bierce

UH scheduled in 2023-24 the way I imagine we should. A three round exempt tournament, a true road game against a highly regarded P5 team, a neutral site game against another highly regarded P5 team, 7 games against Pomeroy 145-230, and just 2 games against teams over 230.

We can hope NMSU has a pulse this year, but that program may need a few years to recover from losing Jans.

For many years I have lobbied for noncon schedules to include games against some of the better non P5 teams in Texas, and maybe even scheduling 2 for 1s against the likes of SFA and Sam Houston State. Instead we get MVSU, APB, HCU, Chicago State, and other dreck. Abysmal.

Be hard to bottom the 2016-17 team which lost at home to Kent State and UT-Arlington on its way to a 6-7 non-conference record and just one non-conference win over a top 100 team.

Bill Walton level HORRRRRRRRRIBLE! We have games against teams that finished 362, 355, 342, 331, 325, 295, 290, and 289 in Pomeroy in 2024. That's ridiculous.

Weaver can jump to the moon. He might as well prove that he can shoot from there. Would put Bird and Jordan to shame in that game of Horse.

Elon Musk is a completely odious piece of s*** who took over Twitter not to guarantee free speech but to squelch views antithetical to his own. Just ask "White Dudes for Harris," an account X suspended.

I'll take that as a "No."

Does anything underscore the nature of the pretense of a scholarship athlete being a student than the recruit having to decide between Duke and Houston?

We lucked out a bit with the conference schedule because we get Alabama, Auburn, Kentucky, and Tennessee in Austin.

To hide the premature greying.

So you're saying once is not enough? We need double OT in most games? Sales of beer, blood pressure medicine, and hair color should skyrocket. And better have a lot more t-shirts ready for lucky fans to catch.

Weaver was deadly from the arc at UT-Arlington. Sample wasn't huge, but .379 on the season and .440 in conference are pretty good numbers. I'm still curious about the coaching staff's opinion about his perimeter shooting struggles last year. I saw some total bricks and I saw some good looking shots that went in and out, but mostly I saw him standing unguarded on the arc and not getting a pass. That couldn't be good for his mindset. So was it a confidence thing? Bigger, better opponents? Faster game? Nerves? Picked up a bad habit? Or just that he really isn't a good shooter and his teammates learned that from watching him in practice?

I mentioned Larry as a legit recruiting target on the same day the Indiana State coach left and everyone hit the portal. I'm so glad we got him. I'm not all that surprised that three Indiana State starters moved on to P5 programs while Avila (the hyped star) decided to stay away from a P5 conference (football P4 plus Big East). Kent and Larry came here. Conwell went to Xavier. Swope ( a sub 6 foot guard) joined Avila in St. Louis with the former coach. Avila had really impressive stat lines for the season and had a really good a/t ratio, but I always saw a guy that was kind of slow and would likely be exposed playing against a higher level of competition. He had great a/t numbers in the post-season and a really good game against Utah in the NIT semifinals, but otherwise he had very pedestrian numbers against P6 programs in 2023-24. Maybe those teams specifically designed their defenses to stop him, or maybe he's just kind of slow and lacking in athleticism. Or both.

The team toured Europe this summer, and appears to have gone 5-0-1 in exhibition matches with the results of a seventh match not given. The tie was 3-3 against the Hungarian National Team. https://www.si.com/college/texas/news/texas-volleyball-wraps-up-european-tour-ahead-of-24-25-season-01hz9pb54aad?utm_source=RSS This is the first I have heard about the tour. I'd love if anyone can provide more details on the matches.

If you haven't seen the spring match against Texas State from 2/29/24, it is available on youtube. Singletary and Ames show quite well in that match. We should be fine in the middle this year despite replacing O'Neal and Bergmark.

We are doomed to succumb to the pressure to schedule a non FBS team like every other SEC school, so the answer to one of the three is obvious for anyone who has listened to Wally Pryor in the stadium at any time over the last 100 years. Slippery Rock

OU is not much of a threat, but we do get Kentucky and Florida, our two top challengers for the conference title, on the road. That's not nice. But we won the title in 2023 by playing as a 2 seed in Palo Alto, beating 3 straight #1 seeds, and doing so while dropping just 2 sets and winning the points 260-205 in those three matches. And this year's team should be better than last year's team, the loss of O'Neal, Bergmark, Phillips, and Barnes notwithstanding. Tough schedule to be sure, but that means we will be well-seasoned for tough competition come NCAA tournament time. I don't think the NCAA will penalize us for having that tough of a schedule. And I hope everyone took my advice and watched some replays of the spring exhibition games. Ames is already a major contributor and will be a huge force before she is done here. Singletary is going to be an excellent middle blocker for us. Wenaas is stronger than she was until the Final Four, even taking swings from the back row, and Skinner looks like a good bet to go back to back POY. We have more weapons on the front line than we have ever had. Our last big left-handed hitter on the front line was, um, who again? Our front line depth is ridiculous. This doesn't guarantee anything. We've had some greatly talented teams in the past that were poor at handling a serve, but I like our chances this year very much, thank you.

Maybe, but Elliott's last team that failed to win the conference title made it to the NC match. Didn't win, but it got there. I won't be surprised if SEC has two 1 seeds in 2024 NCAA tournament.

OK, but reg season conference titles would be: Back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back (8-peat). Our last season without at least a tie for regular season conference title was 2016.

Well, if Nebraska spent the entire spring and summer learning how to return a serve . . . But if you are referring to the conference title, then sure, SEC is way more loaded than the Big 12 was.

Difficult maybe, but more difficult? I don't think so. Last year we had to replace our top hitter (Eggleston), SKT (our setter), and Fleck (our All-American libero). While O'Neal was nothing short of an absolute goddess at middle blocker and a serving demon to boot, Swindle now has another year of working with Skinner, Wenaas, Singletary, and our other returnees, and we have added an incredible amount of talent with Rutherford (a left-handed hitting opposite who brings a lot more power hitting than Phillips ever did), Ames (a terrific looking combination of middle blocker and opposite hitter), Lauenstein (a very good hitter for Nebraska who sat out last year), and Carlson (a setter who was the Big 12 Freshman of Year for Baylor in 2022). We're so deep that Kahahawai is still buried in the rotation. Singletary, Swindle, and Halter should all be a year better. Preseason #1 all the way. That doesn't guarantee even a final four appearance, but we look stronger going into this August than we did last year.

Not at all surprised to see unanimity from the opposing coaches about Texas being the team to beat.

Not surprised they are ranked ahead of us, and this is a very good roster, even if it is Calipari trying to out-tall everyone like he does nearly every year.

These projections show just how much people are asking when they state an opinion Terry only saves his job if Texas manages two of the three of finishing in the top four in the SEC, making the conference finals, or making the second weekend. ESPN has us at 22nd, looking up at 7 teams in the conference, and with Kentucky right on our heels at 23. CBS is kinder by projecting us 6th in the conference. Going to be a rough ride.