Volleyball Headlines for December 29, 2009

The fact that there are no Cali teams in this Final Four could mean that the NCAA has finally achieved its goal of parity. The level of volleyball around the country has risen significantly and this year's championship will mark the fifth straight year without a California champ. Could it be that volleyball is no longer dominated by the west coast?

I find this quite shocking in a year in which the Pac-10 had a particularly strong season with eight teams in the top 25 most of the year, all of which made the playoffs.

Let me just throw some stats at you to back my point. Pac-10 conference teams have appeared in all but two Final Fours and been the national champs in 13 of them. California teams have won 18 of the 28 championships. This year, most of the Pac-10 teams made unexpected early exits from the tournament.

In the two years that Pac-10 teams did not appear in the Final Four (1998 & 1993), California still had a representative in Long Beach State. Not so this year, as the 49ers lost in the first round. Hawaii is the lone west coast representative and they are not favored to win. A significant development, indeed.

A California-less Final Four originally appeared on About.com Volleyball on Wednesday, December 16th, 2009 at 09:21:34.

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Stanford is the official Pac-10 champ and moves into fourth place while the Huskies settle for sixth. Iowa State grabbed the #5 spot.

The only other noteworthy movement was Michigan's four-spot drop after losing two matches in three sets over the weekend. The first loss was to #1 Penn State (expected) and the second to unranked Ohio State (unexpected) to put the Wolverines at #16.

NCAA Coaches Poll Week 14 originally appeared on About.com Volleyball on Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 22:55:13.

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As the teams were heading into the locker room after the second set with Penn State down 0-2 for the first time in forever, announcers Karch Kiraly and Beth Mowins pulled Rose aside and asked him what was going wrong.

It was all pretty standard stuff until Karch said, "Coach...it seems your outside blockers aren't helping very much when Destinee Hooker is coming out of the middle back area. Are you going to try to correct that a little?"

Rose answered that when they did help out she would tip for the point. It was true, Destinee was killing them. That could not have been a surprise to Rose, a veteran coach and wise tactician.

But sometime in the next couple of games, the Penn State blockers found their way over to block Hooker's back row attempts and the game changed. They slowed her down a bit and won the next three sets.

It struck me as odd because I have never heard a commentator dole out such specific advice like that. Did it change the game? I doubt it. Like I said, Russ is a smart coach and probably would have figured it out on his own. Was it strange? You betcha.

Karch's Mid-game Coaching Tip originally appeared on About.com Volleyball on Monday, December 21st, 2009 at 14:13:24.

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With eight teams ranked in the top 25 nationally all year long and four in the top 10, I expected the tournament to be a Pac-10 Fest.
But it was not to be. Of the eight qualifying teams, only two remain - Stanford and Cal.

Some of the losses in the first and second rounds were expected. Others, not so much. Two of the biggest upsets were UCLA's loss to Baylor and Washington's loss to Colorado State.

UCLA is young and has been up and down all season. But I was surprised they weren't able to put together a more competitive playoff run.

More disappointing was Washington's performance. Their #6 seed took them to the Minneapolis Regional with no Penn States, Hawaiis or Texases to deal with. They would however have needed to get past Iowa State and Florida. Both doable if they were playing up to their potential.

Turns out, they never made it that far. The Huskies, who were ranked fourth in the nation until the last week of the regular season, lost in the second round to Colorado State in four sets. Their regular season ended on a sour note with an unexpected loss and it seems they were never able to get back on track.

Cal and Stanford will carry the torch for the Pac-10 for this Friday's coming Regional semi-final matches, but both have difficult roads to the Final Four with Stanford needing to get past Hawaii and Cal needing to take down the mighty Penn State to get a ticket to Tampa. No easy feats to say the least.

Pac-10 Flame-Out originally appeared on About.com Volleyball on Monday, December 7th, 2009 at 23:51:41.

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What this team accomplished was so improbable that we may never see the likes of it again. And that is not an overstatement. Even more unlikely is the manner in which they achieved it. Two straight undefeated seasons. 102 straight wins. Say what you like, but Penn State must be given its proper acclaim. This was a tremendous feat.

We also have to give it up for Texas though. The Longhorns put up quite a fight. They made the match one of the most exciting I've seen in a long time. To come out so fast and get Penn State on the ropes with an 0-2 deficit was a surprise. But a team with the experience of Penn State was not going to go out like that. Even though their senior stars struggled, the youngsters stepped up and they played through it like true champions.

Unfortunately for Texas, history will only remember the unprecedented accomplishments of this mighty Penn State team. It will never adequately reflect how close the Longhorns were to taking it all away. That's a shame because truth be told, a few points here or there and the outcome might have been different.

For those on the losing side of a game that big and that tight, it's the stuff nightmares are made of. But Texas played hard and well and can take pride in the performance they put together on Saturday night.

So a great season of college volleyball has come to an end and Penn State keeps the crown for yet another year. Congratulations to both teams for an amazing final match.

Three Straight originally appeared on About.com Volleyball on Monday, December 21st, 2009 at 17:37:07.

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Up for consideration are the two senior OH stars -- Penn State's Megan Hodge and Texas's Destinee Hooker. Hodge earned National Player of the Year honors with Hooker as a close second, just as the two teams were in the national rankings all season long.

Before the match, Karch predicted that the two great hitters would cancel each other out. That was not the case. Here is how it broke down for the two hitters:

Megan Hodge, Penn State

Set 1: 1 kill, 3 errors, 8 attack attempts, -.250 hitting percentage

Set 2: 4 kills, 0 errors, 12 attack attempts, .333 hitting percentage

Set 3: 6 kills, 4 errors, 21 attack attempts, .095 hitting percentage

Set 4: 7 kills, 2 errors, 24 attack attempts, .208 hitting percentage

Set 5: 3 kills, 2 errors, 8 attack attempts, .125 hitting percentage

Destinee Hooker, Texas

Set 1: 5 kills, 1 error, 12 attack attempts, .333 hitting percentage

Set 2: 11 kills, 3 errors, 17 attack attempts, .471 hitting percentage

Set 3: 7 kills, 2 errors, 18 attack attempts, .278 hitting percentage

Set 4: 6 kills, 2 errors, 22 attack attempts, .182 hitting percentage

Set 5: 5 kills, 2 errors, 7 attack attempts, .429 hitting percentage

Both had slow starts in Set 1, both hitting below .200 for the first half of the set. Destinee pulled it together, coming to life and staying hot long enough for Texas to take the first two sets. She was elevating, bombing, mixing up her shots, getting kills from the front and back row and basically making mincemeat out of Penn State's block and defense.

Read more...

Hooker vs. Hodge originally appeared on About.com Volleyball on Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 at 09:56:06.

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