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Post by skrapheap on Nov 17, 2021 18:39:13 GMT -6
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Post by skrapheap on Nov 18, 2021 5:27:40 GMT -6
Here's the bracket for the HLVB tournament: quarterfinals Friday afternoon and evening, semifinals Saturday afternoon and evening (featuring the Panthers at 5:00 PM against the lowest seed advancing out of the quarterfinals), and final Sunday at 4:00 PM (wisely scheduled after the expected conclusion of the Packer game). All matches on ESPN+.
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Post by skrapheap on Nov 18, 2021 14:53:27 GMT -6
As expected, there were lots of Panthers on the lists for the 2021 HL Regular Season HonorsThe only surprise: NKU's Liz Hart is named Coach of the Year over Susie Johnson. I doubt Johnson is bothered: she's got the top seeded team and home court advantage for the tournament.
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Post by skrapheap on Nov 20, 2021 19:08:05 GMT -6
The higher seeds advanced last night. #3 Wright State swept #6 Oakland, who had backed into the tournament on a five match losing sweep.
The 4 vs 5 matchup between UIC and Green Bay was more entertaining. UIC prevailed in five sets. After the Flames took set one, the Phoenix won sets two and three. The Flames rose to the occasion to win the fourth set, and is often the case, their late surge carried over to the deciding fifth set.
On to tonight's semifinals...
The HL provides the play by play personnel for these matches, and for the most part the guy is competent. But it's amusing to hear how obvious his lack of specific knowledge of these teams is. He started the broadcast of the Milwaukee-UIC match by highlighting Ari Miller, the 2021 Player of the Year and the Offensive Player of the year. And then tried to create some drama by asking if the Flames could slow Miller enough to be really competitive, as if the Panther offense is Miller or nothing. Matt Menzel, the regular Panther play-by-play voice for volleyball wouldn't posit such a silly scenario, because Matt has spent the season watching the Panthers, and he knows that the Panthers have many ways to win that don't depend on Miller dominating the match. Miller was definitely a statistical leader for the Panthers all season, but the number of matches in which she was the top scorer were outnumbered by the matches in which someone else was the top scorer. You don't land three front-row players on the All-League team if you have one dominant player.
Set one was a typical Panther set. The score was close early, but the Panthers gradually built a lead and then a dominant lead. The Panthers scored eight of nine points to get to 10 set points at 24-14. The Flames managed to get one of those points, and then Madi Malone had a down-the-line smash of a perfect Riley Vaughn set, and the set was won. The Panthers hit .615 as a team in the set. That's 17 kills versus one hitting error on 26 attacks. The Panthers got two more points at the service line. Carmen Heilemann had 6 kills and a .600 hitting errors. Miller had five kills and a .667 hitting percentage. Malone had four kills and a .667 percentage.
Milwaukee kept cruising to begin set two, building a 10-6 lead to force the first UIC time-out. At that point, it was Katie-bar-the-door. The Panthers built a lead of a 24-10; that's 14 set points. Malone again ended set two with a kill at 25-11. The Panthers "cooled down" in set two, hitting only .517. At the end of the set, Heilemann and Miller had 10 kills apiece and Malone had seven. Through two sets Miller was hitting .714 with no hitting errors on 14 attacks. Malone was hitting .538 with no errors.
UIC got off to a much better start in set three. They scored three consecutive points to get out to a 7-4 lead and prompt a Miwaukee time-out. The Flames continued to play well, extending the lead to 15-10 and forcing the second Panther time-out. The Flames built the lead to six set points at 24-18, and the Panthers got three of those points back, including their first block of the match, before a Flame block won the set. The Panthers had eight hitting errors in the set, five more than in sets one and two combined, which gave them a hitting percentage of .162 and lowered their match percentage to .402.
The fourth set was pretty much a copy of the third, down to the 25-21 score. The efficient Panther offense of the first two sets was gone, negated by the Flames block, as they had three blocks on both the third and fourth sets. The Flames had forced a fifth set, and appeared to have all the momentum going into it.
The Panthers energy was better to begin the fifth set, playing the Flames even to a 5-all tie. The Panthers got a point on a Flame ball-handling error, and an ace by Sarah Schroeder, and the Flames took a time-out. Out the time out, a crucial point ended in a challenge. A ref at the net said the Panthers tipped the ball but the linesman did not see one. The call stood, and the Panther lead was 7-6. The Panthers were saved from a hitting error tying the score when the Flames were called in the net and the lead was 8-6. The Panthers went up 9-6 on a soft touch by Kleja Cerniauskaite at the end of a long rally, and the Flames called time-out number two. The Panter momentum continued with a kill by Malone, but the Flames got two quick points on a kill and a service ace, and the Panthers called their first time-out. The UIC surge continued with three more points to an 11-10 lead and the Panthers took their second time-out. The Flames scored the next three points to get to match point and clinched their spot in the title match.
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Post by skrapheap on Nov 22, 2021 8:30:27 GMT -6
UIC won their third five-set match in the HL tournament Sunday, their first ever league championship in volleyball. They had to fight off match points for NKU to claim the title, including a challenged point, which they won.
Perhaps Milwaukee can feel better having lost to the eventual champs, a team with something of the air of a team of destiny.
Ari Miller was the lone Panther on the All Tournament team.
This situation is similar to 2019, when NKU defeated the top seeded Wright State Raiders on their home court in the semifinals and then beat the second seeded Panthers in the final match to claim the league's automatic NCAA bid. The Raiders received an at-large bid to the tournament, which was, I believe, a unique occurrence at the time. I don't know if that will happen again in 2021, but it would be wonderful for the Panthers if it did. The quality of play in the league has been steadily improving for years, so perhaps the league is now strong enough to be a two-bid league sometimes.
The tournament field will be announced next Sunday.
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Post by skrapheap on Nov 28, 2021 5:06:01 GMT -6
The NCAA tournament selection show is tonight at 8:30:PM Eastern time.
In terms of RPI, a second bid for the Horizon League seems likely than I had hoped. Tournament champion UIC finished at 132nd. Tournament runner-up NKU finished 65th. Semi finalist WSU finished 68th and semi-finalist and regular season champ Milwaukee finished 75th.
The field of Automatic Qualifiers looks pretty strong; UIC was one of the few winners who didn't have the highest RPI in its conference. That said, there were more than a few conferences where the highest RPI was well below 64th. So it comes down to the selection committee in the end.
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Post by skrapheap on Nov 29, 2021 15:41:36 GMT -6
The selection show has come and gone, and the Horizon League is, as usual, a one-bid league.
And UIC gets a tough draw in the first round.
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Post by parkerj on Nov 29, 2021 16:58:00 GMT -6
I'm sad nobody is participating in that secondary tournament! Saw NMSU was and I took a look at the bracket.
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Post by skrapheap on Nov 30, 2021 0:05:48 GMT -6
I'm sad nobody is participating in that secondary tournament! Saw NMSU was and I took a look at the bracket. I am amazed that there is a secondary tournament. I have no idea that college volleyball had enough of the following that someone would devote the resources necessary to put a tournament on. That said, if either of UWM's basketball teams could draw half the numbers that Badger volleyball draws on a regular basis, the Athletic department would be ecstatic. There's no reference to the second tournament at mkepanthers.com, but I suppose there wouldn't be any unless the Panthers were playing.
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Post by parkerj on Nov 30, 2021 0:26:27 GMT -6
It reads more like a CBI/CIT than an NIT...or maybe something in between?
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Post by skrapheap on Dec 18, 2021 6:25:03 GMT -6
I watched a replay of the Wisconsin-Louisville NCAA Semifinal, and it almost made me wish I subscribed to cable.
The main broadcast of the Semifinals were on ESPN, but they ran a Spanish-language simulcast on ESPN3, and I was able to watch that in replay, with the sound off, mainly. (From the little I did listen to, the color commentator was overly impressed that one of the Louisville players is the daughter of former NFL QB Trent Dilfer. He went on and on about it.)
The match was everything you could want. The Badgers won 3-2. With the exception of the second set, which Louisville won 25-15, the first four sets were very evenly played. All four sets were back and forth initially, with the winning team taking control comparatively late (excepting set two). Both teams had leads in each set.
It was clear that Louisville was the top seed in the tournament on merit. They did not lose a match all season until the tournament semifinal. (The Milwaukee Panthers players can sympathize with a one seed losing to a four seed in the semifinals.) They had a decided advantage at the service line: they scored a number of points on aces (including the deciding point in set four) and gave up many fewer points on service errors. They blocked well; at the end of the match, the block totals were fairly even, but it required a late defensive surge by the Badgers to narrow whaat had been a distinct deficit. Louisville hit .400 in the first set and .393 in the second set and lost the match. It had to be a tough loss to take: one match from the final.
The turning point of the fifth set, and therefore the match, was a challenge by the Badgers. A Badger player was called for touching the net, and the Wisconsin Coach used a challenge. (It was the first Badger challenge of the match. Louisville went 0-3 on challenges in the first four sets.) The play as called gave Louisville a 7-6 lead. The reviewing official decided that the video did not clearly show that the Badger player touched the net, but that it also did not clearly show that she had not touched the net. The result was a re-play of the point. The Badgers got a kill to take a 7-6 lead, and outscored Louisville the rest of the way 8-2 to win the match.
The other semifinal match was a 3-1 win for Nebraska over Pittsburgh, so the title will go to a Big Ten team this year. Nebraska has won four titles in nine finals appearances. The Badgers are making their fourth finals appearance and hoping for their first title. In head to head competition, Wisconsin won both regular season matches with Nebraska.
Tonight's final is on EPSN, and there is a Spanish-language simul-cast on ESPN 3, but I am not sure I will be able to watch the match live. I hope that I can.
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Post by skrapheap on Jan 25, 2022 5:44:39 GMT -6
The Panthers had six seniors on the 2021 roster. They announced the recruitment of four players for 2022 during the season. They announced a fifth new player at the end of the season, Czhen Beneby, on December 1st, and just announced that Lakyn Graves will join the team in 2022 as well.
Beneby and Graves are transfers: Beneby from the University of Virginia and Graves from the University of Nebraska-Omaha, Beneby is listed at 6'4" tall and Graves at 6'3".
Graves is from Milwaukee. In her lone season in Omaha, her team made the Summit League tournament final. It appears she will have three seasons of eligibility with the Panthers.
Beneby is originally from West Palm Beach, Florida, and played two seasons at Virginia, so she will have two seasons of eligibility in Milwaukee.
The Panthers already had good height on the roster, and these transfers will only enhance that.
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