Oso planning to go pro
Last thought is that it's amazing how big of a gap there is between the very top teams and a team that's ranked 15 or so (like Marquette). Marquette was a legit top 15 team this season as proven by their ranking and making the Sweet 16, plus wins against teams like USC, but they lost 19-25, 21-25, 16-25 to Illinois, and having seen Marquette in person a couple times and watching the Final Four, that's about what I'd have expected the scores to be. I'd be surprised if they scored 20 in any set if they were to play Stanford or Nebraska either. Wisconsin smoked them after a very competitive first set as well. MU took a set off of BYU but BYU wasn't even competitive with Stanford (despite being the only team to beat Stanford this year in an early season match). The only players on Marquette who I think could even compete at that level at their respective positions are their libero and 2 OHs. Their middles block well but neither is super quick and I think would get lost against those weapons. Definitely a great season for MU, but still a long way to go to get to the level of play I saw this weekend.
Question for you volleyball observers ...I watched Marquette's NCAA game and was a little surprised that neither MU nor Illinois had a black player. Is this the norm?Years ago, it seemed many girls played both volleyball in the fall and basketball in the winter. That made sense to me because of the premium on height in both sports and also the hand-to-eye coordination aspect of the games. When I got the assistant bkb coaching job at my current high school a couple years ago, I was very surprised that not a single one of our players also played volleyball. Our coach said he had only one volleyball player in 5 years as hoops coach, and she was an end-of-the-bench player.Maybe it's all part of the specialization thing, in which kids are urged (or even forced) at an early age to pick one sport ... and the black girls just gravitate to basketball?Or maybe there simply aren't very many opportunities for black girls to take up volleyball at a relatively early age.Anyway, as one who has long been interested in the intersection of race and athletics, I couldn't help but noticing the lily-white nature of that MU-Illinois game.
I would say that having two teams facing off with no black players on either roster would be pretty unusual. But without question, a significant majority of volleyball players are white. I think the biggest factor is almost certainly financial. There are two aspects to this. First, club volleyball is quite expensive. And playing club is virtually essential to get an opportunity to play in college. Second, it many parts of the country, private schools dominate high school volleyball (in no small part because in many places parochial schools start CYO volleyball up to 3-4 years earlier than public schools start volleyball).
Marquette men’s club team finished 5th in the NCVF National Championships two weeks ago in Denver. Lost to Illinois 15-12 in final set. MU’s best player got hurt earlier with ankle injury...he made 2nd team all national. Unfortunate as they might have won the whole thing. Illinois ended up going to the final and losing to Cal Poly for the title losing 18-16 in final set.MU beat UC San Diego, Fresno State, Iowa, Arizona State, North Carolina State.MU finished 5th nationally last year, too...and was 3rd the year before that.I remember back in the days when the women’s club soccer team performed extremely well and eventually the athletic dept added them as a varsity sport. Wish we would do same for men’s volleyball and compete against Lewis, Loyola Chicago, etc. The current Wisconsin high school player of the year plays at MU, along with Calif Div 4 player of the year and one of the Illinois players of the year. Good kids, certainly not D1 varsity level, but would love to see MU commit to it.
I mean they definitely could. Volleyball is a pretty inexpensive sport especially considering they already have the sport court for the women’s.Also no D1 programs in Wisconsin so recruiting would be difficult but not impossible.The question is, what women’s sport do you add?
West Coast volleyball is back!!!!Hawai’i vs Long Beach State for the title on Saturday. May have to start calling the NCAA Tournament the Big West Conference Tournament Part Deux.
Rough day for former MU coach Bond Shymansky. Placed on administrative leave pending investigation of what are being characterized as "significant" and "serious" NCAA violations. According to the article, in the AD's presser he said, "It’s a difficult day...There are a lot of emotions ... anger, sadness...(Our motto is) Win, Graduate, Do It Right. Clearly in this case, (Shymansky) came up short in ‘Do It Right.’” No bueno.Update: Perhaps this is SOP in such situations, but it seems ominous that Iowa already named an Interim Head Coach.
Let's see how Shymansky's deeds play out with the investigation. This may have a tail to MU (although MU not tinged) if I am hearing correctly.
I suspect we might be hearing something similar. Are you hearing about a MU/UI transfer?
Yep