Volleyball

[JayJ79]

The 2010 volleyball season started on Friday.

UNI swept Central Michigan, and will take on Western Kentucky and Purdue on Saturday.

The Missouri Valley Conference is undefeated on the season so far (I wonder if there are any other conferences that can claim that), with it's teams having gone 11-0, including Wichita State sweeping Oklahoma (that was picked to finish 4th in the Big 12) in Norman. I found that to be a pretty cool tidbit.

update: looks like the Big Ten went 12-0 on the day. The Panthers should be able to defeat the Boilermakers tommorrow night, but I'm sure there will be some MVC teams that are defeated as well.

[CatMom]

TXST is at Hofstra this weekend for a tourney. They went 1-1 today. With 7 freshman on the team I'm not disappointed with the results, other than they were up 2-0 in the first match and dropped 3 sets; to Missouri St. The Freshman got their feet wet and came back later to take down Hofstra.
Tomorrow they take on Canisius.

Next week - SMU Invitational
UC Davis, SMU, TX Tech

Then:
Century/Link Premier 9/10-11
UT-Martin, UNT, Alabama

Arizona Invitational 9/17-18
AZ, NM, Pepperdine

Couple non-conf games in between. Conference play starts 9/24
14 non-conference matches, 16 conference, plus SLC tourney

I'm not into following what the whole conference is doing.

[frinq]

Portland State took out the University of Portland yesterday and Mercer (where's that?) today. 3-1 and 3-0. Things get harder as we roll through the pre-conference teams - OSU, U. Washington, Gonzaga and Boise State . We graduated 5 seniors. The three starters that are back are good, though. One of them, Whitney Phillips, had 32 kills in the UP match, and a mere 19 against Mercer (we were substituting in freshmen in that one). I've got to admit that volleyball is playing even with football in my head these days. It's an incredibly fast game, exciting to watch. We're expected to win the conference this year, and I reckon we have a pretty good chance if we can blend in the sophomores and freshmen. Montana, EWU and UNC are considered the challengers.

[CatMom]

There's a Mercer College in NJ. Trenton (capital) is in Mercer County.

[WWII]

Albany beat Tenn Tech (3-1) and Jacksonville (3-0), lost 3-0 to Clemson.

[SuperHornet]

UOP beat TX Tech and lost to LSU at the Tech tournament. They're supposed to play someone else, but I forget who the other team is.

UOP's rescheduled Bankers' Classic tournament is next week. (Until last year, this tournament was traditionally held the weekend after Thanksgiving, and the school held a tournament sponsored by Nike at this point in the season. Nike backed out, and the school moved Bankers to Sep. I don't like it.)

UOP has a new coach this year, which is a good thing since the program hasn't been run right since longtime coach John Dunning skipped town for Stanford about ten years or so ago.

[frinq]

What conference does UOP play in? For some reason PSU hasn't played them much, if at all. Seems like we should; they're right down I-5.

[SuperHornet]

What conference does UOP play in? For some reason PSU hasn't played them much, if at all. Seems like we should; they're right down I-5.

UOP's in the Big West, and have been since about 1969 (PCAA until about 1988 or so).

You're right. For VB, they might be seeing PSU in the same light as Nebraska seeing Sac in football. Unfortunately for UOP, that hasn't applied since the mid-90s, and particularly since Dunning left. His successor ran the program into the ground, and it's just NOW getting back up. I'd dearly LOVE to get back to UOP's back-to-back national championships ('85 and '86 if memory serves). But we gotta start somewhere. PSU would be a GREAT matchup. And given the double connection that exists right now (Burton and the Goddess), that should be an EASY call....

[frinq]

Back in 95 I was thinking way too much about work and not at all about volleyball, so UOP's national run went right by me. I think of them now as ahead of Sac State but not by much. Speaking of which, I see Sac State took out OSU last night. Sac is looking much better this year, and OSU much worse. They've got to be in the Pac-10 basement. We play them tomorrow night, and should win handily. We're playing 6-2 this year - two setters. Should be interesting, facing mostly 5-1s. Plus. we have arguably the best OH in the Big Sky in Whitney Phillips. She's got 51 kills in two matches so far this year. She's Big Sky Offensive Player of the Week this week. Not bragging, just noting.

[JayJ79]

This weekend, UNI's vb team (ranked #22 in the coaches poll) heads up to Minneapolis to take on #20 Dayton, #8 Minnesota, and #31 Baylor.

Should be a good tournament. I'm thinking of driving up to watch it.

[JayJ79]

Dayton edged out UNI (15-13 in the 5th set) in a very hard-fought match on Friday night.
UNI turns around and beats #8 Minnesota. (UNI also beat Baylor, and Dayton beat Baylor, and was swept by Minnesota)

All in all, it was a very exciting weekend of volleyball, and I'm glad I drove up for it.

[CitadelGrad]

There is a tournament next weekend in Gainesville that will receive a lot of attention. Penn State vs. Florida and Texas vs. Stanford on the first day. It isn't a round robin, so the winners of those matches will play each other the next day and the losers will play each other. Surprisingly, Florida appears to be playing the best right now. Penn State and Stanford are undefeated but are trying to fill the gaps left by some very big names who departed last year. Texas was swept by Illinois this weekend and appears to miss Destinee Hooker.

[wkuhillhound]

Western Kentucky (5 - 2) has been on a 5 game winning streak since losing to Purdue and #24 Northern Iowa (at the time of game) in straight sets to open the season.

There wins have been against: Central Michigan (3 - 1), @ Tennessee State (3 - 0) (non tournament game), Northeastern (3 - 0), IPFW (3 - 0), and Xavier (3 - 1) to sweep the Xavier Invitation Tournament in Cincinnati, Ohio. WKU will have a week's worth of rest until hosting their own tournament on 9/10 & 9/11 in which Virginia Tech, Tennessee Tech, Central Arkansas, and Missouri will be coming to E.A. Diddle Arena in Bowling Green, KY. Let's go (9 - 2) Lady Toppers!

[JayJ79]

Western Kentucky (5 - 2) has been on a 5 game winning streak since losing to Purdue and #24 Northern Iowa (at the time of game) in straight sets to open the season.

There wins have been against: Central Michigan (3 - 1), @ Tennessee State (3 - 0) (non tournament game), Northeastern (3 - 0), IPFW (3 - 0), and Xavier (3 - 1) to sweep the Xavier Invitation Tournament in Cincinnati, Ohio. WKU will have a week's worth of rest until hosting their own tournament on 9/10 & 9/11 in which Virginia Tech, Tennessee Tech, Central Arkansas, and Missouri will be coming to E.A. Diddle Arena in Bowling Green, KY. Let's go (9 - 2) Lady Toppers!

awesome! always good to see teams that UNI has beaten do well afterwards. helps our RPI.

[CatMom]

With a 3-0 sweep of PVA&M tonight our Vball coach notched her 700th career win...all @ SWT/TXST

some side notes:
Under Chisum's guidance, the Bobcats have won six conference regular season championships and six Southland Conference Tournament championships, the most recent coming in 2009 as the Bobcats advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the seventh time.

The Bobcats' six conference championships under her leadership began with the 1986 Gulf Star Conference crown and also include Southland Conference titles in 1991, 2000, 2003, 2004 and 2008.

In addition to last year's title, Chisum also led Texas State to the Southland Conference Tournament championships in 1991, 1998, 2004, 2005 and 2007 to earn a berth into the NCAA Tournament each year.

[frinq]

Durn! U. of Oregon beat us today, 3-2. Of course, they're # 11 nationally. U. Washington beat us last week 3-0. They're # 4 nationally. It'll be nice to get down to normal conference play. With 3 freshmen and a couple sophomores the coach has been tinkering with 6-2 set but today he went back to 5-1. I guess you could say it didn't hurt. The fifth set was 15-13, about as close as you can get. The rest of the Big Sky isn't doing any better against the giants of the West Coast. We beat Gonzaga at least. This weekend we should do a little better, playing "ordinary" California teams like Northridge.

[frinq]

And by the way, Catmom, has TxState played any Top Ten teams? How'd they do?

[CatMom]

And by the way, Catmom, has TxState played any Top Ten teams? How'd they do?

You have a link to the rankings? I'll let you know when I know who is ranked.

[CitadelGrad]

Here is a good one-stop shopping link for the rankings.

http://www.richkern.com/vb/rankings/Fre ... nkings.asp

[CatMom]

TXST is at Hofstra this weekend for a tourney. They went 1-1 today. With 7 freshman on the team I'm not disappointed with the results, other than they were up 2-0 in the first match and dropped 3 sets; to Missouri St. The Freshman got their feet wet and came back later to take down Hofstra.
Tomorrow they take on Canisius.

Next week - SMU Invitational
UC Davis, SMU, TX Tech

Then:
Century/Link Premier 9/10-11
UT-Martin, UNT, Alabama

Arizona Invitational 9/17-18
AZ, NM, Pepperdine

The above are who we have played/will play OOC. Interesting that they usually take on a few Big XII teams but seem to not have any this year, except Tech in that tourney. No matter, if they make the NCAA's they'll get UT first...we always do.
The other OOC matches are:
Prairie View A&M & UT- Pan Am
so, as I said, 14 OOC

[JayJ79]

interesting bragging: "my team has lost to higher rated teams than yours has"

[frinq]

Not bragging, just curious. I'm not familiar with Texas teams and would like to know who they play. Catmom was nice enough to oblige me. This is an information site, though a lot seem to be more interested in exchanging smack.

[JayJ79]

Not bragging, just curious. I'm not familiar with Texas teams and would like to know who they play. Catmom was nice enough to oblige me. This is an information site, though a lot seem to be more interested in exchanging smack.

Fair enough. btw, richkern's site is an awesome volleyball resource. my free trial is about up, but I'm seriously tempted to buy a subscription for a year.

[JayJ79]

Penn State's streak is over, as they were swept by Stanford today.
(I get the feeling that most PSU fans didn't expect the streak to continue very long this year)

[SuperHornet]

UOP's resurgence hit a snag tonight when their six-match winning streak was snapped by Nevada in the final of the Reno tournament 26-24, 27-25, 25-21. A UOP win would have marked their second straight tournament win. (I guess they won the now-meaningless Bankers Classic (moved from a Thanksgiving-based tune-up for the NCAAs with great teams to a pre-season blah with nobodies) last week.