12-17-2025, 07:40 PM
To be clear, I saw the same thing that everyone else did. After years of Miner putting the ball exactly where it needed to go time after time, I saw the same clear misses with Parks that everyone else did. I have tried to reconcile the gap between the “eye test” and the stats (and what the people who vote for national awards saw), which said that going from a senior, decorated setter to a freshman, the overall hitting didn’t miss a beat.
I think the issue is that while Parks has had a few very glaring mis-sets that color our perception of her, it is also clear that she was more comfortable and more effective setting the middles than Miner, and that even though that was still only a small fraction of the total offense (I should check, but I think the two mids combined would get about as many kills as the average pin hitter in our typical match this year, so that means that they were responsible for ~25% of our offense)… but by making them a greater part of the offense that gave the opposing defense more to think about, which took some pressure off the outside hitters. Yeah, too many balls were set in such a way as to force our OHes to roll or tip, but when they got a good set (which was still the majority of the time) they were going up against a block that was maybe a step slow.
Add it all together and I think in terms of the overall offensive effectiveness we were pretty close to last year. Missed sets, like shanked passes, are infuriating, but I think Parks did a lot of little things that maybe weren’t as apparent to us observers but still led to the overall offense to be amongst the best in the country (and this despite lacking a Kathryn Plummer who could clean up on out of system balls), and was recognized by the AA voters.
I’m open to other theories, but if you go through this thread, it has been a puzzle to me that I have noodled since about midseason.
BC
I think the issue is that while Parks has had a few very glaring mis-sets that color our perception of her, it is also clear that she was more comfortable and more effective setting the middles than Miner, and that even though that was still only a small fraction of the total offense (I should check, but I think the two mids combined would get about as many kills as the average pin hitter in our typical match this year, so that means that they were responsible for ~25% of our offense)… but by making them a greater part of the offense that gave the opposing defense more to think about, which took some pressure off the outside hitters. Yeah, too many balls were set in such a way as to force our OHes to roll or tip, but when they got a good set (which was still the majority of the time) they were going up against a block that was maybe a step slow.
Add it all together and I think in terms of the overall offensive effectiveness we were pretty close to last year. Missed sets, like shanked passes, are infuriating, but I think Parks did a lot of little things that maybe weren’t as apparent to us observers but still led to the overall offense to be amongst the best in the country (and this despite lacking a Kathryn Plummer who could clean up on out of system balls), and was recognized by the AA voters.
I’m open to other theories, but if you go through this thread, it has been a puzzle to me that I have noodled since about midseason.
BC