NBC Olympic Announcers Sunderland and Barnett Informative on Strategy and Stats

NBC's late-night Tuesday/early-morning Wednesday Olympic coverage featured a women's (indoor) volleyball match between the U.S. and Venezuela, ultimately won 3-1 by the Americans. Thus far, I've found announcers Paul Sunderland (a member of the 1984 U.S. men's gold-medal team) and Kevin Barnett (an Olympian of more recent vintage) to be informative on strategy and statistics.

As Game 4 got underway, Barnett (I believe, rather than Sunderland) asserted that U.S. blocking (7 in Game 3 alone) and Venezuela's poor serving (1 ace compared to 12 errors, through three games) were the "dictating statistics of this match." According to the final box score, the Americans indeed outperformed the Venezuelans in blocking, 16 to 6. Jen Joines, who entered the match in a substitute role for the U.S., was singled out for accolades by the announcers.

The announcers also stressed the importance of playing "in system." By this, they mean consisent, quality passing to the setter, so that she can have the maximum possible options in deciding which hitter to set. U.S. passing difficulties, both on serve reception and on free balls, were described as the "single greatest thing that's going to hold this team back in this tournament," again according (as best I could tell) to Barnett.