Season Finale -- USD

[JackJD]

Everyone attending the men's basketball game against Western Michigan received a ticket to the USD volleyball match, the last one of the season for SDSU. Should have a decent crowd on hand. USD is a good team and this will be (I'm projecting a win) a good win to finish the season.

Go Jacks.

[JackJD]

Re: Season Finale -- USD

Projection wrong: USD wins 3-1. USD placed the ball better and played well as a team.

[RowdyRabbit]

Re: Season Finale -- USD

Man alive, what happened to us this year?

We started out so good and really blew a gasket at some point.

[JimmyJack]

Re: Season Finale -- USD

A player told us that there were effort and chemistry issues. Something off the court ended up on the court. Obviously, there is a good bit of talent there. I'm not an expert on volleyball, but I would say there was a lot of lazy defense on the back line and (outside of a couple of players) a pretty clear lack of effort in general.

[SturgisJeff]

Re: Season Finale -- USD

if there were effort and chemistry issues the coach better get them straightened out before next season. the ladies should be embarrased by this season and those who caused it should be too. if they are not bothered by it then maybe its time to move on down the road and let some other person have their spot who is willing and able to do it.

[jackmd]

Re: Season Finale -- USD

Man alive, what happened to us this year?

We started out so good and really blew a gasket at some point.

Great question. The more I learn about VB the more I realize how much momentum there really is. If a team gets down, loses confidence and starts playing passive things can blow up in a hurry. We know all about that down here in Yankton.

[LuckyRabbitFoot]

Re: Season Finale -- USD

A player told us that there were effort and chemistry issues. Something off the court ended up on the court. Obviously, there is a good bit of talent there. I'm not an expert on volleyball, but I would say there was a lot of lazy defense on the back line and (outside of a couple of players) a pretty clear lack of effort in general.

D is most of it, USD go 1:1 match ups with the hitters, and sometimes our middles never even made an attempt to get to the outside to block, whenever hitters go 1:1 theyre gonna win that battle ... and they did, passing was off and then the set was predictable.....not sure what happened ... the story of 2 parts to a season

[filbert]

Re: Season Finale -- USD

Snookums was VERY impressed with USD's setter--the big, BIG girl in the middle. Said she had really soft hands, and said nobody on SDSU's team was anywhere as good a setter as USD's girl.

Also, SDSU's players were simply not into the game on defense, failing to anticipate where a hit would be coming, and almost always late in reacting. I thought it was a pretty dreadful effort from SDSU, myself--looked like a team that, with maybe a couple of exceptions, had pretty much mentally packed it in for the year. And I REALLY hate saying that about a Jackrabbit team.

Obviously something happened this year on this team that just turned off the switch--from the good start to the awful finish, it was like two completely different teams. Let's hope the good, early-season team and not the awful late-season team comes back next year.

[Jacks#1Fan]

Re: Season Finale -- USD

Have my own opinions as to what happened to this year's team and why we have been struggling so much, but it is now past history and I will keep them to myself. But I am also running optimistic about a reasonably quick turnaround next year. First, I believe Phil McDaniel is a good coach, who inherited this team and had no choice but to live with some of the problems that cropped up over the season. He is capable of fixing them. I believe we have a couple of redshirts on the team who are going to be very helpful next year, and that McDaniel will bring in some help as well. And while we may not zoom up the ranks next year, I think we will be moving up. Keep the faith over the winter.

[Nidaros]

Re: Season Finale -- USD

Have my own opinions as to what happened to this year's team and why we have been struggling so much, but it is now past history and I will keep them to myself. But I am also running optimistic about a reasonably quick turnaround next year. First, I believe Phil McDaniel is a good coach, who inherited this team and had no choice but to live with some of the problems that cropped up over the season. He is capable of fixing them. I believe we have a couple of redshirts on the team who are going to be very helpful next year, and that McDaniel will bring in some help as well. And while we may not zoom up the ranks next year, I think we will be moving up. Keep the faith over the winter.

I regret I did not get to a single game or match this year, so really dont have much of an opinion, except losing to USD twice in one season is painful in any sport. Seems McDaniel was a real compliement to the team as an assistant so trust he will do things better next year and have a more motivated team.

[Jacks#1Fan]

Re: Season Finale -- USD

Painful for me also, Nidaros, but the handwriting was on the wall last spring, when USD beat us in the spring volleyball tournament...before McDaniel even became coach. So, while the spring tourney games are not official games, technically we lost to them three times in 2011, As I said earlier, he had to play with what he had when he got here in the summer. You can trust him to get us back in the game IMHO.

[Blackshirt Jack]

Re: Season Finale -- USD

Snookums was VERY impressed with USD's setter--the big, BIG girl in the middle. Said she had really soft hands, and said nobody on SDSU's team was anywhere as good a setter as USD's girl.

Also, SDSU's players were simply not into the game on defense, failing to anticipate where a hit would be coming, and almost always late in reacting. I thought it was a pretty dreadful effort from SDSU, myself--looked like a team that, with maybe a couple of exceptions, had pretty much mentally packed it in for the year. And I REALLY hate saying that about a Jackrabbit team.

Obviously something happened this year on this team that just turned off the switch--from the good start to the awful finish, it was like two completely different teams. Let's hope the good, early-season team and not the awful late-season team comes back next year.

Ok, I have to totally disagree with the defense issue and the team had packed it in already when playing USD. However, yes you are right about the switch was turned off. In volleyball, the setter runs the offense and that position turned it off!! Look at the stats, we could not score (kills) consistently this year (unlike last year). Our setter (first year setter)was 70% our problem this year. We returned everyone but the setter from last year and quickly realized how good CHi was from last year watching this years setter. Yes, our outsides did struggle at times, but our offense is built around our middles and right side and our setter was too eratic to deliver consistently good sets to those positions.

Our digs and blocking cost us maybe 3 games, lack of production from outsides maybe 3 games, but the other 14 losses was our setter. Fortunately, Phil has a choice for setter next year where this year he did not. More effective setter production next year will make for 20 match plus win season.