Nebraska's Slow Starts

The Lincoln Journal Star notes in this piece that Nebraska lately "has gotten off to slow starts, losing the first set in seven of its last nine matches. While Nebraska is 7-2 in those matches, it's something the Huskers hope to get a better handle on before the NCAA Tournament begins next week." (Thanks to "Red in Colorado" for posting the link on VolleyTalk.)

To probe the matter further, I created the following table based on Nebraska's schedule/results page, showing the Cornhuskers' opponents and lost sets/games (in yellow) in the matches alluded to above.

Opponent	Game 1	Game 2	Game 3	Game 4	Game 5
Illinois	24-26	25-18	25-19	25-11	---
@Ohio St.	19-25	25-22	25-19	25-17	---
@Penn St.	17-25	15-25	25-17	17-25	---
Michigan	17-25	26-24	25-20	25-21	---
Mich. St.	25-11	25-18	25-23	---	---
@Indiana	25-19	25-19	25-20	---	---
@Purdue	19-25	19-25	16-25	---	---
Minnesota	17-25	25-18	25-15	25-16	---
Wisconsin	12-25	25-17	25-13	25-22	---

HTML Tables

Here are a few things to note:

• Most of Nebraska's Game-1 losses during this stretch were pretty decisive; in six of them, Nebraska didn't even get 20 points.
• After five of the Game-1 losses, Nebraska bounced back to sweep the next three sets and take the match.
• The two times the Huskers failed to turn things around after losing the opening set were both on the road and against very tough opponents -- Penn State and Purdue.

UPDATE: Tonight the Huskers beat Iowa -- without losing the first game or any game for that matter -- to win the Big 10 championship.