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Post by 65pointgame on Jul 9, 2022 14:36:55 GMT -6
Schedule is out - gopurpleaces.com/sports/womens-volleyball/schedule18 game conference schedule with Drake/UNI (Home) and UIC/Valpo (away) as the 4 teams we will play only once. Nice tournament at Baylor with Colorado St and AZ State as the other teams. Other multi team events at Marshall, at Tenn Tech, and at Michigan State.
Baylor finished 10th in final NCAA rankings last year and picked to finish 2nd in the Big 12 Colorado St had a great year and AZ State was middle of the pack in a tough conference. Wright St finished out at 23-8
Northwestern and Michigan State finished lower BIG10, but it is probably the best VB conf in the country.
Coach really put together a great schedule!
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Post by austinace on Jul 10, 2022 12:50:44 GMT -6
The Baylor tournament will be a real test as every team was rated above us last year and like previously mentioned by 65pointgame, Baylor was a top 10 team. Below are the December 2021 Massey Ratings for women's volleyball at the end of last year for the teams on our schedule. * denotes teams in the Baylor Classic (besides UE). The opener on the road against Wright State ought to be challenging as will the games at Northwestern and Michigan State. Team | Conference | Record | Rating | SOS | Baylor* | Big 12 | 22-6 | 6 | 7 | Arizona State* | Pac 12 | 14-17 | 52 | 21 | Northwestern | Big 10 | 12-19 | 53 | 10 | Colorado State* | Mountain West | 19-11 | 62 | 84 | Valparaiso | MVC | 26-10 | 68 | 122 | Loyola-Chicago | MVC->A10 | 22-10 | 74 | 101 | Michigan State | Big 10 | 11-19 | 75 | 29 | Wright State | Horizon | 23-8 | 77 | 157 | Evansville | MVC | 21-12 | 100 | 149 | Illinois State | MVC | 19-16 | 102 | 88 | Illinois Chicago | Horizon->MVC | 20-12 | 112 | 145 | Bradley | MVC | 17-15 | 126 | 124 | Missouri State | MVC | 17-13 | 135 | 137 | Indiana State | MVC | 18-13 | 142 | 160 | Northern Iowa | MVC | 12-19 | 143 | 67 | Chicago State | Western Athletic | 17-11 | 150 | 218 | Murray State | OVC->MVC | 18-12 | 156 | 230 | Drake | MVC | 11-15 | 163 | 129 | Oakland | Horizon | 15-15 | 168 | 138 | Marshall | Conference USA | 9-16 | 185 | 106 | Tennessee Tech | OVC | 16-14 | 196 | 205 | Western Carolina | Southern | 11-17 | 248 | 248 | Tennessee State | OVC | 10-17 | 266 | 284 | Southern Illinois | MVC | 5-26 | 271 | 172 | Belmont | OVC->MVC | 9-20 | 273 | 229 | South Carolina St | Mid-Eastern AC | 0-24 | 338 | 306 | USI | GLVC->OVC | 18-13(D2) | Not Rated | N/A |
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Post by 65pointgame on Jul 11, 2022 9:34:43 GMT -6
Good info there AustinAce. I can see a 25 win season for us.
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Post by austinace on Jul 19, 2022 14:25:58 GMT -6
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Post by austinace on Aug 17, 2022 17:00:35 GMT -6
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Post by 65pointgame on Aug 19, 2022 9:32:52 GMT -6
Marshall Invitational coming up next Friday. Wright St. will be the biggest challenge for us, but looking forward to watching incoming Freshman Kora Ruff get some playing time. Not sure, but she may be the only top 100 recruit we have ever had to the VB program.
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Post by austinace on Aug 24, 2022 17:31:44 GMT -6
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Post by 65pointgame on Aug 26, 2022 10:30:53 GMT -6
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Post by austinace on Aug 26, 2022 14:28:06 GMT -6
If you check the Massey Ratings from last year for each team that the VB team plays this year, this is not as bad a loss as it might appear. Wright State last year was 23-8 and rated higher than us (77 vs 100).
Note: Check above on this page for the Massey Ratings.
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Post by 65pointgame on Aug 26, 2022 16:53:05 GMT -6
Correct Austin Ace, not a bad loss, but would of nice to have had the win. We are down 1-0 to Marshall at the moment...hopefully we come back against a much weaker team per the RPI from last year. We are on the road quite a bit to start the season, guess I will have to start back up with ESPN+. Here is the link for the live stats. -
FYI - stat wise it looks as Gatorade Top 100 recruit and Freshman Kora Ruff is off to a good start. She has been doing her job as a setter.
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Post by 65pointgame on Aug 26, 2022 21:01:01 GMT -6
Looks like South Carolina State(0-24 last year) dropped out of the Marshall event, so we will be playing Marshall again on Saturday.
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Post by austinace on Aug 27, 2022 8:43:46 GMT -6
Looks like South Carolina State(0-24 last year) dropped out of the Marshall event, so we will be playing Marshall again on Saturday. Yes, I saw that as well 65pointgame. I saw a little bit of the Marshall game. I was disappointed in the loss to start the year 0-2 but honestly, we didn't deserve to win. I saw little to no passion (totally opposite of Marshall). We certainly need to clean things up and make fewer errors and play with a killer mentality instead of what looked like a defensive mentality of playing not to lose. The baseball team started with a losing record, so there is still time to recover but I want to see a little fire in the belly today; and playing smarter. We had way too many errors on serve from what I saw (without looking at the stats). E.g. players like Cardona (but not just her) have that big serve but it does no good if you don't get it in play. Another UE player served the ball in the net on set point in the third set (after somewhat of a comeback after being down double-digit points in that set). It also looked like we were hitting the ball shallow as opposed to deep in the opponent's court more than I would like as that makes it way too easy for the opponent to be on the offensive - need to mix it up but put them on the defensive more. So, I'm hoping it is more a mental thing and they just need to refocus and take their opponent more seriously - all correctable. It also probably didn't help that Marshall was our second game; where this was Marshall's only game yesterday. Today it will be the other way around with Marshall playing two games today. A little odd, but that is what happens in a four-team tournament when one team drops out. I fully expect us to beat Marshall today; however, with that said we won't beat them if we just expect to walk on the court to win. We will have to earn it, especially at the D1 level; but this team is fully capable of doing that to get their first W of the year. Go Aces!!! Update: I checked the stats from our games yesterday and we had 14 service errors against 3 for Wright State; and 13 versus 6 for Marshall. So, we definitely have to work on cleaning this up and getting decent serves in. This is only one facet of the game, but one missed serve can equate to more than just one point when you keep serve.
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Post by austinace on Aug 27, 2022 17:37:02 GMT -6
The women played much better tonight and won in straight sets over Marshall to get their first win of the season. Much more focus and passion tonight. This is the team I think we all thought they would be.
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Post by 65pointgame on Aug 27, 2022 21:47:32 GMT -6
Thanks for the update AustinAce. My nephew turned 7 today, so made it to his birthday party and missed watching the match. Stat-wise we did better in blocking today and looks like Kora Ruff did her part with 35 assists. Looking forward to watching us play USI at Meeks this Tuesday.
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Post by acescott on Aug 29, 2022 13:42:34 GMT -6
Noticed USI picked 8th in OVC while UE picked 2nd in Valley in Volleyball. I wonder if USI and Lindenwood will tend to get less respect and picked lower in all sports than they deserve because they are in their first year of transitioning. Until they prove themselves. USI beat UE last year in exhibition play. I hadn't realized that.
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