Tonight after the 3-0 sweep of K-State, Coach Elliott got on the mike to thank everyone for supporting the team (noting those who drove to TCU Wednesday) and requested fans get their tickets to the regionals on December 7 and 8th to sell out and make it loud. Regional Tickets including single day regional tickets are on sale now. He also mentioned it is highly likely Texas will host the 1st and 2nd rounds (November 29-Dec 2nd). It is equally likely that Texas A&M will be sent to Austin for the 1st and 2nd rounds as a second round opponent for Texas. 1st and 2nd round tickets are now on sale. It is important we buy these up before the ags do. Non Season Ticket Holders Purchase Tickets Here Season Ticket Holders Request Tickets Here
This is a point that bears repeating. To keep the Agroid presence to a minimum it is important to fight the natural procrastination tendency...especially for GA ticket purchasers! Let's make the opening two rounds a sell-out before the opponents are announced. Make the Ags pay scalper prices if they want to attend. And realize some of them have heard about Coach Elliott's plea and could be reacting defensively, buying up tickets already.
The texasboxoffice.com link to "See all Texas Longhorns Athletics events" currently points to http://www.texasboxoffice.com/true which displays a "Not Found" error message. The texassports.com "Buy Tickets" link currently points to http://www.texassports.com/sports/tickets/true which displays a "We are sorry the page you are trying to access does not exist." error message. Have the Agroids hacked the Longhorn ticket sites to keep us from buying up tickets? Use the direct link from TempestHorn, repeated here, to buy tickets for Rounds 1 and 2, and do so before 2:30PM Sunday!
From the Internet Archive I was able to find the correct URL for "See all Texas Longhorns Athletics events:" - http://ev9.evenue.net/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/SEGetGroupList?groupCode=UTA&linkID=tex-ath&shopperContext=&caller=&appCode=&Rsrc="tex-ath&RDAT
Interactive NCAA Volleyball Bracket As expected the Aggies are coming to Austin, the renewal of the rivalry if both teams win in the 1st round will be Friday at 7pm. Tickets Here
As expected, Texas was seeded #3 in the tournament. As usual the committee seemed overly fond of setting up rematch scenarios. Nebraska and Washington could square off yet again in the tournament, and if the seeds hold Texas will yet again face Florida then USC in a regional. (Back in the Mick Haley era Texas had quite an NCAA playoff rivalry with Florida, to the point that Texas tried to hire UF coach Mary Wise after Mick left.) Five years ago at Gainesville, when Juliann was a frosh and Destinee a sophomore, the participants were #4 Texas, #5 USC, #12 St. John's, and #13 Florida. Texas defeated Florida 3-1, but was swept by USC. There will probably be many upsets in this year's tourney, but if there are none on the way to the Austin region, the participants will be #3 Texas, #6 USC, #11 Kansas, and #14 Florida. So Texas could be looking at repeating the Florida then USC pattern from 2007. And it's crazy how much the potential 2012 Austin regional resembles the 2007 Gainsville regional. But that's all looking too far ahead. For now we need to focus on taking care of Colgate on Thursday night!
Indeed. For anyone buying two tickets the Cyber Monday offer ($14 plus fees for two tickets x two days) was much better than the Black Friday offer ($20 plus fees for two tickets x two days). I feel ripped off. Anyway, something to keep in mind for X number of years down the road when a Regional returns to Austin.
texassports.com seems to be suffering from a lack of FOCUSNESS regarding the first two rounds of the volleyball tournament. There is a lame tournament central page, but as of a few minutes ago there was no meaningful information about the teams participating in this tourney. This year in particular the team cannot afford to take such a callous attitude to even the opening round match. Against "Colgate?" you might be tempted to sneer. That would be unwise. From 2004 through 2011 the 'Horns' opening match of the playoffs has been against SWT, LSU, PV-A&M, SWT, Lamar, SWT, UTSA, SWT. All results were sweeps and most were among the biggest snooze-fests of the season. Texas could beat most of those teams in their sleep and with one hand tied behind their backs. Based on name recognition and RPI rating, it is tempting to assume a similar result Thursday. Don't do it. Colgate plays in the Patriot League, which for years has featured one King (American University) and a bunch of lowly serfs. In his first year at the helm of the Colgate program, head coach Ryan Baker coaxed a 14-15 record out of a team that had gone 4-25, 8-21, 5-19, and 7-20 under the previous coach. There have been some stumbles along the way, but now in his seventh year he and his players have battled through early season lineup issues and an 0-8 / 1-10 start to the season (four of the losses being in a tourney to Loyala-Marymount, Arizona State, Cal-Irvine, and Nebraska, so, little shame there)...plus another loss to Montreal in an "exhibition" match, to come on strong and snatch both the regular season and conference tourney crowns from King American. If you are new to following Longhorn volleyball, have a short memory, or ignore the "other guys" in our tournaments, you are probably wondering "What's the big deal about knocking off King American?" Well, turn the playoff calendar back just two seasons and examine the results of a first round match played right here in Gregory Gym, where Patriot League King American University took a 2-1 lead in the opening round match against AVCA #9 UCLA. That, my friends, is some salty volleyball. The following night UCLA gave the Longhorns just about all they could handle, and it took some brilliant coaching by JE, as so delightfully detailed by UTVballfan in his masterful "Guts enough to try it; game enough to do it" post, for the 'Horns to prevail. Furthermore, in all the recent seasons that AU earned the PL automatic bid, they always played in the two vs three match of Round One, not the one versus four match. King American hasn't gone kaput, Colgate simply managed to overtake them with their gradual improvement and explosive surge after this year's slow start. Considering their current level of play instead of their full season power rankings, they would surely be at least a #3 instead of a #4. Another striking thing about Colgate is that when I scanned their roster I noticed they are by no means vertically-challenged (IOW, small compared to Texas) as, for example, SWT has been. Furthermore, although located in the totally rural roughly dead middle of NY state, their rated-most-beautiful-in-the-country campus and, perhaps, the new coach, have attracted players from numerous volleyball hot beds. Surprisingly only one player hails from the Northeast. The rest come from the Midwest (especially Illinois), the west coast (especially California), Texas (three, including one from Westlake), and Florida (one). That's an impressive geographic pedigree. I read on volleytalk.net that if the tourney selections had been based on a sensible evaluation algorithm like Pablo instead of the ridiculous RPI, NC State would have been one of four included teams staying home. Colgate was not one of the other three. So while NC State's RPI rank is a small fraction of Colgate's, Colgate, especially the way they have played the second half of the season, appears to be a vastly more formidable opponent. NC State hasn't made the tourney in 25 years; Colgate might be in their first ever (sorry, I forget that detail at the moment). It is reasonable to expect that nerves or "just glad to get here" attitude will negatively affect one or both teams. There is no way, however, to predict the relative impact such factors will have on the teams. Thus, in hindsight this writeup could sound silly...but lacking a crystal ball it seems that #3 Texas will be facing a far more dangerous opponent in the first round than will unseeded tamu. It's not unreasonable to say that this Round One features a one versus three matchup and a two versus four matchup, if you look at calculated strengths instead of RPI ranks. With adequate FOCUSNESS Texas should prevail, and could even sweep, but don't expect an easy massive beat down. Take nothing for granted, come out and support your 'Horns, cheer loud, and do your part to help the team advance! BTW, Colgate University is named for a significant financial patron, and yes, he was *that* Colgate.
Statesman Article Single session tickets for 1st and 2nd Rounds (including the potential Aggie game tomorrow) go on sale at 9am today. Don't wait to get tickets until tomorrow, this match has sold out in years past.
