[bbm233]

I understand, but was that unique to last night and not our other games?

it's more than usual, but not unheard of (we had 11 service errors in 3 sets against UCLA, for example). The question is, what do you do about it? If mid-match we ease up a bit on serving to reduce the errors, Minnesota would get more side-outs. Minnesota is very efficient when in system, so getting them out of system with aggressive serving was probably the single most important key to the match--and we did that. (we don't have the stats to show that, but the coaches do.) If you review our blocks, most of them occurred when MN was out of system. In an interview last night, Hambly was actually asked about the service errors, and he said (as he consistently does) that he doesn't care about them as long as we are serving aggressively. So I just try to grit my teeth through them and enjoy the far more numerous times that our opponents don't make a good pass.

The commentators mentioned several times that Stanford's passing accuracy was higher than Minnesota's. At one point they said Minnesota was passing at 45% accuracy and Stanford was passing at 60%. They said that was causing Minnesota to not be able to play fast (i.e. set the ball in such a way to prevent Stanford from putting up an effective block). Presumably, some of that passing accuracy is related to the difficulty of handling Stanford's serves.

I understand why Hambly wants them to serve tough - an easy serve receive most likely is going to lead to a side-out, so the best way to go on a run is to see if you can get them out of system via the serve. They aren't trying to get aces/service winners with tough serves; they are trying to get them out of system so they can get a block or a weak attack.

P.S. it was a commentator love-fest for Plummer, Hentz and Gray. Which is nice when one of the commentators is the national team coach!

[bbm233]

I understand, but was that unique to last night and not our other games?

it's more than usual, but not unheard of (we had 11 service errors in 3 sets against UCLA, for example). The question is, what do you do about it? If mid-match we ease up a bit on serving to reduce the errors, Minnesota would get more side-outs. Minnesota is very efficient when in system, so getting them out of system with aggressive serving was probably the single most important key to the match--and we did that. (we don't have the stats to show that, but the coaches do.) If you review our blocks, most of them occurred when MN was out of system. In an interview last night, Hambly was actually asked about the service errors, and he said (as he consistently does) that he doesn't care about them as long as we are serving aggressively. So I just try to grit my teeth through them and enjoy the far more numerous times that our opponents don't make a good pass.

The commentators mentioned several times that Stanford's passing accuracy was higher than Minnesota's. At one point they said Minnesota was passing at 45% accuracy and Stanford was passing at 60%. They said that was causing Minnesota to not be able to play fast (i.e. set the ball in such a way to prevent Stanford from putting up an effective block). Presumably, some of that passing accuracy is related to the difficulty of handling Stanford's serves.

I understand why Hambly wants them to serve tough - an easy serve receive most likely is going to lead to a side-out, so the best way to go on a run is to see if you can get them out of system via the serve. They aren't trying to get aces/service winners with tough serves; they are trying to get them out of system so they can get a block or a weak attack.

P.S. it was a commentator love-fest for Plummer, Hentz and Gray. Which is nice when one of the commentators is the national team coach!