HookemTexas

I do agree with the sentiment that Vic needs to figure something out with regards to the portal yearly. The elite programs don’t lose key players, they lose the ones that don’t think can get playing time to get it elsewhere. Last few years, this one especially, have seen departures from key role players and starters.

True - Jordan and Maddie also do a lot of the other things that coach wants - hard nosed defense, running the offense (even though they couldn't hit the ocean), the threat is still there for them as scorers as well which opens it up for other players. I get the frustration as much as anyone else; just saying coaching is a lose/lose proposition unless you win. There's always someone second guessing your decisions. Also, in my opinion, with the portal departures, it was almost guaranteed that Texas would not be as good on paper afterwards until next season. Those were three highly ranked recruits and realistically, you're not going to sign higher ranked replacements (that's assuming they go in the portal and then assuming they'd want to join your school). I'm also disappointed in this year's offseason. UCLA managed to hang onto their upper classmen last year and added Kneepkins which made them a bona fide contender and ultimately won the title. Experience in the system and experience in the post-season are huge pluses.

There are questions on leaving Madi in going 3-23 because Texas lost. Texas wins with Madi hitting a key shot down the stretch and the conversation becomes "how did trusting your star player when she was struggling pay off in the win"? It's just like when a coach goes for a trick play in football, success and you're a hero, it fails and wtf were you thinking?

Because Atwood was on deck I think, the switch in the lineup helps Katie out a lot. Basically have to pick your poison.

Book should’ve recruited Hidalgo to transfer to Texas, those two on the court at the same time would be a terror on defenses.

Staley will rotates more players, essentially they will all get good playing time, but not crazy exhausting minutes like how Vic rotates. They will be fresh all season and even late because they won’t need to use up their legs. She can also ride the hot players and not leave in players who are clearly off.

Getting tape under Muschamp’s attacking defensive schemes surely would have helped their stock.

No news since portal closed, guess the pickups are probably done. Staley loaded up, lost no one, and probably is the team to beat along with UConn. Texas is a tier below them as it stands. Basically Staley could sub the entire staying five and still field a pretty elite squad thus negating any conditioning issues.

Altimeyer (sp) was a portal pickup, but she’s nothing like what Jolie Mitchell brought (who was also a portal pickup). Nichols had big shoes to fill replacing Scott and thus far hasn’t exactly been lighting it on fire from the plate. Defensively she’s been fairly solid outside of a few lapses. Pitching has been massively disappointing, to the point where I pretty much concede game 2 to the other team and hope Kavan can win 2/3 every weekend.

The hitting coach last year took a job as a head coach, this year’s coach came from ole miss I believe, they started off hot but have been in a massive slump the last few weeks. I dunno who ou’s hitting coach is but they are good.

This set up confuses me, is it double elimination or something? Texas beat UCLA in the quarterfinals but faces them again in the championship is weird to me.

Post is the weakness, Cunningham did not impress me much, she missed gimmes and was always late and had to foul. Hence Oldacre always closed games and played the majority of minutes - at least it seemed that way.

This is conference title though, not national tourney yet if I understand correctly.

You're right about momentum after winning it all. Coach Elliott for volleyball knocked on the door a ton of times before he finally won one in 2012. Then 10 years later wins back to back.

So Texas is included in the Big 10 conference for beach volleyball? There's limited information on the beach team.

Vic is still pulling in high level players. He's also got walk-ons (Graves) willing to be there for all four years, and Madi, and Rori. There are players that will be a fit and there are players that won't. I think Geno is very much the same way. Will Vic win it all? Don't know, hope he does, but I don't think he's at risk of having to adapt as you say. He's been to back to back final fours. Now if he fails to make the tourney and the team is terrible as well? Then I would agree he'd need to adapt. Everyone loses elite players once in a while - Olivia Miles left Notre Dame last year. Jordy Bahl left OU softball. Getting players to stay if a key component of elite teams, but it's not like they don't lose players as well.

Vic takes transfers, he's not like Dabo where he's refusing to use the portal and NIL. The discussion is on his coaching style.

Sorely missing Mia Scott and Jolie Mitchell's bat right now. Hopefully they pull out of the slump come WCWS because if they can't provide some runs, Kavan's going to have to put on another 0.00 ERA performance for a chance at the trophy again.

I have a friend who coaches tennis, he says he always asks new students - do you want to learn to win or do you want to have fun and look cool? Because those are two different things, I can teach you to win, but it will be boring and repetitious because you have to master the basics and execution, but you'll win a lot. I can teach you how to hit a down the line winner past your opponent, but you will most likely error more than you hit winners and lose. You have to decide what you want.

This is an important part of the equation that is true for both WBB as well as football and any other sport; each of the programs operates under a budget. I believe Vic's responsibility is also to sustain a highly competitive team year in and year out and in today's world that includes managing the NIL appropriately.

I would argue going from .45 to 5.56 would be upgrading more than reloading, way more powerful.

More like bringing a knife to a gun fight lol.

If Texas is supposed to be in the top 5-10 of NIL and WBB programs, there better not be any rebuilds at all and just reloads. That's terrible ROI if you're reloading with the money allegedly being tossed around.

Portal closes today so I'm guessing/hoping there's going to be some updates in the next couple of days.

Makes sense, they needed a comeback to beat Georgia and then lost to Georgia with the offense being pretty anemic. The pitching was not dominant either, and that's including Kavan getting run off in game 1. The good news is they have time to fix their issues, however a double bye for the SEC tournament might be out of the picture. Last year they showed that winning the SEC was not needed to win it all; hopefully they can do it again. WCWS is where they need to be locked in.