One of the MB commits' plays with my granddaughter at Wylie East HS (Dallas Suburb), she is 6'4" is is a very strong young lady. There are 5 D1 recruits on this team and she is not the best BUT she has the most potential by far. Her previous VB was in MS, not the hot bed of VB activity like Dallas is. She will get the coaching this year in club and will become a beast by next year. The best clubs and best players overall, without doubt are in the Metro Dallas area. Our 5th best team in the area last weekend wiped out the best team in CA in 3 straight sets on a nationally televised match.
DeAndrea McMillian, 6'3" MB/OH, is committed to UF in the 2025 Class: DeAndrea McMillian - Texas Advantage Volleyball (tavvolleyball.com) Goes by Dee: Dee McMillian's High School Bio (maxpreps.com) Dee McMillian and 5'9" DS/L Lily Hayes are the current 2 commitments in UF's 2025 class.
I’ve had my share of battles with Dallas clubs from Madfrog to skyline.. at the open level they are hard to beat. Last time I met up with Madfrog was 4 years ago at a qualifier. No small task!!
As long as Mary Wise is at the helm, Gator Volleyball will always be really good. Her consistency is incredible and young women still love playing for our legendary coach. Just wish she could get a natty before she hangs it up!
I thought this was the year for Mary - right up to the time that "Big Red" got hurt and was lost for the season. Dang ACL's. I had one and it cost me my Junior year. When we lost Alexis we lost our QB and best Defensive player. She just read the court like no one else I have seen at UF, including our Olympian, Kelly Murphy. I asked Kelly on Sunday if she could put on a giant Red Wig and reappear for us, but she said she was back working in her hometown and didn't have any eligibility left!!!
Coach Dave made a very interesting point last week -- he said that one of the very best things about Alexis is that she has absolutely no tells that opposing teams can read before actually setting the ball. He said teams can't react until after she sets, which improves our hitting percentage. He called her the best in the country.
I wasn't trying to be a smart alec. I do not have any more info right now. A lot of it is just being in the right place at the right time. I am getting to know some parents and grandparents pretty well. Sometimes that can be a source. One thing I like about Mary, among many others, is that she is right up front with injuries and treatment. Last spring we were at a practice and Emerson had on a brace like Stuck has now. Mary was standing beside me and I asked if she tore her ACL, and Mary said, no she dislocated her kneecap. Try having that conversation with a coach in any other sport.
Do you know how many early enrollees we will have? Last year all did except Madi. She wanted to play beach in the spring. She considered going to a college that has beach. Eventually, her UF ties were just too strong. Her mom played VB, and her dad played FB at UF. I wonder if her not enrolling early has affected her lack of PT. She may not know the system as well as the ones who did early enroll. By all reports, she does well in practice.
I don't know who is enrolling early. If you find out, let us know. If Madi Gravlee makes a sophomore jump as she is capable of doing, UF will be loaded in 2024, special season good. When will we see something out of 6-3" MB Amaya Thomas? This is her second year with UF and so far, she has contributed nothing in live action. She came to UF as a multi-sport athlete, volleyball, basketball, and track. That she is with UF says CMW saw enough in her to bring her onboard.
This will probably earn me a little vacation, but....Nope. Not buying the part about hitting percentage. And, I don't care for Coach Dave's backhanded implication about Muff's "tells" and the team's hitting % with her as setter. I crunched the hitting stats. (I threw out the stats for Wisconsin, and two cupcakes before Wisconsin - Clemson and Winthrop.) That left 6 matches for both Stuckey and Muff. (And, keep in mind: Muff had only 2.5 games against Wisconsin and 4 days of practice before being thrown in against SEC opponents.) In Stuckey's 6 matches, UF hit .285. In Muff's six matches, UF hit .256. And, agreed, Muff's first 3 matches weren't great for UF hitting. But, get this: in the last 3 matches, as they gain experience with each other, UF is hitting .324. So, Stuckey is great. Nobody, including me, is saying any different. But I think Muff deserves a lot of respect for stepping in no-notice, how she's playing, and how she's growing into her role. Now, let me go back to the issue of service errors. In the same 12 matches, UF has 143 service errors (compared to 86 aces). To me, that's not a winning cost/benefit ratio; and (IMO) it shouldn't be acceptable to anyone on the team. Worse, in the 6 matches Stuckey played, UF had 65 service errors. That's bad. But in comparison: during the 6 matches Muff has been the setter, UF has 78 service errors! Hey, team! You've lost your all-american setter for the season. How 'bout trying to cover your new setter's back by adjusting your serving style a little so you make FEWER errors, instead of more?
Re service errors....what you can't factor is is serves that are high quality enough to put the return team at a disadvantage. Aces alone are not the only benefit of aggressive services
Actually, I can. The first question is to define "disadvantage". As I mentioned in an earlier post, I did exactly that for the TA&M match. I defined "disadvantage" as a serve which resulted in the opponent having 1 hitting option. And guess what? Both teams showed no correlation between losing points when they had 1 option as compared to 2 options after the service reception. There was correlation when they had three options, but that is clearly when the serve didn't put them at a disadvantage. In other words, in that match, both teams consistently generated an attack on any service that wasn't an ace. Granted, that was only one match. And, if I did it again, I'd look specifically at how many non-ace serves resulted in no attack (which, personally, I'd define as free balls and roll shots). But, I haven't had the time to study more matches. I suspect the results wouldn't change much if I did. That is: at this high level of volleyball, there is more advantage lost from service errors than advantage gained from limiting the opponent's options by serving tough. The only serving advantage was gained when they had NO options. Based on the above: my strategy would be, serve as tough as one can with nearly zero error (rather than their current strategy of just accepting whatever number of errors). If one isn't satisfied with the amount of aces that are produced with this strategy, practice serving until you can - and/or replace servers who can't.
While I agree "serve as tough as one can with nerly zero error" is the optimal approach....it's also not that simple. These aren't machines that you can dial in perfectly. There will be variances, and it appears all the elite programs have decided to err on the side of aggressive serving based upon the numbers I am seeing. I'm somewhat playing devils advocate because personally I tend to agree with your philospohy....but when I see pretty much everyone racking up big service error numbers I may have to admit they know more than me
Ahh.....what? Coach Dave was asked what made Stuckey so great and gave his opinion. Muff was not part of the question/topic. There was no "backhanded implication" to not care for. Mary gave some background about Muff that I thought was really interesting. Mary told Muff that if she came to UF she probably wouldn't play at all and would be out of the limelight for a year, meaning pro teams would not see her play. Muff wanted to come to UF anyway, to learn and help the team as she could. Class act.
