A long day of volleyball is over and we have our Final Four teams for next week: Louisville, Texas, Pittsburgh, and San Diego. For the first time since the NCAA began overseeing the women's volleyball championship in 1981, there will not be any team from the Big 10 or Pac 12 in the Final Four (historical list of teams).
Three of Saturday's four matches -- Oregon-Louisville, Pitt-Wisconsin, and USD-Stanford -- went to five games. One thing that stood out to me is how the Pitt-Wisconsin match appeared to be uniquely arduous in terms of the number of spike attempts compared to the two other five-game contests. Between them, the Panthers and Badgers took 402 swings (Pitt 203, Wisconsin 199), well above the number in the Oregon-Louisville (304; 152 each) and San Diego-Stanford (328; USD 166, Stanford 162) matches.
San Diego-Stanford: The Toreros and Cardinal have gone to five games... USD leading 8-6... Now 9-8 Toreros... Stanford ties it 9-9, but USD wins great rally to lead 10-9... Another exciting rally goes to San Diego for 11-9 lead... 12-9 Toreros on stuff block... USD closes it out 15-9, winning the final six points (from when it was 9-9) to advance to the Final Four... San Diego was very steady in its game-to-game hitting percentages. With the exception of Game 3 in which it hit .143, USD was right around the .300 mark in every game (.303 in Game 1, .371 in Game 2, .304 in Game 4, and .294 in Game 5). Stanford, on the other hand, was up and down: .394, .219, .333, and .217 in Games 1-4, before hitting .000 in the fifth (3 kills and 3 errors on 18 attempts). Granted, fifth games are only up to 15 points instead of 25 in the other games, but the Cardinal's 3 kills in Game 5 were well below their kill totals of the first four games (16, 13, 14, and 17).
Pittsburgh-Wisconsin: Panthers with an early 3-1 lead in the opening game... Pitt with back-to-back stuff blocks for a 6-3 lead... Badger hitting error makes it 7-3 Panthers... Wisconsin on 5-1 run to close from down 18-11 to within 19-16. Last five Badger kills from five different players (Smrek, Orzol, Crawford, Franklin, and Robinson)... Pitt attack error makes it 19-17... and another makes it 19-18... Last call overturned and Panthers' Serena Gray awarded a kill, 20-17... Courtney Buzzerio follows with another Pitt kill, making it 21-17 Panthers... Now 22-18... Reversal says last Pitt attack was not good, 21-18 Panthers... UW wins next five consecutive points (6-0 run in all) to take 23-21 lead.. Pitt ties 23-all, but two Wisconsin kills close out game 25-23... Badgers hit .163 (15-7-49) in Game 1 with 4 blocks (8 joint/assisted credits in the stats divided by 2), whereas Pitt hits .059 (11-8-51) with 3 blocks (6 joint/assisted)... Roughly 50 swings for each team in one game (shown in red above) is amazing... In today's first match, Louisville and Oregon each took 152 in a five-gamer (see below)...
Panthers trying to hang on in Game 2, their 22-15 lead having been cut to 22-18... Last call (a Devyn Robinson kill) now reversed into a hitting error, Pitt now up 23-17... Badgers respond with two straight kills to close within 23-19... Pitt takes Game 2, 25-21...
The teams split Games 3 and 4, the Panthers taking the former 25-21 and the Badgers taking the latter 25-19 to force a fifth game... With the exception of Game 4, Pitt has held late leads in all of the games, with Wisconsin mounting late runs either to overtake the Panthers (Game 1) or to at least make it closer (Game 2). Game 5 followed this storyline, with Pitt going up 11-6 but Wisconsin reeling off six straight points to lead 12-11 (all six points on kills, four by Julia Orzol). The teams trade the next two points, leaving UW up 13-12, but the Panthers take the last three points (all on kills, two by Courtney Buzzerio) to win the match and advance (play-by-play sheet).
Pitt ended up taking 203 total swings (with 67 kills and 23 errors for a .217 hitting percentage), whereas Wisconsin took 199 swings (with 74 kills and 21 errors for a .266 hitting percentage)... The Panthers, in part at least, made up for their hitting disadvantage by outserving the Badgers: Pitt amassed 8 aces with only 4 errors, whereas Wisconsin had 4 aces and 9 errors...
Ohio State-Texas: Longhorns looking to go up two games to one, leading 19-9 in the third. Previous game scores were 25-18 Texas in Game 1 and 25-21 Buckeyes in Game 2... The Horns' Logan Eggleston, featured in this ESPN.com article, thus far hitting .429 (12-3-21) on the evening... UT finishes off Game 3 25-13...
Ohio State not going away easily, as Buckeyes trail only 23-21 late in Game 4... Now 24-21 and match point on Eggleston kill... Another Eggleston kill closes out the game and match, 25-21... Eggleston finishes with .341 hitting percentage on the night (20-5-44). Among Buckeyes with 20 or more swings on the night, the hitting percentage leader is Emily Londot (.216, 14-6-37)...
Oregon-Louisville: The Ducks (No. 10 national seed and No. 8 in my Conference-Adjusted Combined Offensive-Defensive metric) are off to a fast start in Game 1, leading the Cardinals (No 2 national seed, No. 3 CACOD) 13-8... Oregon, whose .298 regular-season hitting percentage was second only to Texas (.337) among the top 16 national seeds, is currently hitting .500 (13 kills and 3 errors) on its first 20 spike attempts vs. Louisville... Match has tightened up, UO leading 17-16... Tied at 20-20... Cards up 23-22, in good part based on five Duck service errors... Louisville takes the first game 25-23 on -- what else? -- an Oregon service error (No. 6)... Ducks (.344, 17-6-32) outhit Cards (.280, 10-3-25), but still lose...
Game 2 also tight, with Cards leading 16-14... Ducks on the verge of tying the match, leading 24-22... UO prevails 25-23... Oregon follows up with 25-13 blowout in Game 3. When one team hits unbelievably well in a game -- Oregon, at a .500 clip (15-2-26) -- and the other team registers as many hitting errors as kills -- Louisville, with a .000 hitting percentage (7-7-27) -- a rout is the likely result and that is what we saw in Game 3...
The teams are mainly trading points at the start of Game 4, UL now up 10-8... Anna DeBeer pacing Cards with four kills and a joint block in this game... A DeBeer hitting error and kill by Oregon's Morgan Lewis tie the game 11-11... Still very close in this game -- a DeBeer kill ties it 16-all... 20-18 Louisville, as Aiko Jones contributes a kill and a solo block for the last two Cardinal points... Three straight Brooke Nuneviller kills put the Ducks ahead 21-20... DeBeer with a kill to tie it 21-21... Oregon now closing in on a victory, as Lewis kill and DeBeer error make it 23-21 UO... Duck service error (team's 13th) cuts lead to 23-22... Claire Chaussee kill for Louisville ties it 23-all... Mimi Colyer kill takes UO to match point at 24-23... Colyer error ties it right back up 24-24... Chaussee again to put Cards up 25-24... Lewis ties it 25-all, but Chaussee yet again for a 26-25 UL lead... Colyer stuffed to give Cardinals a 27-25 win and send the match to a fifth game...
Through four games (cumulatively):
- Louisville 7 aces (5 by Elena Scott) and 11 service errors; Oregon 3 aces and 13 errors
- Louisville 9 blocks (5 solo and 8 joint/assisted); Oregon 6 (0 solo and 12 joint/assisted).
Game 5 underway, score tied 2-2... Four straight Cardinal points (from down 2-3 to ahead 6-3)... 7-3 Louisville... Karson Bacon with a kill to end the Oregon drought, 7-4 Cards... Ducks cut their deficit to 7-5 but then commit their 14th service error, 8-5 UL... Two more Cardinal points (including DeBeer kill) make it 10-5 (8-2 run by UL)... DeBeer kill extends Cardinal lead to 11-5 and current run to 9-2... Another DeBeer kills makes it 12-5 (10-2 run)... Yet another DeBeer kill makes it 13-5 (11-2 run)... DeBeer misses on spike attempt, 13-6 UL... Oregon attack error give Louisville eight match points at 14-6... Jones kill closes it out, 15-6, Cards to the Final Four... Cards record their best single-game hitting percentage of the match in Game 5 at .350 (9-2-20), with Ducks' hitting going into negative territory (more errors than kills) at -.095 (3-5-21)... The following graph shows the teams' game-by-game hitting percentages...
For the match overall, Oregon outhit Louisville .250 (64-26-152) to .217 (56-23-152). Both teams hit well short of their cumulative regular-season hitting percentage (Oregon .298, Louisville .289). The Cardinals allowed their regular-season opponents to hit only .148 and thus allowed the Ducks to hit more than .100 higher in this match. Oregon allowed its regular-season opponents to hit .207 and kept Louisville to around that level (.217). If one were looking only at hitting percentages, one would think Oregon won the match! Also, in Games 1, 2, and 4, the teams were pretty even in hitting percentage, so other factors such as serving likely played a role...
