the good:

undefeated vs. teams east of the Rockies!

the bad:

winless vs west coast teams


the good:
digging, and grinding. keeping points alive and disrupting with digs almost got to 5th set vs. Wash & UCLA

the bad:
receiving. it's not the receiving is horrific compared to our opponents (UCLA had their own back-row receiving issues). It's that our offense and out of system is not good enough to compensate for matching receiving of our better opponents. Chacon needs some help back there, she played tremendous vs. Texas, Indiana, & Washington. just the number of overpasses, and poor receptions doesn't match how well we dig balls. t me if you can handle digging the ball out, you should be able to put the ball in a better position on reception. I'd put Giambi at next best to Chacon, Liasek had a solid Indiana match, but the rest frankly need to find a way to handle the pressure of initial reception. culture won't fix that, Tyler needs to be upfront and challenge and training - otherwise it won't matter. our pins and Meyer need help on teh first attack. it was so clear yesterday UCLA could overcome bad receptions with their athletic pins, and we were just scrambling from teh get go. thte start of some of the sets, especially the start ot the UCLA match was inexcusable to come out in shank mode.

Receiving: C, and we should at least be a B+

Blocking: our stats will improve as we get into the season. we aren't going to be an overwhelming blocking team, Lomgoria definitely is a big plus for depth. We can be a B, we aren't going to be some elite blockign team. Overall I'd say our middles have been one of the best prepared to date, despite getting outblocked.

Serving. like blocking we aren't going to be elite, however we've been solid. Chacon, Meyer, and Hayes have had very effective disruptive serves - Hayes more of a risk - reward than anyone but that overspin is hard to handle

Setting. Meyer is solid, she was running all over the place last night. sure some of her sets are too tight. but she is a great all -court presence. setting, serving, passing, attacking. more about her attacking later. B+

Pins. Ok, here's the fundamental issue, we don't have a MOrgan Chacon type reliable pin. some good play in spurts, but overall this is a D+. not a single OH/Opp is hitting over 0.150. yup, that won't do it. you MUST have a pin or two hit at least 0.225-0.250 to beat higher level teams, doesn't need to be 0.35. Agi goes for it, but doesn't have much discretion - she hit a few too many right into the teeth of the UCLA block. Hayes is a pleasant surprise, I think she's the opp for now, she can actually get off some solid out of system swings from her height and heavy ball. Karich dissapeared and struggle last night, Liasek has struggled. A lot of it is judgement of when to take something off the swing for all of them when the block is set against them.

MB attacks. we've been solid, although Kameron still needs to do more than wipe at the ball, that connection must improve.

overall, when the schedule came out and with the personnel, was seriously concerned we could start out 0-7, to be 2-3 is actually overall a bit of a relief, just having beat Texas, not taking advantage of those 4th set opportunities vs. UCLA and Washington is painful, especially letting that overpass by Washington on set point to drop to the net. somebody on the front row has to just go put that ball down to get to a 5th set, and then ending the UCLA 4th set with 3 straight errors. not clutch

still, 2-3 is solid, given 4 top 10/25/50 opponents, and Indiana is top 50/100 material

next up Omaha, then Nebraska, especially Omaha, a top tier Big West type team and first road game, huge test before Nebraska. No predictions but training up this week on receiving, pins, and schemes has to happen to build on progress. Have to translate the culture into improved performance and challenge themselves to handle the pressure better.

Schemes: like a broken record. Meyer MUST take more swings. End of story. She's an attacker, and not even looking to attack much. whether it's working on a couple plays to have Chacon set Meyer or some more swinging on 2, Tyler needs to get Meyer to score more and put more pressure on teh block. not an easy thing, a setter is trained to think about the set and distribution. IMO, it's the one dimension Tyler can add. we need to get a couple more attacks from her each set.

all the culture stuff is great, now it's time that it's gonna come down to the back-row training up to handle the pressure of receiving better and pins incrementally improving attacks.

fun team to watch, Tyler has done a tremendous job to create a great atmosphere, 2800 on a holiday weekend is off the charts.

Next home game is Poly to start the season, and that initial Big West match has been the bane of Beach's existence during Joy's tenure and last year. Despite the preseason schedule cannot be overconfident against the top 6 Big West teams as they will dig balls and hit the ball hard.