[Husker] VB observations (long)

[Roy Miller]

  This was the first game I've seen Nebraska play this year so I can't
compare tonight's performance to others. That being said, here's some
thoughts on the Championship match.
 
  Washington was the better team tonight and deserved to win. They have
an excellent all around skill set and show strengths in all phases in
the game and truly excel on the defensive side. Their style kind of
reminds me of the Chinese women's team. Constant pressure on the other
team by making very few mistakes and tough as nails defense. They have
enough power on their hits to be effective. They are very athletic and a
joy to watch. Their coach has done an excellent job of raising that
program out of the lesser ranks. He was the coach at K-State before he
moved on. I believe the Wildcats beat NU a couple times while he was
there.
 
  Nebraska's style reminds me of the Russian men's team. Tall as trees
and pound the s&*t out of the ball. Form a human wall on the block that
is very tough to beat. Also, kind of slow and don't pass so well. Where
that comparison falls apart however is in setting. NU's setters rarely
improved the pass. Crappy pass, crappy set. I saw more misfires between
the hitters and the setters than I saw than from any other team this
year. They did a good job with good passes, but if they could have
improved bad passes, NU would have won. They only ran about 10-12 slides
all night long, which is about 1/3 as often as any other major team
running a 5-1. Tennessee got a ton of points off of that play on UW in
the semis. I did not see the 6-2 as a major cause for the disappointing
setting, but the setting should improve with a 5-1 and with all the
human cannons NU has, I really don't see the need to attempt to maximize
the hitting even further. Perhaps it is more of a keep them all happy
philosophy.
 
  I don't know who was given the MVP, but UW's setter (Thompson?) was
clearly the best player on the court. How many pancakes did she bring
up? She also was an excellent passer on defense. Her sets were virtually
dead on, even with bad passes. I don't recall a single set from her
where the hitters had to modify their approach. She set one almost from
the floor. In the 3rd game when their coach switched to a pipe play
after they fell behind (one of the easier ones for a setter), she still
was outperforming the NU setters. The setting advantage was where the UW
win came from.
 
  I was impressed with Houghtelling from NU. She has the heaviest ball
of anyone I've seen play this year. That's got to hurt to pass that bad
boy. The setters didn't feed her nearly enough good sets. She could move
pretty well on defense too. Saleamuau (sp?) was the NU mvp. Her
athleticism and versatility kept NU in the match. She also sets very
well. I thought she put up a better percentage of good sets than the
setters. I feel bad for Pavan. UW served almost every ball to her and
she wasn't up to the challenge other than maybe the first half of the
1st game. Her drilling a jump serve into the bottom of the net with the
score in the mid 20's in the 3rd game basically sealed the outcome of
that game. Her roll shot free ball into the net that gave UW their 29th
point in that game had to be salt on the wound. Elmer is quite the
blocking machine and between her and Stalls, they had a decided edge on
UW. NU couldn't take too much advantage of that on the offensive side
due to poor passing however. Larson was way too tight in the first game
and she should have been pulled sooner than when the score was in the
20's. She came back nicely after that 2 game break though, which is good
to see from a freshman.
 
  Basically NU didn't even compete in that 1st game. They were by far
the more nervous team. I really thought they were going to win that 3rd
game and if their passing would have stayed at least at an acceptable
level, they would have. I doubt they could have reeled off 3 straight
wins over UW though. I was glad to see Cook go more conservative on the
serving after having 5 service errors in game 1. I know a big serve has
been an advantage all year, but it wasn't working tonight and they
couldn't even compete with that cement block tied around their ankles.
Why doesn't NU use a libero? The setters sub for the middles, but that
still leaves the 2 outsides and the right side to bring out. Seems to me
Pavan could have used a break, as could have Larson at least in the 1st
game. Comparing UW libero's (Lee) defense with any of these 3 players
from NU also gave them an advantage. Lee was outstanding and made
several very nice digs. I prefer good defense over good offense, so
although I was rooting for NU all the way, I don't feel disappointed to
see UW earn this win.
 
Roy Miller