 5 sets with Nebraska but they also went 5 sets with Omaha. They also lost a set to Wyoming.

(09-12-2022 07:16 PM)dragon2owl Wrote:  With this Rice team we could go 2-0 or 0-2 this weekend. Both Kansas State and Creighton are beatable. Yea Creighton went 5 sets with Nebraska but they also went 5 sets with Omaha. They also lost a set to Wyoming.

Kansas State is solid and may give us a fight, but I can't see us losing to them. We should have a good crowd on Sunday for Creighton and I doubt they'll have more than some traveling parents rooting them on. It would be nice if the Rally Club made the Sunday match an "event" for the students. No more than 4 - 5 showed up for the Tech match....and I can't believe they were at the soccer match instead (not the way the soccer team has been playing).

We need to fix our offense which has been out of sync all season long (even in our easy sweeps) and stop with the frequency of service errors (especially since we're not exactly serving the ball hard).

#9 Stanford takes down #2 Nebraska in 4 tight sets in Palo Alto. Two of Stanford's three set wins were 27-25. UT blew out Stanford in Palo Alto. Not sure why/how Nebraska was receiving any #1 votes. Texas is clearly a cut above every team in the country this year with the best squad money can buy. Their libero (all-american UCLA transfer) has won back-to-back national defensive player of the week honors.

If anyone wants to watch some truly elite volleyball, ESPN is airing a rare regular season match #3 Louisville vs. hosting #10 Kentucky right now. They're currently tied 1-1 with the 3rd set tied at 21-21.

I wanted to watch the Texas professional volleyball team but all games are on the Longhorn Channel to date.

(09-14-2022 07:39 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  If anyone wants to watch some truly elite volleyball, ESPN is airing a rare regular season match #3 Louisville vs. hosting #10 Kentucky right now. They're currently tied 1-1 with the 3rd set tied at 21-21.

Louisville had match point at 24-23 in Set 4, but a service error gave UK life, and they closed out the set 24-26 to force a 5th set, which Louisville took command of late to win 15-11.

Great match. Host Kentucky got all the calls from the SEC refs, but Louisville was clearly just a little bit better. Both had excellent all-around games-- serve, blocking, attacking, setting and back line defense. What separates the truly elite from Rice is our sub-par service game and average at best blocking ability. However, this year I do think we have an elite back line defense which should only continue to improve given it features two freshmen, along with McCardell. Most important, we need to get our offense in better sync, and we can't keep giving the inefficient Maruska the most attack opportunities.