Hey Aggies! As the philosopher Mike Tyson once said, "everyone has a plan until you get punched in the mouth". lol We need defense. Last year we had the #1 ranked defense in the SEC but couldn't get a point when we needed it it offensively. Our hitting % was abysmal. We hit to not mess up. This year our defense is at the bottom but we have the stud hitters that I told y'all about earlier in the preseason. Our RS is the 100% the real deal. Our OH1 has more experience than all of us put together probably. And more OH2 options are emerging daily. Our MBs are solid. Tomorrow if we do not let the ball touch the floor defensively, we win. Said it before that last year's physical transfer libero absolutely made the difference and kept us in matches. Which is why she is all over our record books after one season. Every season, stats speak to what we need. Not theories. Facts. Look it up. Defense wins championships in any sport. So far, I like #8 as libero. Her experience is more conducive to SEC play. Maybe give our captain #11 or #3 a shot to lead the defense. The difference thus far is digging and keeping rallies alive beyond one swing from their hitters. Keep fighting Ags! GigEm

Excellent post, totally agree.

Did something happen to Caroline Meuth? She's a completely different player the last few matches. She looks lost

Pump up the jams!

I agree with you kwammer. Logan is a stud freshmen, but that's about it. No other real studs on our roster. Underwood has the potential

Lexi Guinn

Ags storm back to take set 1 29-27

Thank god Lexi finally gets her chance

Aggie lose a rough one 30-28

This is hard to watch, so many mental errors

Could y'all imagine this team if Morgan Christon and Clair Jeter never transferred? Claire is crushing it at ASU and Christon averaged almost 4 points per set last year

I know….. on a bigger scale, where is the problem coming from?

Everyone raves of Bjork, but all of our fall sports are struggling. At some point it has to be admin in power, right? They are the ones making these hires. I know this was a Woodward hire, but Bjork is the one who gave out extensions

Bjork appears to be very good at raising money.

where is Bird going?

flintdragon said:

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where is Bird going?

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Nowhere this season. People are expecting her to be let go after the season.

I have no issues with her recruiting since she has been her. It is the retaining of those players that has caused roster issues.

As for the game tonight. We missed too many serves at times where we couldn't afford it. We have a bad serve receive rotation which should be the best rotation on paper but we finally went to a stack formation to get the players on the pins they needed to be on. We could not switch and the Miss State server was one of the better ones in that rotation as well.

Also we switched Hogan and Underwood in positions they played while both were on the back row.

We have to find production from OH2 and M2
We don't have many attempts from these positions and it seems we haven't gotten much lately. We don't run much out of the middle other than a 1 set most of the time. We did attempt a slide and I could remember the last time we had in quite a while.

We have to also do a better job defending against a team that is out of system and get in system from that defensive stand.

I don't see a win at Arkansas followed by having league leader Kentucky for two matches at home in two weeks. Which could put us on a 8 game losing streak before some winnable games at SC and home against Bama.

Wicked Good Ag said:

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We have to find production from OH2 and M2
We don't have many attempts from these positions and it seems we haven't gotten much lately. We don't run much out of the middle other than a 1 set most of the time. We did attempt a slide and I could remember the last time we had in quite a while.

We have to also do a better job defending against a team that is out of system and get in system from that defensive stand.

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Why do you think we don't mix up our middle attacks? My kid has played with several D1 middles and I've got to assume they can all hit a slide or a 3? maybe having an almost brand new team hasn't given them a chance to gain that chemistry yet.

Defensively, I do feel our girls have more talent than last year but oftentimes they don't seem to be in the right place. Watching top tier liberos, they always seem to be in the right place. While awesome digs are cool, I'm way more impressed by a libero who is always "just there" to make digs off hard hits look easy.

I'm actually curious. Molly Brown has the best attitude in the team, but she is by far the most physically limited. I don't think she's hit a ball cleanly all season and everything is just off. Ifenna and Bowser are hitters that have to stay infront of the setter. Good thing is they are extremely productive, we just can't ever set them.

A big issue has been setting consistency. Our setter likes to set our pins and not our middles. I think that's been a big issue for the season. Bowser leads the league in hitting percentage, get that girl the ball!

We don't run anything for our middles other than the 1 set. Not a back 1 very often. Never a 31 set and today was the first time I had seen a slide attack in quite a while. While I understand the slide doesn't work as well when we run the D set for Logan on the back row it still is something you can do every one and a while.
Our middle 2 got 8 attempts total for the match between the two girls. Our OH2 got 17 attempts three less then the setter while Logan and Caroline got over 100 between them. Teams will be able to defend that more and more with that amount of swings not to mention they will get worn down over the course of the season.

If we can right the serving and defend better especially when the opponents are out of system we can maybe be above .500 for the year. There is no chance for us to make NCAA again this year IMO. The team chemistry that we heard about at the beginning of the season hasn't translated to wins in SEC which in my opinion while more balanced overall we are not as strong as years past as a conference. Kentucky is very good but played a brutal non conference schedule and is still recovering from that I think.

I agree with this, I just think our middles are limited. The thought of having Clair jeter would change the dynamic of this team.

Next year we will most likely have a freshmen starting at setter, if we sign her. We got a girl ranked #97 recruit out of NC. I've watched her and she is actually much better than her ranking, but still.

I took our middles and Camielle for granted last year. I would kill to have them back

Madison has had some great matches the past few weeks. She has the ability to score points even when the hit does have velocity. Part of this is because teams are so dedicated to stopping Meuth and Lednicky that they give up points o out if the middle but this hasn't happened with Brown. I thought there was going to be a huge drop off in the middle losing both Talbert and Austin Roark who both could have come back. We have plugged one of those offensively but none of our middles have been able to defensively match what we did in the middle. Part of that is height but a lot was game experience which at the collegiate level can be huge. Talbert also could hit the slide pretty damn well and is having AA HM play at Baylor right now. Our blocking and ability to funnel the attack to various spots was the best in recent years with Talbert and Patterson both who left with eligibility at TAMU. we don't retain players regardless who they committed to the program for. This is our biggest issue. We played the best under Bird with Corbelli players and adding Gomez to Libero for a year. Since then we have declined year by year while having a revolving door of players. Morgan decided to not come back citing mental health . Rush , Talbert and Austin Roark all transferred and Lauren Davis medically retired Claire Jeter the year before and Patterson left after three years after graduating.

We are plug and play over last few years and it had made us drop significantly in the conference standings. I didn't think we would be 10th as predicted by the coaches but I see that as our ceiling if we don't start playing better. We are 2-5 in conference and I figured we would be 5-3 after Arkansas and an even 5-5 after Kentucky. We are staring at 2-8 with our two wins fifth set victories.

Jeter Talbert Patterson all were Corbelli recruits that staying initially after the coaching change. Wennas decided to leave for Minnesota but her potential along with playing under Ping Cao opened up other larger doors so to speak after the Corbellis weren't a part of the program. We were in the top 3 or 4 in conference gear in year out with them but could not beat Texas who was our second round opponent more times than any program should be.

We just moved to CS and this is our first year to have season tickets to VB. My wife coached HS VB for 11 years, but I will warn you that I don't know the dictionary like most of you on this thread. However, from the perspective of someone who will openly admit he is not an expert, there seems to be several obvious items where we struggle (and many more for those of you who know the game better). Here are a few of my observations:

1. Our timing on quick sets to the middle is almost always off and the spike usually rolls off the top of the hitters fingers for a very weak and easily playable ball.
2. Meuth is a strong hitter but very inconsistent, with both her spikes and her serves. She put one in the first row yesterday and almost took out a fan.
3. We don't seem to be able to adjust to the block. Some just try to power through the block every time.
4. I would serve to Meuth every time if I was the other team. She is very weak at accepting a serve and passing.
5. It appears the assistant coach actually coaches more than the head coach.
6. Anytime we have to pass the ball over, we do so to the setting zone, instead of the back line. We don't force them to pass to set up their players.
7. We have too many errors on serves. We get the momentum off a great defensive play and then throw it in the net.
8. It seemed like M State set primarily the same girl the whole match, yet we seemed like we were not prepared for the block many times.

Again, this is just my observations as I watch. I am sure some of these are justifiable and I am just not savvy enough to know. However, I do know the match this weekend was very frustrating to watch.

All the things you posted are probably true, but the simple fact is the team is middle of the road in the SEC in terms of talent. Byrd may be fine with the X's and Os, but she hasn't proven that she can recruit and retain the talent needed to compete to be in the top tier in the conference.

Latest RPI futures came out which is a basic prediction on how the season will finish out

It has us at #61 with a final record of 14-15.

We have a week off to prep for a tough stretch of games

At Arkansas and then back to back against top of SEC Kentucky

Love to see us pull out one match of the three

I saw we were sitting at #51 currently. Our resume isn't terrible, we technically only have one bad loss in Hawaii. All of the others are Top 60 rpi losses. There is still a chance if….

1. Caroline finds her confidence
2. Logan and Ava figure out how to read blocks
3. Our block actually closes the gaps
4. Ledinecky plays consistently
5. We quit letting Caroline jump serve
6. We quit missing so many damn serves
7. Elena sets the middle

Not in that order, just some thoughts on how to get to NCAAs

RPI Futures is a basic end of season prediction rather current
Agree on other points although the reward of Meuth serve can be great the risk currently isn't worth it. But we run out of subs by not having a middle that can serve well enough and defend for that half a rotation. We use at least 6 subs per set on just that issue alone. Add it the occasional sun for Logan who has missed quite a few serves as well and the OH hitter who Hogan replaces on the back row.