(12-02-2022 09:33 AM)owl at the moon Wrote: (12-01-2022 10:36 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote: (12-01-2022 09:42 PM)owl at the moon Wrote: 35-16 was the Rice scoring differential from the point I was able to tune in on ESPN+ until the end.
Yay Rice!
(And, you’re welcome!!)
Not that we needed to since we played them only last month, but at least we got to scout them tonight.
Walt, I love how you go in-depth on a lot of our sports.
But I’m going to ask you a tough question.
In ONE SENTENCE tell us what Rice needs to do tonight to advance, I.e. one or two keys to victory…
Sorry, I don't do one sentence analyses...
Our backline defense has been our strength all season long. They let us down the first two sets yesterday before waking up and taking over the match. Both Harris and Mansfield set career-highs in digs, and Graham and McCardell had strong matches. Only Maruska (who carried the offense) had a sub-par defensive match.
That backline defense MUST play at an elite level throughout if we are to compete with Baylor's attackers. In that first matchup, only McCardell showed up....and Baylor hit .318 as a team, I believe the best of any opponent against us all year.
Second,
our frontline simply has to play better in the block. In that first meeting, our only offensive weapon was Adekunle (10 Kills, .421), while Bichelmeyer (4 kills, .000), Courtley (5 kills, .059) and Maruska (11 kills, but 8 errors and .107) all had poor performance, seemingly intimidated by Baylor's early blocking prowess. Note-- it didn't help that our backline D had a poor match, never letting our offense get into our system. The good news is that Maruska has been playing the best ball of her career the past two weeks, and Adekunle rarely has back-to-back sub-par outings.
We have got to stop our recent pattern of slow starts to matches. Against an elite team as Baylor that's the death knell. In our first match, Baylor jumped out to big, early leads in all three sets and we were never really competitive. Yes, we scored 18 and 22 points in two of the three sets, but that was only because late rallies made the final score respectable. Note-- we caught Baylor during our worst stretch of play all season, with the prior 3 matches going 5 sets against both UNT and UTEP and 4 sets against an awful FAU squad.
Hopefully, we have a nice Rice contingent in attendance to somewhat offset what will be a vocal home crowd cheering on the Bears. Time to end Baylor's winning streak against us just as we stopped WKU's streak last week. Go Owls!
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Rice Volleyball vs Colorado at Waco NCAA round 1 game thread!!
RE: Rice Volleyball vs Colorado at Waco NCAA round 1 game thread!! 
