Shocks v Trees

[1972Shocker]

MSU did sweep ILS but the scores were 25-23, 25-19 and 25-21. Not sure I would describe that as a hammering, especially at home.

Now, Creighton did hammer Bradley in Sets 1 and 4 winning those by 25-9 and 25-14, but they lost Set 2 19-25 and squeezed out a win in Set 3 by a 25-23 score, so maybe the Shocks weren't the only ones who struggled to maintain focus. This match was in Omaha.

UNI did hammer Drake in Des Moines 25-11, 25-16 and 25-13. Perhaps the best showing on MVC opening night.

I am a little concerned about this team's tendency to take leads and then give up mulitple point runs. Seems like they may have trouble maintaining focus and intensity. This is an area where they may be missing Kelly Broussard's competitive fire.

Oh yes, and I still hate service errors. Many of these multiple point runs by opponents seem to get started that way.

[SpanglerFan316]

We'll see this kind of execution when the talent level is so much different.

Like against:
#238 Grambling State (7, 10, 14)? (31 points scored against WSU)
Or #208 Oral Roberts (21, 19, 12)? (52 points scored against WSU)
Or #195 Harvard (10, 12, 10)? (32 points scored against WSU)
Or #124 Belmont (15, 23, 13)? (51 points scored against WSU)


Or #279 Indiana State (21, 15, 21)? (57 points scored against WSU)

[1972Shocker]

Indiana State is the worst team, as measured by the 9/14 Pablo rankings, WSU will play all year. There is no way Indiana State should score 21 points on WSU in an entire match, much less in two of three sets.

9/18/2009 Home W *Indiana State 25-21, 25-15, 25-21 Pablo=#279

The next worst is #257 Bradley and among teams WSU has already played
9/5/2009 Home W Grambling State 25-7, 25-10, 25-14 Pablo=#238

This was the worst match I've seen WSU play in some time.

Neither Lambo nor any of the players were available from post game comments on the radio -- I 'spect Lambo may have been addressing some of your concerns with the Ladies. I look for a more focused team tomorrow vs the Redbirds.

:goshocks:

[SpanglerFan316]

Indiana State is the worst team, as measured by the 9/14 Pablo rankings, WSU will play all year. There is no way Indiana State should score 21 points on WSU in an entire match, much less in two of three sets.

9/18/2009 Home W *Indiana State 25-21, 25-15, 25-21 Pablo=#279

The next worst is #257 Bradley and among teams WSU has already played
9/5/2009 Home W Grambling State 25-7, 25-10, 25-14 Pablo=#238

This was the worst match I've seen WSU play in some time.

Neither Lambo nor any of the players were available from post game comments on the radio -- I 'spect Lambo may have been addressing some of your concerns with the Ladies. I look for a more focused team tomorrow vs the Redbirds.

:goshocks:

I hope you're right. I'll be there cheering.
:goshocks:

[SpanglerFan316]

WSU's next three matches:
9/19/2009 Home Illinois State Pablo=#160
9/25/2009 Away Missouri State Pablo=#73
10/2/2009 Away Creighton Pablo=#116

[1972Shocker]

For some reason the Shocks don't necessarily play their best VB at home. Who can forget the Drake match last year at Shocker Madness.

I don't know if it is an over-confidence thing or what, but even Lambo has made this point, most recently on last week's Sports Sunday show on Channel 12.

Here is an excerpt of Lambo's post game comments:

http://www.goshockers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=61208&SPID=2838&DB_OEM_ID=7500&ATCLID=204797344

I was a little surprised that Emily Adney did not see any action.

[The Mad Hatter]

The team looked lackluster and the crowd was lackluster. Far too many service errors and very average offense.

Yep. Although the crowd will usually follow the energy of the team. I doubt that Lambo will be real pleased with this effort.

I will say Indiana State is getting better.

Emily Stockman, as per her usual, played well.

http://www.goshockers.com/downloads1/355694.HTM?ATCLID=204797344&SPSID=61208&SPID=2838&DB_OEM_ID=7500

2 Stockman, Emily..... 3| 15 5 36 .278| 3| 1 1| 0| 12| 3 2 0| 0| 20.0
15 kills but 5 attack errors is not playing well. She didn't have her usual height on her attacks and she looked "off" to me.

http://www.goshockers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=7500&ATCLID=204797344

Well since Lamb looked over her stat line and described it as "outstanding" I'm going to have to continue to question your ability to evaluate play. I've heard little but whining from you all year and it is getting a little tiring.

Most of Emily's attack errors were on balls that would have been free balls setting up in system attacks for the other team that she decided to be aggressive with out of the back row.

Was this our best performance? Not by a long stretch, but it wasn't nearly as bad a performance as you would think by reading the comments here. Indiana State is not nearly as bad a team as you make them out to be. Their coach (who Lamb always has really good things to say about) has really upgraded the talent level and play of a program that used to be awful. Their pablo ranking is low, but they started off the year terribly (1-6) and have been much better recently, winning three of their last four coming into tonight.

The reality is that, while WSU certainly could have cut down on service errors and hitting errors, the match was only close because #7 for ISU played a tremendous game. She managed to beat double blocks and performed really well for them. She had 13 kills, while the rest of their team combined for 14. The rest of the team hit -0.031.

This wasn't our best effort, but MEH is right. This was a B effort. The tenor of this thread would make it sound like a D.

[SpanglerFan316]

You are entitled to your own opinion but it doesn't influence mine and I don't really care what you think.

I believing in praising good performance and criticizing poor performance. Many sports fans only acknowledge the good play by their team and ignore the poor play. On several occasion, Emily had a decent (or good) set and hit the ball into the net; normally she would have hit it over the net (even if it wasn't a kill.) I wonder if she is completely healthy because she didn't look like her usual self.

Part of the problem was caused by Indiana State; they did play well at times. However there were times where an ISU OH or MB got a kill when no Shocker put up a block and the ISU player had a free swing. ISU served short at times and this seemed to give Sarah W. (& Jackie C. ?) some trouble. Emily seemed a bit slow on some dig attempts; if she is ill, this would explain a lot. Of course, Chris Lamb knows much more than me; however, he is known to "spin" news. (I remember a few occasions when he praised a player during the off-season and, when the season started, that player had left the team. When Lamb said in the paper that Hooper and ST were connecting better, MEH was surprised and didn't know what Chris was talking about.)

[SpanglerFan316]

Look at the amazing match MEH had:
5 Hooper,MaryElizabeth 3| 5 0 6 .833| 33| 0 0| 0| 6| 0 1 0| 1| 5.5
1 General Ball Handling Error and otherwise "perfect" (5 kills in 6 tries, no SEs, 33 assists, etc.

[WuDrWu]

We'll see this kind of execution when the talent level is so much different.

Like against:
#238 Grambling State (7, 10, 14)? (31 points scored against WSU)
Or #208 Oral Roberts (21, 19, 12)? (52 points scored against WSU)
Or #195 Harvard (10, 12, 10)? (32 points scored against WSU)
Or #124 Belmont (15, 23, 13)? (51 points scored against WSU)


Or #279 Indiana State (21, 15, 21)? (57 points scored against WSU)

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough for you. You will see this lackluster execution ONCE IN A WHILE etc.

I never said it was always, and I don't care what Pablo says, INSU is a lot better than GSU.

[The Mad Hatter]

You are entitled to your own opinion but it doesn't influence mine and I don't really care what you think.

I believing in praising good performance and criticizing poor performance. Many sports fans only acknowledge the good play by their team and ignore the poor play.

If you think that another person's criticism doesn't matter and should never influence your own, why on earth would you open your very next paragraph with a criticism of other posters opinions?

If you believe that others will take the same stand as you and not care about your opinions and not let them influence them, why bother posting the criticism in the first place?

If you believe that others will care about your criticism and be influenced by it, aren't you being awfully arrogant to refuse to open yourself to being influenced by someone else's criticism of you when you expect them to be open to your criticism of them?

This is why I am sick of the complaining. You criticize everyone else but refuse to be held up to criticism. When faced with a volleyball coach's assessment that disagrees with your own, you'd rather accuse him of spinning the facts than admit you went overboard in your criticism. You never seem to accuse Lamb of spinning the facts whenever he is critical of how the team is playing. You'd rather assert that a player had an illness without any evidence than take note of the fact that that player had 3 dominate solo blocks and 5 blocks total alongside 15 kills and 12 digs.

So much for the "praising good performances" part of your equation.

[SpanglerFan316]

We'll see this kind of execution when the talent level is so much different.

Like against:
#238 Grambling State (7, 10, 14)? (31 points scored against WSU)
Or #208 Oral Roberts (21, 19, 12)? (52 points scored against WSU)
Or #195 Harvard (10, 12, 10)? (32 points scored against WSU)
Or #124 Belmont (15, 23, 13)? (51 points scored against WSU)


Or #279 Indiana State (21, 15, 21)? (57 points scored against WSU)

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough for you. You will see this lackluster execution ONCE IN A WHILE etc.

I never said it was always, and I don't care what Pablo says, INSU is a lot better than GSU.

You could well be right; Pablo is somewhat unstable right now. If you're right about ISU, it is too bad they didn't play better in the OOC (i.e. earn a higher initial Pablo) because their improvement may have come too late to help the MVC. If MVC teams beat one another up, there may not be a lot of at-large bids for the conference (as may happen to the MWC this year.) On the other hand, UNI may help the conference; they are playing well.

If I seemed a bit grumpy tonight, it might be because I imagined having UNI (or even MSU) on the other side of the court; WSU would have lost to UNI and probably to MSU if we played as we did against ISU.

[SpanglerFan316]

You are entitled to your own opinion but it doesn't influence mine and I don't really care what you think.

I believing in praising good performance and criticizing poor performance. Many sports fans only acknowledge the good play by their team and ignore the poor play.

If you think that another person's criticism doesn't matter and should never influence your own, why on earth would you open your very next paragraph with a criticism of other posters opinions?

If you believe that others will take the same stand as you and not care about your opinions and not let them influence them, why bother posting the criticism in the first place?

If you believe that others will care about your criticism and be influenced by it, aren't you being awfully arrogant to refuse to open yourself to being influenced by someone else's criticism of you when you expect them to be open to your criticism of them?

This is why I am sick of the complaining. You criticize everyone else but refuse to be held up to criticism. When faced with a volleyball coach's assessment that disagrees with your own, you'd rather accuse him of spinning the facts than admit you went overboard in your criticism. You never seem to accuse Lamb of spinning the facts whenever he is critical of how the team is playing. You'd rather assert that a player had an illness without any evidence than take note of the fact that that player had 3 dominate solo blocks and 5 blocks total alongside 15 kills and 12 digs.

So much for the "praising good performances" part of your equation.

This is stupid. Fans adopt different points of view. By saying I adopt one point of view and others adopt a different point of view, I was not criticizing any specific individual, any group of fans nor any point of view. Quit being so defensive.

Perhaps I should explain. One can take sports solely or mainly as entertainment and such a person might get more entertainment value out of only considering positive things. There is nothing wrong with this and I was not criticizing it.

[SpanglerFan316]

I have no idea if Emily is ill or not; I saw her play and it seemed to me that she was not playing as well as usual. One possible reason she might have played poorer than usual (if she did) would be a minor illness. It was a guess and nothing more.

If it should turn out that we learn, in a few weeks, that Emily was under the weather today, how would you react? Would you say "I guess you were right and Lamb was spinning" or would you just forget this conversation?

If I get a chance to see this match (if video exists), I'll try to evaluate the match. If this happens and I realize my criticism was wrong, I admit it here. If people I know and respect who were at the match say I was wrong and explain why, I'll consider this and, if I agree with them, I admit it here; there were at least 5 people I know that I saw at the match.

Finally, it is a well known fact that Lamb spins some of the news. If you don't know this, you don't follow WSU volleyball. I'm not criticizing this; if it helps WSU, then that's great. Maybe I will look up the news article in the spring where Chris talks about the great progress a particular player is making and then the news article during the summer saying that the praised player is transferring out.

[1972Shocker]

I think Lambo's "spinning", as it is with most coaches in this day and age, is that a Coach has to be a half-time sports psychologist to maximize his team's and his players' performance.

Look at Brent Kemnitz. A large part of what he does is try to get brains right.

Speaking of Brent perhaps we should follow his positive-negative-positive approach in leveling criticism. Both of the team and each other.

Of course, with some of us posters find the positives can on occasion present a challenge. :D

Beyond that we should probably follow Lambo's advise and try to enjoy the ride. I know that 6 years ago WSU VB was not even on my radar screen. Now look where we are. Now that is a positive.

:goshocks: