[d4cohn]

UC Irvine made sure last night to earn a split of the two matches. Stanford looked good, but to my eye, UCI was better. Their block was better, and the kills were much more distributed. (For Stanford, Ewert and Jasper got what, 80% of the kills between them?)  By the end of the evening, I was just glad the good guys didn't get swept. All the games were close though, and exciting -- which was great. There should be good things coming.

Last night's match (which my brother and mom went to) was the reason I expressed a bit of caution regarding reading too much into the first win over UCI. It appears that our block has been much better previously, but last night it was almost non-existent for much of the match. Last night's match honestly looked like the volleyball equivalent of a Big 12 football game. 

The Pac-12 broadcast last night indicated that we were projected to finish fourth in the MPSF (behind, UCLA, BYU and Pepperdine); broadcast also mentioned that the top three ranked teams are all from the Big West, so it is at least conceivable that the MPSF might get only one AQ in the NCAA tournament (more likely though, it would be two teams). 

As such, very tough schedule ahead with no breaks as far as making noise in the MPSF (and possibly NCAA's) this year.

[d4cohn]

UC Irvine made sure last night to earn a split of the two matches. Stanford looked good, but to my eye, UCI was better. Their block was better, and the kills were much more distributed. (For Stanford, Ewert and Jasper got what, 80% of the kills between them?)  By the end of the evening, I was just glad the good guys didn't get swept. All the games were close though, and exciting -- which was great. There should be good things coming.

Last night's match (which my brother and mom went to) was the reason I expressed a bit of caution regarding reading too much into the first win over UCI. It appears that our block has been much better previously, but last night it was almost non-existent for much of the match. Last night's match honestly looked like the volleyball equivalent of a Big 12 football game. 

The Pac-12 broadcast last night indicated that we were projected to finish fourth in the MPSF (behind, UCLA, BYU and Pepperdine); broadcast also mentioned that the top three ranked teams are all from the Big West, so it is at least conceivable that the MPSF might get only one AQ in the NCAA tournament (more likely though, it would be two teams). 

As such, very tough schedule ahead with no breaks as far as making noise in the MPSF (and possibly NCAA's) this year.