Shockers Entertain SMU Feb. 26-27

[WuDrWu]

I watched most of one match against Houston and a little of the other. SMU struggled on defense last night and it's hard for me to tell how much WSU's attack was responsible for that. I feel like they were better without Heim and Woulfe but clearly that isn't the case. Shocks were much improved in their passing last night. MUCH improved. They will be a handful for any AAC team when they can pick and choose between quick middles, left and right and back row and it all starts with quality passing.

Today is huge. Look, I agree with 1972Shocker that SMU was rusty but they have talent and WSU was clearly the better side in sets 2, 3 & 4. CLEARLY. SMU has to win today to have any real shot at making the tourney. Lose today and they are 4 behind us and Houston and no tiebreaker. They will be angry and desperate.

Interesting to me that we didn't rely at all on our fab frosh crew, Super quick turnaround for both sides, and we should have fresh legs to turn to if needed to mix things up.

Big match, GO SHOCKS!

[1972Shocker]

Interesting to me that we didn't rely at all on our fab frosh crew, Super quick turnaround for both sides, and we should have fresh legs to turn to if needed to mix things up.

Yes, I thought it was interesting that our fab frosh crew (Morgan, Mariah, Natalie and Lauren) did not see the floor. But one thing Lambo has consistently preached for as long as I can remember is that he values experience and thinks it is even more valuable in volleyball that many other sports and he likes him some "old" volleyball players.

OTOH your point of having the flexibility/option to turn to if needed is a good one. In fact, maybe that is baked into the cake for today. We'll see but none of the fab frosh crew played in the first match against Tulsa and then played a lot in Sets 2, 3 and 4 of the 2nd match against Tulsa.

That can present some issues for the opposing teams in terms of who do we scout. Do we have to scout basically two teams One with the veterans and one with the newcomers and who will we get.

The other benefit of having this quality frosh crew is that they are no doubt pushing, challenging and motivating the veterans to focus and play hard. In addition, to the 4 freshman mentioned above AHC Sean Carter was singing the praises of the two freshman setters Lauren Phillips and Hailey Plugge on his recent RH Podcast interview by Paul Suellentrop saying they amazing this past week in practice and are doing really well and are helping to make McKayla and Kayce both better. He said the same applies to the littles. He said the players the fans don't see much of the girls who are not int he lineup much and those kids are the ones that are really raising the levels of their gym with the leve of their play and their effort.

[flyingMoose]

Other than the Shocks and SMU looks like everyone is playing out of conference this week.

This was a scheduled open weekend so if circumstances required, conference matches could be postponed and played on one of the open weekends. The matches against K-State and Kansas were scheduled by the Shockers to take advantage of the open weekends. Unfortunately ...

[1972Shocker]

This was a scheduled open weekend so if circumstances required, conference matches could be postponed and played on one of the open weekends. The matches against K-State and Kansas were scheduled by the Shockers to take advantage of the open weekends. Unfortunately ...

Hopefully, the Shockers can squeeze in one of the KSU matches. Has any AAC athleitic program been more negatively impacted than the Shocks. MBB, WBB and now VB have all had significant disruptions. Maybe our WBB has been the most negatively impacted.

[flyingMoose]

Hopefully, the Shockers can squeeze in one of the KSU matches.

Yes. In a preseason show, Lambo lamented never being able to schedule the in-state schools. He thought being able to do so this winter and with cost-reduction considerations for most schools still in play next fall, maybe that barrier could be taken down. The last home-and-home with K-State was 2006-2007, although they have played each other since then in weekend matches at away sites. The Shocks played Kansas in Lawrence in Regionals in 2012 and 2013, but I don't know that they have ever played an in-season match.

[1972Shocker]

I won't be able to do any running commentary on today's match. Will have to watch the match on replay. It really doesn't add all that much but it allows me to do something with my nervouse energy. If anyone esle want to take that on feel free.

Good luck, Shocks.

[The Mad Hatter]

After winning the first two games, SMU has won the second 2 and we are heading to a 5th. Defense remains strong for WSU, but SMU's defense has stepped up in the last two.

[1972Shocker]

SMU completes the comeback with a 16-14 win in Set 5. Bummer after winning the first 2 sets but coming in I though splitting the two matches would be an acceptable result for the Shocks.

Credit to SMU. There back were really against the wall at 0-3 in conference play and down 2 sets to non against a pretty good WSU team.

Anyone who was able to watch the match have any thoughts?

[1972Shocker]

Just looked at the live stats. I saw the Shocks had a 19-16 lead in the 3rd set and then SMU scored 9 of the last 10 points to win that set 25-19 and then SMU won the first 6 points of Set 4 and went on to win that set by 6 at 25-19.

Not sure what caused that momentum sing but a 16-1 run by SMU over the end of the 3rd set and beginning of the 4th. I am a bit shocked by that.

[flyingMoose]

We started playing young. Questionable sets, Nicole freaked out on us again, blocking not quite as strong, SMU played a little better.

Natalie is already an offensive force, but not up to speed yet on blocking schemes I think. Morgan and Mariah have got work to do to help offensively.

SMU hosts Tulane next week. We play the Green Wave on the road. Those will be big matches to decide the second division qualifier. We do have a shot at Houston here to end the regular season, but that is a big ask. Time to go research the tiebreakers.

[shoxlax]

Time to lose the masks. We need to start calling Lambo Chris Fauci.

[1972Shocker]

Time to lose the masks. We need to start calling Lambo Chris Fauci.

Since their winning streak was broken maybe they will get rid of the face diapers. Or maybe wear two. Who knows.

[1972Shocker]

We started playing young. Questionable sets, Nicole freaked out on us again, blocking not quite as strong, SMU played a little better.

Natalie is already an offensive force, but not up to speed yet on blocking schemes I think. Morgan and Mariah have got work to do to help offensively.

SMU hosts Tulane next week. We play the Green Wave on the road. Those will be big matches to decide the second division qualifier. We do have a shot at Houston here to end the regular season, but that is a big ask. Time to go research the tiebreakers.

Watched the replay and not sure why you are singling out Nicole. Yes she had a few poor plays but she wasn't the only one by far. Among the youngsters Natalie was clearly the most solid and made a positive contribution. Morgan was very shaky during the 4th set but settled down and was much better in the 5th set. Mariah only made a cameo appearance but seemed overmatched.

Shocker setters had 22 digs including 16 by McKayla. SMU's setter had 12 digs. Not sure your setters having that many digs is a good thing. It means we were out of system at least 10 times more than SMU was due to the setter digging the ball. I don't know if SMU was trying to target our setters or if it just worked out that way. I thought McKayla also struggled quite a bit syncing up with the middles especially in the later sets. Not sure whether that was more her, the middles or a combination.

I don't know if SMU put special focus on controlling Brylee but control her they did. 7-7-30 = .000 is by far her poorest performance of the 4 matches she has played this year. Nicole also had 2 of her statistically poorer outings against SMU hitting 9-4-35 = .143 and 9-5-35 - .114. Her only worst performance was the 1st North Texas match. She had been very good in the 2nd North Texas match and the two Tulsa matches prior to the SMU matches. Perhaps SMU was focused on slowing her down as well. Nicole's replacement Morgan Webber was 0-1-7 = -.143 and was pretty shaky with her passing in the 4th set. So we really didn't get any help there.

Interestingly, and perhaps the biggest positive of the match, was Sophia Rohling's performance hitting 18-3-36 = .417 plus 6 block assists. Perhap Sophis was the beneficiary of SMU maybe focusing there defense elsewhere but still she played very well despite SMU making some very tough digs on some of her rockets.

Natalie Foster just makes you want to see more of her but apparently she is a bit of a work-in-progress on her blocking skills.

Maybe what I disliked more than anything was ending the match on what seemed to me like a very questionable in-the-net call against the Shocks. I assume that call was made by Mary Faragher on the floor. I have watched the replay a few times and just am not seeing much and certainly nothing that looked like it impacted the play or gave the Shocks any kind of advantage. I would have expected an experienced ref like Mary to let that one go and let the team decide the match on the court.

Splitting with SMU is not hat disappointing. Maybe the way it happened is a little bit disappointing. But SMU looks like a very good VB team that had some bad luck playing Houston at less than full strength. The Shocks took them on at full strength and played them dead even and perhaps probably should have had the sweep. Shocks just need to hold serve between now and the Houston matches to close out the season. That means take care of business against Memphis at home and Tulane in New Orleans.

The Shocks have come a long way from last year and they just need to hold it together and keep working to get better. So far the year has exceeded my expectations.

[flyingMoose]

... why you are singling out Nicole.

"Freaked out on us" means she made a mistake(s) and then could not let them go. Somewhere at the end of the fourth set, there is a timeout(?) and you can see her talking to herself and gesturing to herself as she heads toward the bench. Something similar happened to her earlier this year, so this is nothing new. The fact that Morgan replaced her in the fifth tells me the coaches know that once she slides down that slope, she is unlikely to come back soon. Yes, I think she is quite talented, but she has this mental block to overcome. I am confident she/they are working on it.

In summary, Nicole lets her mistakes affect her subsequent play. It is not apparent that happens with anyone else.

[1972Shocker]

"Freaked out on us" means she made a mistake(s) and then could not let them go. Somewhere at the end of the fourth set, there is a timeout(?) and you can see her talking to herself and gesturing to herself as she heads toward the bench. Something similar happened to her earlier this year, so this is nothing new. The fact that Morgan replaced her in the fifth tells me the coaches know that once she slides down that slope, she is unlikely to come back soon. Yes, I think she is quite talented, but she has this mental block to overcome. I am confident she/they are working on it.

In summary, Nicole lets her mistakes affect her subsequent play. It is not apparent that happens with anyone else.

Gotcha. Morgan played well in the 5th set but I don't think she is quite as good offensively as Nicole is. Although I don't think Niclole freaking out is the main reason the Shockers lost this match.