Hi volleyball fans and welcome back to Volley Talk, the podcast created for volleyball lovers
who want to dig deep into what is going on in NCAA and international volleyball.
I'm your host Sarah Pavin, I'm an Olympian, beach volleyball world champion, former Nebraska
Cornhusker and longtime pro both indoor and on the beach.
And I'm Adam Schultz, former indoor player, international volleyball coach and the resident
stat guy here on the podcast.
An NCAA women's volleyball champion has been crowned and the final four was nothing if
not incredibly exciting and historic.
The matches in Louisville will be our focus today, but we've got to take a look at the
All Americans obviously and a little bit more.
It is going to be a jam packed episode, so let's get started.
First things first, congratulations to Penn State, the 2024 NCAA women's volleyball champions.
They defeated Louisville in four in a really exciting match.
Now before we get into the games, we also ran two brackets for the championship.
So shout out to Nittany Hopeful, who won the better bracket draft.
They had Penn State pit final and finished with 97 points, so you were close.
The second place person had 96 points, so that bracket came down to the wire.
Squeaked it out.
Gabriel Sundberg won our ESPN challenge with 1340 points, the next closest was 1160, so
that one definitely was not close.
Gabriel was the only person who picked Penn State to win and because of that ran away
with the title.
So congrats to both of our winners.
We really appreciate everybody who participated.
We had a lot of fun and I'm already hoping I do better next year.
I'm upset.
I did very poorly as well.
I will give a begrudging congratulations to the winners because I like to win a lot.
No, just kidding.
Congrats thanks to everybody who joined us.
Believe it or not, there has been other volleyball going on the last few weeks and the club volleyball
world championships for both men and women have been happening.
On the men's side, Sata Cruzero from Brazil won.
They beat Trentino Itas, 3-1 in the final.
So now those two teams are tied for the most club world championship titles ever.
And fun fact, Adam actually coached against Sata Cruzero when we lived in Brazil.
Adam worked for the team in Rio and Wallacy is still playing for them.
You've got to be kidding.
He has been there forever.
He is 37 years old now and pretty sure he has been part of every single one of those
five world championships.
The man does not age, I'm telling you.
He was unbelievable 14 years ago when we were there.
That's insane.
On the women's side, Imoko Valle Conigliano won.
They beat Tianjin Bohai Bank 3-0 in the final.
I mean, no shock there.
I would say Conigliano is stacked.
They have been for many years now.
There you go.
A little taste of the outside world and we will be diving more into the professional
side of things in the new year.
So just wanted to give a little update on that end.
Just for people who might not be familiar, Conigliano is an Italian team, correct?
It is.
It was actually my first pro team ever.
Oh, interesting.
So it all runs back through you is what you're saying.
I mean, basically.
I'm just kidding.
And Tianjin is a Chinese team, correct?
Tianjin is a Chinese team.
Tianjin, they were very good back when I played for Shanghai as well.
So overall, very good volleyball to be had.
On the men's side, if I didn't mention it, Trentino is an Italian team.
Exciting nonetheless.
And I actually got to play in a club world championships when I was playing indoor.
My Brazilian team came second.
Fun facts for you today.
Now that we've given you the update around the world, let us get into what everybody
wants to talk about.
Final four time, baby.
Thursday was a write off.
What a great day.
I think we watched volleyball from three o'clock till 10 o'clock.
Again, being on the West Coast, it's perfect.
I hope my boss isn't listening to this.
But where do you want to start?
I'm thinking Pitt Louisville, which is going order.
Yes.
All right.
What were your overall thoughts of that match?
My initial thoughts watching that match, Pitt came out unconscious.
They were outstanding.
And I looked at you and I was like, if this continues, this is going to be very quick
work.
Bloodbath.
It did not continue.
I would say Pitt was unconscious for a set and a half.
Then they became human.
They gave up a huge lead in the second.
Had a massive lead at the end of set three.
I think they were up like 23, 19, gave it away, could not close it.
And the rest is history.
I thought Olivia Babcock played very well.
The wheels fell off starting with their setter, Rachel Fairbanks.
I thought she made questionable choices when it mattered.
And I think her execution, set location, whatever was not as good as it had to be.
And I was very surprised.
I would agree with you that things started with Fairbanks, but I'm going to go back a
little bit further.
I think her set selection was affected from the first set when Babcock was unconscious.
Well, so was Stafford though.
Fair enough.
But Babcock scored nine points, had nine kills in that first set.
She was unstoppable.
And I think the problem for me watching it was she just thought or wanted to feed the
hot player in Babcock and Stafford.
And she didn't get her middles going.
And that continued.
Bree Kelly is an important part of that offense.
And she only got 16 sets the whole game.
And for me watching that, I don't know whether it was game plan, whether it was discussed,
but she went to those two hitters, Stafford and Babcock too often.
She didn't mix it up.
And Louisville being a great blocking team started to get a rhythm, started to find the
block and started to be able to slow them down after that first set.
And she needed to establish the middle of the court more.
I can't disagree with that.
I mean, when I look at what happened from 2319 in the third until the end of the set,
it was just like Babcock over and over and over and over again.
Like you are right in that.
And I think she should have gone to somebody else.
I mean, Babcock scored her points, but made some errors, got blocked a few times.
I think, but that comes back to the decision making for me.
I think there were opportunities in that run and I know I'm fixating on one run, but there
were opportunities in that run to run the middle and she didn't until it was too late.
Even in the set two, they were up what like 16-12 and then Louisville came back as well.
That was more hitting errors, wasn't it?
Correct.
So I don't know.
You just, I understand how it feels to be ranked at the top all year and then to all
of a sudden like come up against a team that is pushing you and in the biggest moment and
not rising to the occasion, I would say three out of my four years at Nebraska that happened.
So I get it.
And it just like broke my heart to see it because to put that kind of body of work together
that they did all year to have it end like that, it was, it was, I was sad watching it.
I thought, you know, Tori Stafford played very well defensively, particularly when they
had her playing in position one running Babcock on the pipe.
I can't say that pit just like threw the match away because that's doing Louisville a disservice.
I think Louisville ran their middle more often than we have seen and successfully.
I think PK Kong was very good.
I think Cressy scored very well.
And we said coming into the final four, they're going to have to establish their middles.
They're going to have to get them going.
And it really helped kind of balance the load.
I was very impressed with Maldonado Diaz.
I think she had picked up her performance significantly, especially during the tournament.
Louisville showed up.
If pit is playing the way they did in that first set, there's nothing anybody can do.
Quite frankly.
It's unbelievable how on they were.
But to Louisville's credit, they didn't roll over.
Even when that momentum continued for pit in set two, they found a way to push back
and they played well.
To me, that was the most impressive thing.
And I couldn't tell.
I think it was a combination.
I think maybe there were a little bit of nerves there for Louisville being at home with the
crowd and not even bad nerves, just excited, not settling into the match.
And then pit came out guns blazing.
It would have been really easy for them to unravel or get frazzled in that situation.
And again, started down big in the second set, found a way to push back.
I was impressed specifically with Cressy and De Beer from a leadership standpoint.
They each made plays.
They settled things down.
You could see them really leading the team through the little things.
I thought Cressy did a great job of getting off the net and being available for attacks
to kind of opening up the outside attacks for the other Louisville hitters.
She to me was the reason that they won.
And the other players played well.
Don't get me wrong there.
Outside hitters did well.
PK was good.
De Beers obviously clutch and did great things.
Looper was good.
But Cressy is kind of the linchpin there that opens everything up in my opinion when she's
on and she's an amazing blocker.
Like Louisville out blocked Pitt 12 to 4.
And Louisville's blocking got better as the match went on.
As they realized that Pitt was not using their middle and they were only setting two hitters,
they made life difficult for Torrey and for Babcock.
And I thought that was a huge difference in the match.
And also the serving pressure.
They had eight aces to Pitt's two.
And specifically from the service line to me, it looked like Pitt was just trying to
get the ball in and not lose or not be aggressive.
And Louisville was going after their serves.
And you could see that mindset shift throughout the match of Pitt not wanting to lose the
momentum and the way they were playing and being a little more safe.
And Louisville kept pushing and pushing and pushing.
I think you saw the pushing from a service pressure standpoint, particularly in set four.
They absolutely dismantled Pitt's serve receive.
I mean, obviously you're gaining confidence coming back from down 23-19 and winning that
set.
So obviously you have gained confidence, but you could just see that that kind of like
helped them add a little more from the service line and Pitt could not handle it.
They just completely fell apart.
People after that set three win just dismantled them, I thought, in set four.
Well, it's interesting.
The thing I noticed from Vasquez Gomez, who they served a whole bunch, was she stopped
moving her feet.
She got really squatty in her pass where she would just kind of drop and try and get her
body in the right angle instead of moving her hip out of the way or attacking the pass.
She was waiting for the ball to get on her.
And that's where it kind of broke down from what I saw for her specifically.
Well, and you just saw the communication decrease for Pitt and increase for Louisville.
And I mean, it's typical, particularly from younger athletes.
I understand that these are women there, but they are younger in the grand scheme of things.
And you know, the momentum and the ebbs and flows of the match, you could see it affect
the communication levels, the way the body language, et cetera.
It came about, the pressure showed itself in different ways.
I do want to give a shout out to Danny Busboom Kelly for completely vacating the system that
they have run all season when their backs were against the wall and going into a 5-1.
That is ballsy.
The system that got you to the final four, the system that helped you be successful all
season, the system that you thought was the best option for your team when the chips were
down in the most important match of the season, she flipped the script and it paid off.
This will come up again in the Nebraska Penn State game, but I have such an appreciation
for a coach who is willing to make changes.
You don't see it too often among the top, top teams, especially at that point in the
season.
But I have a lot of respect that she was willing to go for it and shout out to Cabello, a true
freshman setter.
I didn't see her crack.
I think that's a great point.
And it was something I was thinking about from pit side as I was watching them.
You could see the demons sinking in, in the third and fourth set where they started to
think about, man, are we going to lose another semifinal?
Because it has happened, I believe this was the fourth time.
They needed to adjust something.
They needed to just say, hey, run the middle no matter what, or sub one player out, let
somebody relax.
The whole team almost looked shell shocked that it wasn't working.
And the crazy thing is if you look at the numbers, if you take pits, three outside hitters,
they hit 325 on the match.
They played well enough to win.
And that's compared to Louisville's outside hitters hitting 270.
Which also wasn't bad.
No, it's not bad.
They played well enough to win, but the thing for me was Louisville found the little pieces
of the game where they could gain an advantage, whether it was on the serving, whether it
was on the block, whether it was making plays down the stretch, making adjustments.
That to me was a team win.
Staff players included, they kept going.
And it was surprising because I think pitch should have won that game.
You got to tip your cap to a team that's willing to make adjustments and take risks to win.
It was a very entertaining match.
I felt my heart kind of sink when Anna DeBeer went down in set four.
They showed her parents and her dad was crying.
And I think I started crying seeing that.
I cannot imagine being in that position as a senior.
You're playing in your hometown.
It's the end of your career.
And that happens.
My heart broke for her.
You never, you never want to see that.
She has worked so hard and obviously we don't know her.
But all of the players have worked so hard, but it's like the, yeah.
But you can see that she's the rock and the leader and everybody looks up to her.
And to lose that player for the team, I think is, is really hard.
But I was incredibly impressed with the freshmen that came in for her.
Peyton Peterson.
Yeah.
Shout out for sure.
She did her job and allowed them to keep going.
And I honestly, I thought when that happened, that Pitt was going to be able to roll the
momentum back and win the match from there.
I said, I, I saw that happen and I saw her go off and go to the locker room.
And I thought this was what Pitt needed to have a reset and come back and win.
And to Louisville's credit, they hung in there and they kept going for their captain.
It was impressive to see.
I love to see teams dig deep like that when an injury like that happens, like you that
team sports are so beautiful in that sense.
And that like everybody just found something extra that they could give.
And Peyton Peterson, she didn't have time to think about it.
She didn't have time to think about how nervous she was, et cetera.
She came in, she served a couple of aces, she got several digs, she got the match winning
point, like excellent.
As a freshman, if you have to play on a stage that day, having no notice is the best option.
100% just like surprise.
The longer they have to think about it, the worse it becomes, I think.
And we'll talk about this in the final, but I thought that was going to really hurt them
because she had two days to think about it.
Yeah.
I think for me it was a well played match.
I mean, Pittsburgh's hitters were great.
Olivia Babcock played well enough for her team to win.
It was the little things around the ball, the blocking, the serving, the setting decisions
in my mind that made the difference in that match.
All right.
Let's move on to the second semifinal, Penn State versus Nebraska.
Hit me with your thoughts.
I'm not sure where to start because I think I could talk about this match for an hour.
To be transparent, we had to go back and watch it again because the first time we were just
so stunned and overwhelmed that we ended up watching it more as fans than as like critiquers.
I don't even know if that's a word.
I think analyst is what you're looking for.
Or that simple stuff.
So we did go back and watch it again.
For me, this match came down to two things.
One, we've talked all season about Nebraska not having a star on the outside who could
carry the team.
And I thought that in this match, that was incredibly evident.
You know, the outsides for Nebraska didn't play poorly, but they don't have somebody
on that team who can drive them to win other than Andy Jackson.
And that team won and lost with how effective she was and how much they could get her the
ball.
And at the end of the game, being sets three, four and five, they didn't get her the ball
and they didn't win.
And the second thing I will say, and we'll dive into all of this and I've got some interesting
stats for everybody out there.
I think they took their foot off the gas.
I think in the fourth set, they thought they were going to win.
You could see it on the coaching staff's face.
You could see it on the players face.
They were thinking about going to the national championship.
All the credit in the world to Penn State.
They never stopped coming no matter what.
And overarching of everything, that was the most impressive.
They never gave up.
Andy Jackson was dominant in sets one and two.
The best player in the gym.
And the results spoke for themselves.
Nebraska actually unbalanced their offense, kind of, for the first time all season.
And we're just feeding Jackson.
And I was like, you know what?
Finally.
Finally, you have got a hot hand and you are feeding it.
Thank you.
This is what you need to do.
11 kills, no errors in the first two sets.
She was unconscious and unstoppable.
She was unstoppable.
And as we have said, as we have spoken about Nebraska throughout the past few months, it
opened everything else up for the other hitters.
So people were able to kind of get going.
I thought in sets one and two, Penn State was tipping too much.
In particular, Jess Merzik.
I thought she was tipping too frequently to her.
And I said at the end of set two, if she's going to go down, she better go down swinging.
Well, she was hitting under a hundred in the first two sets.
Yes.
She was a non-factor in the match.
And to her credit, I don't think I saw her tip again in sets three, four, and five.
And I think she finished the match, what, at 300?
Correct.
She went from 094, I believe it was, at the end of set two and finished the match hitting
300.
That is how she got Penn State to this point.
She put her team on her back all season.
And when she was tipping in sets one and two, I was really upset because I'm like, we've
seen this story before at the end of big 10 play.
I had so much respect for her that she just completely was like, no, this is not how this
is ending.
And just took over.
She was unbelievable.
My advice to her, she starts her pro career is to have a two set warmup from here on out
because that girl gets better as the match goes on and she finishes matches playing her
best volleyball.
And I'm kind of joking, but I'm kind of not because you saw it in both matches, in this
one and in the final.
She didn't start super well, but man, when the game was on the line, as she kept going,
she was the best player by the end of the match.
Her and Andy Jackson flip flopped.
Yes.
And it's not by any fault of Andy Jackson.
To Penn State's credit, I think they started serving a lot better and you saw Nebraska's
passing fall apart a little and like fall apart in the sense of it wasn't nearly as
good as it usually is.
Falling apart passing wise for Nebraska is you should still be able to run the middle.
I thought it was more decision than passing to be honest.
Oh, you do?
Yeah.
I thought at the end of set four, the passing was terrible.
I think the little, the littles for Nebraska killed them down the stretch.
That might be a hot take.
Come at me.
I'm fine with that.
But you saw Lexi Rodriguez set her hitters very poorly.
I usually think that Lexi is a pretty good out of system setter.
She was trap setting her hitters when Bergen Riley was digging and then she tried to correct
it and they were way too far off.
So there's that, Choboy and Rodriguez got aced down the stretch in set four and I think
they were pulling the passes a little too far off.
Malk, who they rely on as their main serve scoring rotation looked like she saw a ghost.
Understandable.
She's a freshman.
You know, there were stretches in that four sets specifically.
I remember we talked about this where fine, maybe they couldn't run Andy behind, but they
had chances in the third set to run her more.
They could have run her more at the beginning of the four set.
They didn't pass horribly in the fifth set and they only set Andy Jackson twice.
It was a combination in my opinion.
There was some passing issues and they obviously weren't as in system, but you can force the
middle.
Andy Jackson is physical enough that you can get her the ball and she can run behind and
in front audible out and run a 30 run close.
She is so dynamic.
She should have been able to score and they needed to get her the ball.
But at the end of the day, I mean, I'm going to stand by what I'm saying.
Like with the transition setting, Nebraska digs a lot of balls.
A, I don't love how they defended Jess Merzik once she really got going.
And B, when they did get digs, I thought the out of system setting was not good enough
to be able to score.
And then when it was the hitters weren't going up and being really aggressive for me, Penn
State won the outside hitter battle.
They won the out of system battle.
They won the we're going down swinging battle.
Like they didn't give up.
They left it all on the court and I'm very curious what Nebraska's postgame chat in their
locker room was.
Well, you talk about that.
So here are some numbers for you in the third set.
We're going to go all positions left side and right side for these stats.
In the third set, Penn State's outside hitters generated 13 kills to Nebraska's eight.
In set four, it was 17 kills to seven.
And in set five, it was nine to seven, which is closer.
But the interesting thing for me as well is if we look at set four, Penn State only tipped
four balls as an outside core, Nebraska tipped eight.
And so to me, you could see the mindset of the hitters go from scoring points to not
making mistakes.
Those stats, I did them myself, but they don't include bad sets where they had to put them
over.
Those were decisions where you could have hit the ball and you chose to tip.
And that to me, Penn State's ability to score points from the pins made a huge difference,
especially when Nebraska stopped running their middle.
Nebraska's up 24-22 in the fourth match point, two match points.
You get a perfect pass, Bergen-Riley, and you have Harper-Murray and Rebecca Alec in
the front row.
And you decide to set Rebecca Alec who tips the ball.
You tipped the ball on match point on a perfect pass.
I mean, need I say anything else?
First of all, what are you doing even setting her?
Set Harper-Murray.
Okay.
And secondly, this is why Penn State won.
Because they hit the ball, because they took big rips, because they were being risky.
They took those risks and it paid off.
You're telling me you think tipping a ball is going to win you a national championship,
is going to get you to the final?
It's not, clearly.
My hands are sweating even talking about it.
I mean, you can look at that play in isolation and I don't disagree with you, but at the
same time, you needed Beeson to factor in offensively as well.
Beeson?
Oh boy.
What happened to her?
In fairness to Beeson, she did most things well except hit, which as a right side is
your primary responsibility.
I thought she served well.
I thought she blocked all right.
She played defense.
All of the skills around attacking, she was fine.
But they needed her to score more points.
She only had eight points and hit 2-0-7 on that match.
And I'm sorry, when you don't have a stud attacker and you rely on scoring points as
a committee, you have to be able to pull your weight.
And she didn't.
And she hasn't all tournament.
This is one of the things we don't see anybody else from Nebraska play.
So I don't know who's on their bench, but put somebody else in through the front row.
Find the kid with the heaviest arm and go just go out and swing for three rotations.
Do something.
I don't understand why she played the whole time.
That is something that I was referring to when I made the statement of like, you need
to make a change sometimes.
And we saw it from Nebraska last year in the national championship match.
I'm sorry, Harper Murray got served off the court.
She should have been subbed out in that match last season.
Didn't happen.
Mara Beeson disappeared during the NCAA tournament.
Did not produce at all.
She should have been subbed out.
They should have tried something different, but they didn't.
They just stick with what they do.
And that is that.
Honestly, I was so shocked when landfare actually replaced Crowzee partway through the season.
I think it needed to happen.
But because of what we have seen from Nebraska, I was shocked that they actually made a change.
So here's an observation.
We watched a decent number of Nebraska games.
I think Nebraska is probably one of the most prepared teams for matches that they play,
but maybe one of the worst at deviating from their preparation.
Well, they haven't had to.
That's the thing.
I'm not saying you're wrong.
I am not saying you're wrong, but they have been able to get by on the game plans they
have.
If I was Nebraska, what would I have done?
I would have completely shut down the line on Jess Merzic and brought both defenders,
Rodriguez and the left side blocker off to dig the sharp angle.
Both of them load up the angle.
We saw Louisville do it against them and they actually got quite a few digs or bring the
ball, bring the block way into the angle and dig down the line.
They just kept setting up on the ball, the same that's taking away the seam over and
over and over again.
Because you need to make adjustments.
You need to try something new.
And they didn't.
But going back to Penn State, Jura Vicious picked some great times to have outstanding
matches.
She's going for it.
She knows her role.
Jess Merzic flipped the switch, went for it.
It paid off.
Cameron Hanna, fearless, made great plays.
You know, it was so good to see Penn State regroup and rally and just keep coming.
And you saw Nebraska start to think and they just kept pushing.
You know, I have a lot of respect for that.
It is tough to be down 2-0 and come back to win.
It is tough, especially on that stage.
And they believed.
I think the impressive thing for me was their game plan was to be aggressive.
You could see it in everything they did.
Their serving, they made a ton of mistakes.
I think they had 14 service errors, but they kept coming.
But down the stretch, those errors became aces.
And this to me was the difference in the game.
I don't know if I have all the numbers right off the top of my head, but I believe in the
second set as a team, they made 11 errors.
And they lost.
But when they settled down and came out in the third, fourth, and fifth, they played
the same way, but they settled into their style.
They found where the block was going to be.
They found a rhythm and they reduced those errors.
And I think it was 11 in the second, maybe two in the third.
They were flawless in the third.
They made more in the fourth set.
But then in the fifth set, again, I think they made one or two errors as a team.
And they found a rhythm and made some adjustments and Nebraska didn't match them in that regard.
Penn State played to win.
I thought Nebraska played to win the first two sets and then got a little tentative and
were afraid to push over the line.
And maybe that's set selection.
Maybe that's tight setting, serving.
I thought they, for me watching, to me, it looked like they thought they had it in the
bag personally.
Do I know that for a fact?
No.
They were very relaxed in that interview between sets two and three.
Well, to me, the first assistant.
Oh, Reyes?
Reyes' body language changed.
In the second set, he was jumping up and down.
He was like screaming louder than the players.
I'm sorry.
Fist pumping.
Like, let's be professional here.
That was weird.
But my point was he was excited.
He was in the match emotionally invested.
And that's fine.
Maybe that's your style, you know, you've played for some coaches who...
Rip their shirts off.
Yeah, I wasn't going to say that, but that's exactly what I was thinking of.
But the thing is, it's the same all the time.
And when your coach changes like that, and we talked about this with some other coaching
staffs in previous episodes.
Yeah, we have brought it up, so it's fair.
He all of the sudden was hunkered down on his feet underneath the side of the court,
and he looked nervous.
And I said it, and I'll say it again, these are young athletes.
They look to their coach, and I think Penn State is a great example of that.
I have an incredible amount of respect for her.
She showed up for her team day in and day out when she didn't have to, and nobody could
have blamed her.
And you know what?
When the chips were down, her athletes showed up for her.
She's just so calm on the sideline, she never changes.
Coach Cook doesn't change, he sits there, but...
I saw one fist bump.
So he's pretty consistent, but Reyes is the one that's moving the pieces around in match,
you can tell.
But Katie Schumacher-Colley, she is just there.
Her body language, it looks like her feedback doesn't change.
From sets one and two, where it wasn't pretty, to three, four, five, there was definitely
some more urgency, but it wasn't a drastic shift.
And that was an incredible match to watch.
Again, my heart broke for Nebraska because I have been there.
I get it, I understand it is the worst feeling in the world to be ranked that high all season
and not finish the job.
Kuda has off to Penn State, has off to Jess Merzuch.
Wow, that was something to behold.
Before we jump into the final match, the AVCA selection committee picked their All-Americans
this week as well.
Izzy Stark was named National Freshman of the Year.
Olivia Babcock, National Player of the Year.
Dan Fisher from Pitt, National Coach of the Year.
And Brian Rosen from Creighton was named the Assistant Coach of the Year.
What are your thoughts on those individual big time winners?
I honestly don't have any problems with any of those.
I think Izzy Stark, we've been fans of hers since we started.
I don't think she can get enough credit for being a freshman and having the composure
that she had in this tournament.
There were a few times where the camera panned to her in the middle of some of those matches
and she was white as a ghost.
There were two times specifically I saw her just take a deep breath in a tense moment,
exhale and you could see her talking to herself, you got this, you're going to do it.
And I think the composure that she showed, and she wasn't amazing all the time, she had
some setting issues in a few of those matches, but to bring it back and to lead that team
and have to touch the ball every single rally, outstanding, very well deserved.
I think she's going to be the Cammie Miner of the next four years.
Agreed.
I'm an Izzy Stark fan.
I would have been shocked if anybody else won freshman of the year and part of me still
thinks she should have been a first team All-American.
Granted the two setters that were picked, Cammie Miner and Rachel Fairbanks.
Okay, I can get behind that.
I can get behind those two being named first team over her, but if any other setter was
selected ahead of her, I would have called someone.
I'm just kidding.
Olivia Babcock was outstanding all year.
I mean for me, there wasn't even a consideration.
I think it was nice that Lexi Rodriguez got a nod.
I think she's had a great career.
I actually think she's incredibly important to that Nebraska team.
So maybe more so than the stats itself, which are impressive.
Her importance to a very good team can't be argued.
And so I was fine with her being on the list, but Olivia Babcock does everything.
She hits, she serves, she blocks, she gets set a thousand times and she keeps coming.
She's impressive.
I would have lost it.
If anybody won player of the year other than her, honestly, you know, people know that
she's getting the ball.
They know it's coming and they still can't stop her blocking wise, attacking, serving.
She obviously has some up and downs with her serve, but for the most part, the numbers
that she puts up night in and night out and nobody can stop her.
And she's hitting her hitting percentage is so impressive as well.
Like the thing for me is like, how do you not win conference player of the year and
then win national player of the year?
That's that is the thing for me.
Franklin was named big 10 player of the year.
You would think like it just something doesn't compute for me.
I think there's a little bit of politicking going on in some of these selections and yeah,
I know you hate that, but that's it is what it is.
Well, the majority of your work throughout the season is done in conference play.
So if you're not going to be named conference player of the year, what makes you the best?
If you're not the quote unquote best player in your conference, what makes you the best
player in the country?
That's my question.
The other thing I was kind of confused about is Brooklyn delay from Kentucky was not on
the semi finalist list.
And then she popped up on the finalist list.
And I was like, if you're not making enough of an impact for the committee to notice you
to name you one of 14, how all of a sudden do you become that good in a few weeks to
jump to the finalist list?
Well, I've never seen anyone make the final without being in the semi final ever.
So that one is a little head scratcher.
That was a head scratcher for me as well.
100% Olivia Babcock, best player in the country.
I will die on that mountain.
Feel free to hit me up.
I think I think coach of the year is really hard to assess if you're not in the room day
in and day out.
I mean, all of these coaches work hard.
All of them are preparing.
All of them are anybody who was in the in the tournament for the round of 16, like all
of those coaches do an amazing job.
This season pit was fantastic.
Number one all year.
And I, I definitely don't have any issue with Dan Fisher winning this award from an outside
perspective.
It looks like his players love playing for him, which is not a prerequisite of being
a great coach, but it definitely helps.
And I definitely think when it's not a professional league, these kids can leave, they can transfer.
They can, they're managing so much in their lives in terms of school and sport.
I think enjoying your coach and wanting to play for them is a huge aspect of success
at this level.
And yeah, I think it's well deserved.
I think, you know, the first team all American list, it made sense to me.
Second, like, yeah, the list themselves, I can get behind.
We had two players who were four time all Americans, Lexi Rodriguez and Emma Grome,
the setter from Kentucky were the only two graduating players who had been an all American
four times.
So that was cool.
And Olivia Babcock is on her way to becoming a four time first team all Americans.
She was a first team or last year, obviously this year.
So we'll see what happens there.
She'll be joining you on that list.
Oh baby.
All right, the main event, the national championship final, Penn State versus Louisville, Penn
State won it in four.
What are your thoughts?
Well, I think there were a couple interesting storylines coming into this match.
I think one was, this was going to be the first time a female coach has won the NCAA
division one title, which I think is fantastic for the sport.
And both of those coaches are phenomenal, have built programs.
You know, I just want to say great job and so much respect for what they've done.
That was really cool to see.
And I can't believe that a woman head coach has taken this long.
It's crazy.
I know Mary Wise has been in many finals.
She's gotten close to the head coach for Florida, but I'm shocked that it has taken so long.
And you know, as a former teammate of Danny Busboom Kelly, like I'm, she's done great
things for that Louisville program.
And with everything, as we mentioned before, that Katie Schumacher Colley has been through
and then to see her overcome or fight through that and come out victorious in the end, it
is like, you couldn't write it any better.
Honestly, you could not.
So that is outstanding.
I think the other storyline for me coming in, which I thought was going to be a huge
factor on the match was, was the beer going to play?
You know, when we found out she wasn't going to play, they had to have known that Thursday
after the match or Friday morning after her ankle obviously didn't get better.
So my question immediately was, how was the little freshmen going to do?
You know, we discussed this in the semifinal match.
It's one thing to be thrown into the fire and to not have time to think and to go out
and she did great.
That's another thing to spend two days thinking about our captain, our leader is out and I
have to replace her and have a lot of time to freak yourself out.
I will say to her credit, I think she had a great match.
They weren't going to be able to rely on her to score points.
However, she did not break under the service pressure.
She served incredibly well.
She was not a liability on the block.
And I thought defensively she was very good.
I don't think from Louisville's perspective, they could have asked for anything more out
of her.
I agree.
I think and when you have an athlete in that position, I mean, I'm no expert.
I don't know.
But when you have an athlete in that position, I feel like all you can do as her coaching
staff and as her teammates is just do everything you can to build her up and give her confidence.
Everybody including her knows that she is not going to be a one for one replacement
for Anna DeBeer.
A hundred percent.
She's aware.
Everybody's aware.
All you can do is make the kid feel as comfortable as possible, give her the information that
she needs to be effective and just encourage.
And I thought she definitely had trouble scoring, but everything else she did not break.
Her passing was very good.
She dug a lot of balls.
She got like several aces that what more can you ask from her?
The thing that was disappointing, however, was that they barely ran the middle to make
up for it.
This, this in my opinion was the main thing that cost them the match.
You're losing four kills a set.
You know that Charity Looper and Maldonado Diaz are going to have to score.
So like, let's help them out here.
Let's get the middle going.
Let's use the middle as often as possible in particular, Cressy who scores very well.
PK also has had a pretty good tournament.
Like I was, they set Cressy the first ball and I was like, okay, yes, they're going to
do it.
They did not do it.
Well, I'm going to interrupt you and just give everybody some context for this.
All of the middles on Louisville only got 24 attempts all match and only had six kills
as a group.
24 like all together, all together, all middles, 24 attempts and six kills.
Compare that to Penn State's middles that had 29 attempts and 14 kills and Penn State's
middles are not what they're known for.
No, I would say that Penn State runs their middle less than, than most.
And I've said that about them all season.
They don't run the middle enough.
They almost tripled.
They two and a half times the scoring production of the Louisville middle.
And that to me was the difference.
Big picture in the match.
Kara Cressy, as soon as the beer was out, needed to be an offensive force for them and
they needed to get her a ton of balls and PK as well.
But for me, more Cressy and it didn't happen.
And I, for the life of me cannot figure out why.
Again, Louisville switched to a five one again in, in set two.
Which I thought was really smart because it allowed Cressy to hit the slide, which she's
very good at, but they didn't use it.
Cabello is a freshman.
I'm not making that excuse for her, but I want to be like, you, if she lost track of
it or was not being mindful of that, like as a staff, you need to like let her know,
like let's pump the middle because they weren't passing that poorly.
No, they weren't.
They didn't start great.
I thought Elena Scott in the first set for me looked like she was trying to do too much
to fill in for the beer missing.
She got on a couple hitters way.
She took a set she should have taken.
She looked a little tight, but I thought after that first set, when she settled in, she was
very good for the rest of the match.
I thought she was good.
I thought Looper was good.
I thought Maldonado Diaz was good.
We talked about Peter said, like, I, I thought the players.
Played well.
The only player to me who kind of looked out to lunch was PK.
Yeah.
She did not have a good match.
There were taught like they took her out again, as we've been talking about PK was not performing.
They took her out.
Okay.
They put Sherman in, like those are the kind of adjustments that you need to make.
Like at this point, it's not about people's feelings.
It's about winning a national championship.
Okay.
It should never be about people's feelings, but maybe I'm a psycho.
I don't know.
There were times I think of set three, for example, Penn State rant or no set two, the
one that went 3432 Penn State ran out of subs.
Not only did they have Quinn Manger, their serving specialist come through the front
row playing middle.
They had Ava Ful Dudo, who is another DS playing through the front row.
I think their front row height was cut in half when that happened.
It was wild and at one point you had like Izzy Stark, a DS and Jess Merzik in the front
row and PK is commit jumping on Izzy Stark.
I'm sorry.
If that is your front row, you just move all of your hitters out to the left side and you
put a triple on Merzik and you go Izzy, if you want to dump, dump, we'll dig it.
But Merzik was one on one in that situation.
Are you kidding me?
Not once, but twice.
Are you kidding me?
Who's going to hit the ball?
The DS?
So obviously she was not very mindful.
She got subbed out because of it deserved in my opinion.
So she is the only player to me from Louisville side that I was like, hello.
But I mean, the Anna DeBeer hole was a big one to fill.
And I thought from a high level that they didn't do a good job replacing her leadership
and energy on the floor.
They were flat for a lot of that game.
And there was a lot of looking to other players and not that they weren't playing well and
not that people weren't taking responsibility.
But DeBeer was always the one who would get a kill and come down and fire up her team
and maybe not vocally, but just by her attitude and her presence on the court.
And that's nobody's fault because you can't just replace that in one match, but it has
an effect.
And it took them too long to kind of figure out who was going to step up because Luper
did that towards the end of the match and you could see her finding her rhythm and bringing
some of that energy.
But there was a definite hole on the court with DeBeer on the sideline.
I'll be honest when DeBeer went down, I said to Adam, I was like, if she is not able to
play on Sunday, whoever wins the Penn State Nebraska match is going to win it all.
You did say that.
And that is like, that's nothing against Louisville.
That is just like respect and acknowledgement of how important Anna DeBeer is to that Louisville
team.
Well, we would have said the same thing for Penn State if Merzik went down.
Oh, yes.
Totally.
It's the same comparison.
You know, I was impressed with Cabello.
I want to know when is the last time two true freshman setters went head to head in a national
championship match?
I don't think the broadcasters knew she was a true freshman because they said it every
time Izzy Stark touched the ball and not once when Cabello did.
It wasn't like Izzy Stark, the setter, it was like freshman setter Izzy Stark.
And I'm like, okay, we get it.
We know she's a freshman.
She's great.
But there's a freshman setter on the other team too.
And she's doing awesome.
She didn't blink.
No, didn't flinch.
She was very good.
When we were saying Izzy Stark looked like a ghost sometimes in this Final Four, I didn't
see that from Cabello at all.
I was very impressed with her composure.
And you lose your safety blanket in De Beer of somebody you can just set and expect to
score points.
That is not an easy position to be in.
You know, maybe that's one of the reasons they didn't run the middle as much.
Yeah, I thought she did a great job.
I will say one person, and I'm guilty of this myself, who doesn't get enough credit, in
my opinion, is Grimes.
She went up in the semifinals against a libero that made player of the year nomination in
Lexi Rodriguez and arguably one of the best liberos in the country.
First team All-American.
Yeah, exactly.
And Elena Scott.
And in my opinion, outplayed both of them in both matches.
It was phenomenal to watch.
And she's interesting because she doesn't really make spectacular plays.
There was one where she laid out and made a dig that was unreal.
But in general, you just don't notice her.
You don't notice her.
No offense.
You don't want to notice your libero.
Because then they're real bad.
I understand.
I understand that.
Elena Scott makes some outrageous digs.
One handed diving for the ball.
She's all over the court.
She's very noticeable.
She's jump setting.
But you notice Elena Scott on the court in a good way.
Grimes, you don't notice if you don't pay attention, but she quietly amasses digs and
passes well and covers the court.
It was fantastic to watch.
And I'm going to give her a shout out because she probably doesn't get any credit.
And I think she did a fantastic job this week.
I agree.
She set really well.
And she served very well.
In that run at the end of set four, she was the one who got those aces on Rodriguez and
Choboy.
Let's talk about Merzik.
You want me to start or do you want to start?
You can start.
I mean, there's not a whole lot you can say because she just decided that Penn State was
going to win.
And that was that.
And she got better as both matches went on.
I think the thing for me that was the most impressive.
So we saw her in Nebraska score on that sharp cross court swing uncontested to win the match.
Louisville was ready for that.
Elena Scott lined her up and made incredible digs, especially in the first and second sets
and took her favorite shot away from her.
The thing that impressed me the most about her was she said, OK, if that's going to happen,
I'm going to swing to six and I'm going to go off the hands and I'm going to find the
seams.
And she changed how she was attacking in that match based off the defense.
I don't know whether the staff gave her that information, whether she made that choice
herself.
But that won them the game.
She went after the block and she found a way to score when Elena Scott was eating her up
in the first two sets.
Whether the coaches told her to do that or not, efficiency at which she was able to find
those fingers was unbelievable.
And honestly, that won them set four against Nebraska.
She found the fingertips and just sailed those swings out of bounds so many times at the
end of set four against Nebraska.
And she did the same thing.
And we talked about this last week when they played Creighton, how Creighton didn't do
anything to reset the defense.
When your favorite shot is taken away, take those swings to reset the defense.
And she did that and she found a way to score anyway and then went back to the sharp angle
and was able to score that way, too.
Because Elena Scott, because they adjusted.
I will say I noticed more adjustments in this match than I think I have all season in terms
of how they were defending players, in terms of where they were serving, what the strategy
was.
To me, that was a high level, a high intelligence level of making adjustments and trying to
out battle your opponent in that way.
I was a little worried when Penn State gave up the 24 19 lead in set two.
I was like, oh dear, we saw this happen to Pitt.
Like, what's going to happen to their credit?
They ended up in the exact same position in set three and four.
It was 1913 in sets two, three and four.
Yeah, they didn't make the same mistake twice.
They took care of business in sets three and four, but I was a little nervous there for
a while.
I think the thing for me about Penn State was they never changed their approach in the
match.
It didn't always go their way, but it was always an aggressive, we're playing to win
mentality and that's not always easy to do.
And it paid off for them.
Merzik was outstanding, but she wasn't the only person performing.
Jura Vicious did well.
Cameron Hanna did really well.
Taylor Trammell was scoring.
Mendelsohn was more steady than we have seen her in the previous two matches.
We already mentioned Grimes, like Izzy Stark.
She definitely had moments when the games were getting tight where she, you can see
her get frustrated with herself.
You could see her be a little unsure, but she always righted herself and was able to
get back on track, which is tough when you're really young.
But I think top to bottom, Penn State showed up.
They were the better team and I just loved seeing them all rise to the occasion.
Like Jess Merzik, she is what she is.
She put the team on her back, but she wasn't alone.
Yeah, you generally can't win off one player, but everybody pulled their weight and it was
good to see.
So one hypothetical for you.
You don't have to spend a lot of time on it, but I'm curious.
What do you think the match would have been like if De Beer was playing?
I think it would have been a lot closer.
I mean, she does every skill for Louisville.
I mean, I can't predict because everybody showed up for Penn State too.
Like Anna De Beer is a good blocker, so there's that piece that's added.
She scores points for Louisville at a higher clip than Peterson did.
I think it would have been a much more tight match than it was.
I think Penn State still would have won though.
Fair enough.
I think for Louisville to win, they needed to dominate the middle.
And I'm not sure if that changes if De Beer is there or not.
But to me going into that match, that was the key for Louisville.
Well, Penn State was winning the blocking stat heading into set four, I believe.
I don't know what it ended up as, but Penn State was out blocking Louisville throughout
that match, which I found interesting.
So that was definitely true.
The match ended with Louisville having 12 and Penn State having 11.
Oh, never mind.
Well, Louisville got a bunch of blocks in the four set, but they were ahead.
And that is a staple of Louisville's game, which was a little surprising to see them
not do that as well.
I cried at the end.
I think you might have too.
I'm not going to lie.
You know, that is the beauty of sport.
Like I said at the beginning of the segment, it couldn't have been written any better,
you know, to understand the sacrifice that Katie Schumacher Collie has made all season,
the fact that she continued to show up and like be professional and be there for her
team, but also that her team was there for her.
You could make a movie about it, honestly.
It was a great story and it was a good ending to the season.
And you're happy for everybody in that program and surrounded with that.
And at the same time, you know, a little disappointed for Louisville and Anna.
Congrats to Penn State, our 2024 NCAA Women's Volleyball Champions, their first title since
2014.
And they're within striking distance of Stanford for total national championship victories.
They now have eight.
Stanford is first with nine.
So yeah.
They'll be interesting next year.
They're going to roll over quite a few players.
So it'll be interesting to see who ends up there, how they do, well, if they're competitive.
But it was a great college season.
I really enjoyed it.
It is holiday season and there is minimal volleyball being played this week aside from
the pro leagues overseas.
So next week is going to be a little more fun, a little more laid back.
We're not going to do deep dives on matches, but we will be answering several listener
questions.
We've answered several in the last couple of weeks, so we're going to address those.
But if you have something that you want us to talk about, be sure to get your questions
into us by email, by Instagram or on YouTube.
For those of you who watch the video version of the of the show, we are also going to be
exploring the transfer portal.
I have very strong opinions about the portal, but there is some crazy stuff happening.
So next week is going to be very fun as we get ready for the NCAA men's season, PVF,
and the launch of love in the new year.
That concludes this week's episode of Volley Talk.
There's always something shaking in the volleyball world and we hope you enjoyed this little
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Thanks so much for joining us and we'll be back next week.
Happy Holidays everyone.