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MVB regular season update - Printable Version

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MVB regular season update - Mick - 04-14-2024

Final update on men's volleyball's regular season.

- Two losses (not surprising) to #2 ranked UCLA in Los Angeles, 3-1 (18-25, 22-25, 25-22, 18-25) and 3-0 (17-25, 22-25, 20-25). Not much to be said. They're a better team, particularly in blocking. UCLA is 17-4, Stanford is 13-11. Will Rottman and Nathan Lietzke played well. Not many highlights beyond those two.

- Two surprisingly difficult wins over Concordia (6-18, 0-12 in MPSF), but took Stanford to a tiebreaker (20-25, 26-24, 21-25, 25-21, 15-13). Second match was a 3-1 win (23-25, 25-23, 25-16, 25-23). Way tougher than it should have been.

- Closed out the season with two very strong wins over #13USC, 3-0 (25-19, 25-19, 25-23) and 3-1 (25-22, 25-16, 21-25, 27-26). Stanford was better in every phase of the game.

Stanford's most recent rankings were #10 in the NCAA poll, and #7 in the Off-the-Block poll
https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/volleyball-men/nc/nc-mens-volleyball-rpi
https://www.offtheblockblog.com/rankings_standings/

The MPSF volleyball tournament is at USC from April 17-20th. All seven teams will participate, #4 seed Stanford opens against #5 seed Pepperdine. Lowest remaining seed plays #1 UCLA. 
https://mpsports.org/tournaments/?id=33

The men's NCAA volleyball tournament is at Long Beach State from May 2 to May 4.
https://www.avca.org/event/national-collegiate-mens-volleyball-championship/

Lastly, a nice video from Stanford's MVB senior night: https://fb.watch/rrP3h0KB0B/

RE: MVB regular season update - terry - 04-14-2024

Thanks for the update.

RE: MVB regular season update - BostonCard - 04-14-2024

I went to senior night last night.  USC played us remarkably tough; the first set was back and forth, with 18 tie scores, 7 lead changes and neither team building up a lead of more than 2 points until Stanford pulled off two or three points to go up 24-21, before we closed it out 25-22.  The second set was the only one where Stanford was very clearly better, in part because USC just fell apart.  USC actually won the third set (another fairly close set until SC pulled away towards the end).  The fourth and fiinal set was the tightest, with Stanford winning 28-26.  Overall a very fun experience, and it was nice to see the seniors and fifth years go out with a win on senior night.

Statistically, we were better in almost every facet, with a .339 - .159 hitting advantage (the only set where SC hit better than us was the third, and not by much; in contrast, even in the super-tight fourth set, we outhit them by over .100, .256 - .146).  Blocking, assists, and digs all favored Stanford as well.  The only place where I thought we struggled was with service errors (19!) vs. USC who had 6.  Koste must be from the Hambly school of serving: serve it hard to make it tough for the other team to get in system, even if it leads to service errors.  But we only had 5 aces to 4 for USC, so I think that's something that can be cleaned up.

Highlight of the match was seeing Matt Martinez enter the game to serve.  Matt sticks out by being over a foot shorter at 5'5" than any other player on the team.  Even our starting libero is 6'6".  He's also a chemistry major, which was my major at Stanford.  He was subbed in to serve, and we won the first point he was in.

Rottman had a monster game (especially in the last set) leading the team in kills (17 on a .341 hitting average) and blocks (5), was tied in aces (2), and was second on the team in digs (11).  I think we will miss him next year.

Unless they play abroad or decide on a career on the sand, it's unlikely that any of these guys will make a living playing volleyball, and I would be shocked if any merits any NIL money.  Of course, since MVB was one of the sports on the chopping block, many are just happy to have had a chance to play at Stanford.  Nine players on the roster are seniors or fifth years.  But, I would be sad if men's volleyball, either here or more broadly in DI, was a casualty of the ongoing redistribution of money.  Let's face it, MVB doesn't bring much revenue (the game was free to attend, and though well-attended for a men's volleyball match, the upper stands were roped off), and unlike many women's sports teams, doesn't offset football scholarships for Title IX purposes.  I think there is a very legit risk that men's volleyball will at some point in the not too distant future have to be dropped by Stanford and/or the NCAA.

BC

RE: MVB regular season update - CompSci87 - 04-14-2024

Thanks for the report, BC! 

I watched some of sets 2 and 3 on TV, including when Martinez was in to serve. It's fun to hear a tad more of the story on him.

RE: MVB regular season update - Nobadeer - 04-16-2024

We'll always have 1997 and 2010!

https://stanfordmag.org/contents/dig-this

RE: MVB regular season update - Spiny_Norman - 04-16-2024

There are 28 D1 men’s volleyball teams. But there are only 12 D1 men’s gymnastics and 22 men’s water polo teams. Other sports may be at risk before MVB.

RE: MVB regular season update - Mick - 04-17-2024

(04-16-2024, 08:31 PM)Nobadeer Wrote:  We'll always have 1997 and 2010!

https://stanfordmag.org/contents/dig-this

True. Stanford was also in three other NCAA championship games, including 1989, 1992 and 2014.