Yaasmeen Bedart-Ghani was a big part of last year's championship team. So far this season, she appears to be missing-in-action? Does anybody know if (1) she's injured or (2) in Elliott's doghouse? You'd think that with Ogbogu academically ineligible, it would be all hands on deck.
Agree with the Nwanebu comment. However Yaazie was on the all tournament team in Omaha and now she's riding the pines. We are not exactly lighting teams up. Seems like she could help us.
Yazee is a very good player, but simply isn't as talented as Ebony or White, neither of whom were playing last year. We aren't lighting it up because of passing and setting, not because of hitting. This team is only a great setter away from winning a NC.
Don't think setting is our biggest problem. Collins is a good setter and defensive player. Would a 6'1" setter with Chloe's athleticism be better? Of course. She is over matched at the net sometimes but not always. I think our biggest issue is a lack of a middle to make up for the blocks and slides we lost with the loss of McCage and Obagu. Johnson is coming along and Abaji will be really good I think but neither are there yet. We are 3-8 in our last 11 sets with Nebraska and just have trouble matching up with their size. I am not suggesting Yaazie is better than Nwanebu or White but she is big and played lights out against Nebraska last year. I don't know what the solution is but bigger players in the lineup might not hurt. Remember Amy having a huge year last year and having a really tough time in the tournament. In any event we will be there Saturday yelling our heads off. Nice to see some vball being discussed on this board.
I'm sorry anteater I'll have to politely disagree. Looking at the UW roster they aren't any bigger than Texas, and I would argue Texas is more athletic. The difference was the setting. Ebony, Mikayla and PPC constantly had tap overs due to not having a set they could do anything with while UW had good sets and attacks almost all the time. That was the difference and it was especially horrible in the 4th set. Collins sets remind me of Tyrone Swoopes' passes. Even when they're completed they're behind the receiver so the receiver has to dive for it or go backwards to catch it losing all forward momentum resulting in no YAC. Of course we could argue we would have handled UW in 3 had one of our players not been selfish and taken care of things in the classroom, but that's another discussion altogether.
You're entitled to your opinion but your opinion is way too simplistic of Sunday's problem. We are not running the middle at all right now which is a much bigger problem than the setting to the outsides. The Wisconsin block was able to camp out on Micaya , PPC and Ebony putting up a well formed block that made it difficult to get kills. Those three chose to tap, tip and try to hit incredible angles (hence the 3 balls sprayed out of bounds late in set 5) rather than try to tool the block. You can't lay that all on setting. We have to get our middles involved and that's on Chloe to get comfortable with them and trust them and for Morgan and Orie to step up. Until that happens it's going to be a rough Big 12 season.
