Shocker VB at Tulane

[flyingMoose]

The Shockers continue their conference weekend with a match on Senior Day for Tulane on Sunday at 1 pm. The Green Wave are 6-7 in conference with their best win against East Carolina. All of the three remaiing conference games are important for the Shocks for any at-large consideration.

[jimshocker]

NIT at large consideration?

The loss to Rice ended any NCAA at large consideration. What on earth would the Shockers case for the NCAA be?

The only way the Shockers make the NCAA is with an AAC tournament championship. That is completely within reason to hope for.

The question is, do more than 1K Shocker Volleyball fans still exist to show up an cheer them on in Koch Arena?

[flyingMoose]

NIT at large consideration?

The loss to Rice ended any NCAA at large consideration. What on earth would the Shockers case for the NCAA be?

The only way the Shockers make the NCAA is with an AAC tournament championship. That is completely within reason to hope for.

I agree. I think running the table in the AAC regular season was probably not enough for an at-large, but I was reporting the thoughts of the Bracketology Guy.

It's the AQ from the AAC or the NIVC at this point I think.

The question is, do more than 1K Shocker Volleyball fans still exist to show up an cheer them on in Koch Arena?

I have wondered about this. What impact does ESPN+ have on live attendance? Live streaming/church attendance is an analogous situation.

[Critter's Pa]

Very nice 3 set win. 22 19 21

Another average game for Katie and Swifty. Swifty was 18 2 32 .500 with 2 aces and 1 block assist and Katie had 23 digs (just 7.6 digs/set) and an ace.

Gracie hit .500 (5 0 10) in the first set and finished .143 (9 5 28). Alyssa had no errors and 9 kills (9 0 18 .500). Brooklyn was even with 5 kills and 5 errors. (5 5 31). Sarah hit .100 (4 3 10). Izzi hit .300 (3 0 10). and Annalie had another kill. Izzi had 40 sets.

Sarah had 2 solo blocks, Alyssa and Gracie both got solo blocks, Gracie and Swifty both got 1 block assist. 5 total blocks for the team, Tulane had 7 blocks.

It was about half way through the second set that the Shockers got their first service error and finished with 3 service errors and 4 Aces. Tulane committed 6 service errors and got 3 aces.

WSU hit .262 (49 15 130)
Tulane hit .188 (39 15 128)

[WuDrWu]

The play of Alyssa and Gracie give hope for the future. Those 2 freshmen continue to improve. Back row play continues to get better.

I think we'll have big crowds for the tourney. 2000+ for the first round, 3000+ for the semis if we advance and if we make the finals, 3500+.

Barring a complete collapse in Denton, we should be the 3rd seed. USF is the 1 unless a huge upset happens and Sawtelle returned so they're back to full speed scoring wise.

1 USF 2 Rice 3 WSU 4 ECU Any of these 4 could win the tourney.

[flyingMoose]

Other Sunday Matches

UAB 0-3 Rice

South Florida 3-2 East Carolina
(25), 15, (22), 16, 13

Florida Atlantic 0-3 UTSA

North Texas 0-3 Temple

[flyingMoose]

Swifty was 18 2 32 .500 ...

Gracie hit .500 ... Alyssa ... (9 0 18 .500) ... Brooklyn ... Sarah hit ...

Emerson was a DNP.

[1972Shocker]

I have wondered about this. What impact does ESPN+ have on live attendance? Live streaming/church attendance is an analogous situation.

Prior to 2015 there wasn't much , if any, TV or Digital Streaming available for Shocker Volleyball. In 2015 and 2016 Valley matches were carried on ESPN3. In 2017, the year the Shocks joined to the AAC and went undefeated in AAC play there were 8 games on Shocker HD and 2 on the AAC Digital Network. In 2018 and 2019 Shocker home matches were available on Cox YurView (except for a couple of home games that were streamed on the AAC Digital Network). In 2020, the Covid year, 11 of the Shocker's 17 matches were carried on ESPN+ (All AAC matches). In 2021 through 2024 all Shocker home games, most of their AAC road games and a good number of non-conference games where on ESPN+.

I have previously looked at this and I do think the attendance has been impacted by the availability of games on TV or the internet and this pre-dates ESPN+. If you look at our top 10 average attendance per match only 2016 (last year in the Valley) and 2017 (first year in the AAC) make the cut. 2017 tops the list at 3,401 but that includes the two NCAA tournament games the Shockers hosted. If you remove those that average drops to 2,700 which is 6th best all time. 2016 is at the bottom of the list at 2,264. So I think the decline preceeded the arrival of ESPN+. However, I think the impact got a booster shot when both ESPN+ and Covid arrived on the scene simultaneously and a lot of fans discovered the convenience, comfort and ease of watching from home and that has continued to this day. The AAC Friday night, mid-day Sunday schedulng really conflicted with my personal situation this year so I have made about 3 matches in person. And I haven't had any luck giving my tickets away for whatever that indicates.

And it is not like this issue/trend has been limited to volleyball. Both men's and women's basketball have been impacted, as has baseball. The only sport at Wichita State that may not have suffered has been softball but they operate off of a pretty low attendance/capacity base and fans will definitely opt for TV/Internet viewing on those cold early spring days (which also is a challenge for baseball).

I guess this is a long winded way of saying, yes it has an impact on live attendance. Exactly, how much is difficult to say but I think it is a major factor.

Not sure how much collegiate free agency is impacting fan support and loyalty. Perhaps a little bit maybe, but probably more so in basketball and baseball than volleyball.

[1972Shocker]

Emerson was a DNP.

It will be interesting to see how Emerson responds to some rest. But if Gracie and Gonzo continue to play well she may found herself Wally Pipped.

[Critter's Pa]

Attendance is 15,460 for all home matches so far this year. It's 12,558 if you subtract the K-State preseason match. That is an average of 1226 per match (10 matches). That is the best home attendance of any other team in the conference. Highest- 1738 Opening day vs Cal Poly. (K-state was 2902) Lowest- 720 vs UAB. The attendance of home conference matches is 8,236 for an average of 1176 (7 matches)

Next best attendance in conference is Rice, they average 700-800 per home match. The conference away attendance for the Shockers is 3003 for an average of 429 (7 matches). Highest- 826 @ Rice. Lowest- 203 @ UAB. All away matches is 16,084 for an average of 1005 (16 matches). Half of that number was @ Nebraska 8541. Lowest was Long Beach State with a 0, which I don't think is correct. The match against Little Rock was 64. I know that not all 16 matches are "away" matches, many of them are technically neutral, but I don't feel like the dividing it up like that because either way, they are not home matches.

I can't see the match against North Texas raising that number much, although it will be their Senior Day. I would like to think that our Senior Day will be one of the more attended matches of the year, so it might raise the average attendance.

I wish they would switch the televised view to behind the down ref. Since most of the people sit behind the up ref, it looks like there are very few people in the stands on TV. Although if they did that, the broadcasters might have to switch sides so that in the telecast/monitors, the teams are on the side of the court as the broadcaster's view of the match/court.

[Critter's Pa]

Are we really bad at guessing heads-or-tails correctly? It seems like we hardly ever get to serve first at home or on the road. Only on the road against Memphis and UAB have the Shockers served first. I don't recall us serving first at home this year.

Or do we get the call right, and choose to receive first? I guess you could want to receive first, and if that is the case, are we really, really good at calling coin flips?

The coin flip can also decide which side of the court you start on, we always seem to start on the home locker room tunnel side of the court. One could argue that side of the court is the least desirable side of the court because of the scoreboard. Not that the ball hits it very often, but the few times I have seen it hit the scoreboard, nothing good has happened for the team on that side.

[flyingMoose]

The coin flip can also decide which side of the court you start on, we always seem to start on the home locker room tunnel side of the court.

Hmm. The only side of the court I have seen us start on is the locker room side. Certainly, since the mods to Koch. Why would you do anything else? But I have had a nap recently, so who knows?

[1972Shocker]

Watched the Tulane match tonight. Tulane is not a bad volleyball team. They have some nice athletes and decent size. Had a size advantage over the Shocks. Made it tough for the Shocks to pull away from them. Seems like Tulane always had the capacity to reel the Shocks back into a competitive set whenever the Shocks open up a good lead.

I agree with WuDrWu that the back row play is getting better. I thought the littles (Katie, Reagan, Annalie and Grace) played very well tonight against some strong arms. I thought Gracie had a terrific overall game tonight including her back row play (digging and passing). Katie sees to have grown attached to that libero jersey and if she keeps this up Gabi may have to earn that back next year.

It was interesting on how Lambo structured his lineup tonight.

Morgan at various times is serving as a combo middle/right side when Izzi is on the front row with her, a traditional 6-2 middle when Izzi is on the back row, and a server/back row attacker for a rotation when Morgan moves to the back row.

Gracie handled the 6 rotation duties in place of Emerson and did that quite well, especially for a relatively inexperienced true freshman. Brooklyn handled the left when Gracie was on the back row. Allyssa played the right side primarily when Izzie was on the back row. Not sure Alyssa has had much right side duty this year, if any, but she handled that very well.

Brooklyn struggled the most of our pin attackers in this match but she has been pretty good over her last 7 matches although she was sometime on the right and sometime on the left. Perhaps, Tulane had marked her as public enemy #2 behind Morgan. This probably is the spot Emerson would return in if Brooklyn was to falter.

In any case the Shocks seem to be playing their best volleyball of the season lately. Vs Tulane the Shocks averaged a very solid 19.3 points per match (kills, aces and blocks) with kills representing 16.3 of that total. The question is can they hold it together for an extended run.

This was only the Shockers 3rd sweep of the season in 14 AAC matches and all 3 were on the road.

[1972Shocker]

[flyingMoose]

Stolen from VT-

RPI

33. Rice (36)
55. Wichita State (52)
57. South Florida (63)
etc.

() = Previous RPI


Bracket if the AAC Tournament started today

(1) South Florida vs (8) Memphis
*USF defeated Memphis in the lone series 3-1 @ USF

(4) Tulsa vs (5) East Carolina
*Tulsa defeated ECU in the lone series 3-0 @ ECU

(3) Wichita State vs (6) Florida Atlantic
*WSU defeated FAU 3-2 in the lone series 3-2 @ WSU

(2) Rice vs (7) Tulane
*Rice defeated Tulane twice; 3-2 @ Tulane & 3-1 @ Rice