(VB) Ongoing Volleyball Thread

Stucky needs to play, period. Nobody is convincing me that we are better with her on the bench. Whatever the staff thinks her issue was, it doesn't get fixed not playing.
Parks has been great for the fill in however she is very predictable and her pace and placement are not as consistent.
Someone mentioned tips vs hits. In my experience that happens when they are uncomfortable. I believe most of that is being caused by predictable sets that allow double blocks and ball positions that don't allow a full swing. If it were one or maybe two players than I would say it's the hitter but when it happens at more positions than it must be something else.

 

Blocking is way off this year as well. Too many net violations and not enough press at contact. Maybe if Essix can get healthy they can clean that up a bit as she is really good at that part of the game. Subbing in stucky for a bigger block then taking her out is moronic...sorry but it's the truth. No way anyone can honestly say parks is a better option than an all American. If this continues throughout the year mark my words...stucky will be at another school next year in the top 5 playing for a title while we will be stuck with no true OH and 7 DS players. That is where our real problems are, not at setter but the lack of a legit Thayer Hall type of OH. The year she left was the year we flipped our roster to DS for everyone and we haven't had a true six rotation OH since. Our outsides are solid scrappy players but the mismatched with top level teams is apparent and unless the staff is willing to something even more put of the box than pulling an all American 6 ft 2 setter for a much smaller freshman, I don't think that problem will get solved this year.

 

I remember where our ball hit the floor on the KY side and the refs called a pancake and point to them after a rally. Mary challenged it and had the call reversed since the ball clearly hit the floor. So maybe she used 2 challenges. Or maybe my 72 year old memory is bad.

 

I love AC Fitzpatrick because she's from Ocala and works her tail off. But she's simply too short and gets blocked a lot by quality teams. She hit -.222 today. This is where we miss Hutson badly. I have to think Stuckey is still bothered by the knee, even though cleared to play. She had a bad first set and Taylor Parks has skills, but I agree that Alexis needs to be the floor leader if we're going to make any kind of run this year.

 

If she were on some type of count or limited action than just run the 6-2 and get Hardin in on the right side for perhaps a bigger block and maybe extra offense to keep the defense honest. I just think Mary didn't like something and that something was not forcing one player to take 50 plus swings.
I would love to see what Rothe can do at OH when we have a bad match up due to size. With a little creativity we could limit her serve receive. I think we started the second set 3 rotations off normal and still didn't get better matches at the net. If we can't get better outside then the middles need to be more involved...I know that requires better passing but we do have half a roster of passing specialists...ifcwe are willing to bench stucky then we should be willing to try a few other things that I would deem less drastic.

 

Rothe played OH when Kennedy was out for 7 games and played well. But she's more of a middle player and without her inside, we'd be extremely thin. Plus, it seems the decision has been made to rotate Fitzpatrick and Izzy Martin at the other OH position and if you move Rothe out there, one of them will be out of the lineup. If we had Essix back and ready to go, the middle would be more solid and Rothe could be experimented with because she is a versatile player. Injuries have wreaked havoc on our volleyball team for the 3rd year in a row.

 

Just watched the replay. That Brooklyn girl was quite impressive. Don't know the stats but she was rarely blocked.

As has been noted, the Gators with more soft tips and weaker blocking than I can recall. Need Essix back asap. A long season, but it moves along quickly.

 

Rothe played in Kennedys spot when she was out, which is RS not OH. If Essix can anchor the middle with her experience it helps defensively as the middles have a large impact in setting the blocking position.
Auguste is a much more athletic middle and running those slides with her works best.
My point is if we are not going to use our OH to it's fullest, meaning 6 rotations AND including them in the backcourt attack, then we should experiment with Rothe at OH to see if she can exploit those matchups better than our undersized OHs now. It would be her serve receive that could prevent that and I don't know if she has ever done that before at a high level which is why I ask if she has played outside as opposed to RS or middle.
For quite some time now teams use one of their biggest and hardest hitters on the right. Having an undersized OH for that block is a disadvantage and it also places them in another disadvantage on their attack which leads to tips, errors or getting stuffed.
Almost every top 10 team has 1 if not 2 legit OH that play 6 rotations and are heavily included in back court attacks. A couple of them have outsides much like ours however they are extraordinary players, not very many around, orzul and debeer come to mind.
Once our staff decided 3 years ago that we would do away with the traditional OH and replace half their role with a specialist, we lost the ability to get those players. I have not seen Hutson play but the limited time last year so I am unsure if she was healthy that she fits the role of the other top OHs in the nation....her offense yes but I can't testify to passing and defense. I can make a pretty good educated guess that the others on our roster are basically front court players only. So here we are with two really gritty, highly skilled but undersized outside hitters and to no fault of their own, every week one will struggle depending upon the matchup and with no ability or desire to try a bigger player there, even just a few plays, this is what we will have. Kennedy with 40+ attacks every week and not much high percentage points elsewhere has already been done...see last year.
I know Essix if healthy would anchor things a bit but then you are taking Auguste off the court unless you are willing to try something different with Rothe at OH thus keeping both freshman middles of the future engaged and growing. Swapping stucky for parks gets us nowhere, in fact it gets us making dumb defense subs for a bigger blocker because she is undersized as a setter in this system. As good as grome is being undersized herself, those games UK lost earlier probably had some legit OHs taking advantage of her at the net.

 

Attended the game today, so didn’t hear any of the commentary. First 2 points are dead on.

did very little hitting first 2 sets. Was wondering if Kennedy was hurt or of it was an issue with the sets, but it was the same with Stucky and Parks. Have to think that Stucky was hurting, can’t think of a valid reason for her being subbed out based on play.

Martin was a killer in the third and fourth sets, not sure if she was feeling better or had a better rapport with Parks by then.

Almost zero production from the middle. Best hits were on slides.


Defensive presence at the net was lacking to be kind or maybe 17 and 8 are just that good. They were crushing it. Think we only had 2 absolute roofs, maybe there was a third? Had at least 5 net violations. Mostly the blocks weren’t there, or they went right through or off of them.

It was good to see them get off the matt and challenge in sets 3 and 4

 

Agree with your assessment. Mary wouldn’t pull Alexis unless something was off. Blocking and UK hitting .345 to our .242 didn’t help.

 

Once our staff decided 3 years agothat we would do away with thetraditional OH and replace half theirrole with a specialist, we lost theability to get those players.

Bingo

 

The height issue outside is to get Lauren Harden ready now. Why are we wasting her talent?

 

Would love to know the truth….

 

you cant handle the truth.......

 

Early on Stucky and Kennedy Martin were not in sync and KM is a huge part of our offense. Made sense to switch setters to get KM to be a factor in the match. I am sure this will work itself out over time.

 

It is sad when a loss to Kentucky brings out the worst in posters.
Last night, Mary said the better team won.
She also said that Stucky and Martin were not connecting, so she put Parks in there to get her back on track.
I am not saying that maybe she tweaked her knee, but Mary emphasized a connection with the setter and KM.
As far as recruiting OH, please look at the roster and see who is not playing.
Madi-6'4"
Kira-6'3"
Lauren-6'3"
At the end of last year's season, we were all looking forward to seeing Madi and Kira doing their thing on the outside.
We were anticipating Lauren doing the same. Lauren admits the stage was too big for her, but I still look for her to do great things.
Injuries are not Mary's fault. Those who say she has not recruited well are well, wrong.
We have had extreme misfortune with injuries.
If Stucky, Kira, and Madi were healthy and Lauren playing at her potential, think where we could be.
So, could you get off the train that blames Mary and look at the real picture?

 

This team is going to Louisville.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

 

It's not that there are not players being recruited but the style of play. Are the injured outsides 6 rotation players or was the plan to sub their backcourt out? It makes a difference. Also, just because stucky doesn't force 40 sets to one player might actually be a good thing. Just like when we force fed Hall an entire match, teams will focus on that and let them have their 25 kills because nobody else will be doing much damage. I think the best teams are more balanced than one RS player taking all the burden. I guess it's not important that Rothe and Parks didn't connect. Or that Parks can't even get a soft block going. Balance has to be the key and thinking Stucky can't work that out with a little coaching and practice is ridiculous. I am pretty sure that practically everyone that watched Florida play last year saw them lose the best player on the team..I still believe that to be true and taking her off the court after a year break is not going to make them better in the long run. I bet there are already a dozen schools just waiting for their opportunity to steal another good one. Trying to get a win now at all costs will not end well. After watching shanked passes, missed serves, errant swings for a long long time now with no court time lost and see what just happened after one set was a very wild knee jerk reaction that I have not seen here before. I think it was a bad reaction to a fairly easy problem involving what everyone thought of last year as a game changing setter...let her work it out in live action and they will be better for it. Continue that kind of game instruction and we can watch her in the final four next year with a different jersey.