Now, this isn’t a doom and gloom post. In fact, you’ll see clearly that I’ll end
with a positive. But as long as we are
being objective, let’s look at three very basic, but I claim, very defensible
statements:
1) The offense is struggling.
Since SLC play began, left side attackers have had more
matches where they hit under .100 than over.
Additionally, we have shifted in and out of one vs. two setter offenses
almost on a match by match basis. Serve
receive – while not entirely poor, seems to have at least one set per match
were it goes in the toilet. The team as
a whole is hitting just .153 over the last five matches. The fraction of the team not named Les
Jackson is hitting just .131 over that time span. As a way of putting those two numbers in
context, the best opponent hitting percentage in the league is .155. So, as of late, we are making all of our
opponents appear as though they are at the top of the defensive charts even
though we know that in some cases they are not.
2) The defense is struggling.
We don’t consistently close blocks. Teams get way to many one-on-one looks
against us at the net and we routinely do not give our back row players a
legitimate chance at consistently making plays. SFA is next-to-last in the Southland
Conference in opponent hitting percentage at .222. In the last five matches, our opponents have
hit a whopping .278 against us – a number that you just simply cannot
overcome. To put that number in
perspective, Marquette is currently hitting .278 as a team and they are 16th
in the nation in hitting percentage. Now,
it is true that both Central Arkansas and Oral Roberts are in the Top 50 in the
nation in hitting percentage. So, you do
have to give those teams their props.
Still, SFA can’t have sustained success while continuing to hover around
the bottom of the league in such an important statistic as opponent hitting
percentage.
3) We’ve had injuries.
Jill Ivy being the latest one.
Jill Ivy is our best offensive player. Her timetable is a little up in the air, but
at least she has begun rehabilitation and hopefully we will know next week a
little more about what to expect going forward. However, for the time being, Ivy’s offense
being on the sidelines only makes the first point above more relevant. Other girls are either coming off of old
injuries or are nursing various bangs and bruises that many other teams also
have to deal with across a long Fall season.
Of course, all of the above three issues are related. Part of the reason the 5-1 vs. 6-2 offensive
set is changing so much is because of Ivy’s injury. Possibly I am someone who makes too much out
of “roles” (that’s the baseball mentality in me). But it does seem like at some
point the one-setter vs. two-setter switching could create undefined roles for
players that wind up affecting their preparation and ultimately their on-court
performance. I asked Debbie Humphreys
openly about this issue last night and she said that both Paige Holland and
Shannon Connell had responded well to the changes.
Plus, anyone familiar with Humphreys’ player usage trends
across the years will know that she is not someone to stand pat and watch the
team struggle without tinkering. She
very much believes in changes – sometimes very quick ones – if she notices an
area of weakness. I’ve had to be open to
the possibility that volleyball is a sport where such quick changes are
necessary and generally productive.
However, there is still a part of me that tends to think along the lines
of giving players a long rope and even suffering through starters playing
themselves out of funks. Again, that’s
the “defined role” baseball mentality in me as a volleyball fan coming through.
I probably need to let go of my biases a little bit on this issue.
The case of freshman is an interesting one to ponder when it
comes to these things. We all know that
first year players tend to be more inconsistent than veterans on average. Let’s look at Shannon Connell, Kaitlyn
Granger and Justice Walker’s role on the club to this point. Now, I’m not saying any changes in their
court time are good or bad decisions. I am
just saying it is interesting to play
the idea of “freshman tend to be inconsistent” off the idea of “knowing your
role and fighting through it”. It’s the
chicken-and-the-egg all over again:
Are freshman inconsistent because their roles change a lot
or are freshman having their roles switch back and forth because they can’t produce
consistent results. Which one of those
comes “first” is just interesting to think about. It’s kind of circular, isn’t
it?
Connell is at the mercy of the 5-1 vs. 6-2 decision. That
is, except in the case that Holland is ineffective and just needs to sit for a
bit. That happened at Northwestern
State, but I suspect it shouldn’t happen much more, if at all. Walker has started every match, but will occasionally
not start every set. Take for instance,
last night: Walker starts the first two sets, but after the 2nd set
doesn’t go according to script, Jamie Crowder gets the start after the half and
finishes up the match in one of the MB slots.
That’s the sort of thing that Humphreys’ isn’t afraid at all to do with
young players. Again, I’m not saying it
is right or wrong. I just think it is
interesting to think about. Last night,
it almost certainly worked out for good as Crowder came on and provided a spark
getting six kills and two blocks to help us finish out the win. The trick of course, is knowing when players
are ready to ride out those lows and stay on the court while working things
out.
Granger’s utility is the most interesting to me. To this point, I think I’ve been neutral by
just pointing out the various changes and deficiencies without being overly
opinionated. Let me get one opinion in this
post, though: If it were me, I’d just
leave Granger out there to play and work it out.
Here’s where I take a deep breath, give you my two cents and
then end this article on a positive.
Those people who know me are aware that I am a firm believer
in a strong left-side attack. Bates
certainly provides us one arm on the left that is capable of damage. Not to mention, Tori is a six-rotation
player. Despite this, SFA still runs a
lot of offense to the right and through the middles. So, at times, I think our offense can get a
little too bottled up on the right side of the court because we don’t get a
high enough percentage of our kills from the left pin. So, now that Jill is out, what does this
mean? It means that defenses can key even more on our middles. As mentioned, Jackson has done a fine job on
the right in Jill’s spot, but even she would admit that her biggest attribute is
consistency as opposed to having 15 to 20-kill per night potential.
All of that is why I think Granger should play all around
and be left out there. She gives us the
best chance to have two offensive contributors on the left (her and Tori). I really don’t care what Granger can give us
on defense right now. I’m (always)
worried that we need more offense.
Besides Bates, the person I’ve got pegged as giving us the best chance
for offense on the left is Kaitlyn.
Now, to end on a positive like my Mama taught me to do:
Despite the team having to deal with issues on both sides of
the ball, SFA hasn’t lost to a conference opponent that would be seen as less
talented than them. UCA and ORU were
picked ahead of us in preseason polls and Northwestern State was picked ahead
of us in one of those polls. So, losing
to all three of them on the road isn’t totally unexpected. Sure, we should/could have won at Oral
Roberts. The point is, we haven’t played
down to team expected to finish in the bottom half as of yet.
Just beat teams you are supposed to beat (*cough*, McNeese,
tomorrow, *cough*) and get some wins here and there against other strong
teams. Then, with fingers crossed, you
get Jill back and able to contribute. Then, we are in position to exact some
revenge at the end of the season when UCA, ORU and Northwestern State come to
Shelton. Actually, after next week’s
tough tests on the road at Corpus Christi and HBU, the schedule is partial to
us in terms of home/away scenarios.
We get Sam Houston, Lamar, UCA, ORU and Northwestern State
all at home. Our remaining road games after
TAMUCC/HBU are against four teams picked in the bottom half of the league: UIW, ACC, SELA and UNO. It is acknowledged that if you play lazy
anyone can win, but I think the remaining home/away split can work in our
favor.
All in all, despite the need for improvement and health, SFA
is still positioned well to do what they did last year: Get enough wins for a reasonable seed in the
SLC Tourney and then turn on the jets once we get there.
Except this time, we’ll be expecting to play three days
instead of two.