Oklahoma VB Team travels to Kansas for Sat Match- OU upsets KU!

[OUBeliever56A]

The Oklahoma Sooner Women's Volleyball team has played a tough Big 12 Schedule so far. The Sooners have played the top 4 of 5 team in their first 6 matches. The record of those four Big 12 teams in the conference is 20-4 in sets played. I think that today is the day that the Sooners pickup their first conference win on 2023 and start the process of preparing for the 2024 season with their late season progression. Here is why.

The Jayhawks are 3-3 in the Big 12 conference play and 12-4 overall. While Kansas was ranked earlier this week in the AVCA rankings as the 16th best team in the country,, I just do not see it. They have not played many good teams and two of their 4 losses have been to Purdue and Texas Tech. The other two were to Texas by the sets scores of 1-3 and 0-3. The record of their three teams they have played in the Big 12 is 9-8 and only 3-8 if Texas is removed from the formula. Kansas also is not that long of a team at the net. I think Oklahoma may actually have the size advantage today against Kansas. That is never a bad thing. Some points are just won at the net by size alone.

If you look at the stats, the two teams, OU and Kansas are very close. Here are some stats.
OU - 13.39 Kills / Set = Kansas - 13.84
OU - Kill Errors per Set - 5.48 = Kansas - 4.69
OU - Kills For vs Kills Against - 1.87 = Kansas - 1.87
OU - Blocks per Set - 2.28 = Kansas - 2.18
OU - Block Errors / Set - 0.57 = Kansas - 0.29
OU - Points at the Net / Set - 15.67 = Kansas - 16.02
OU - Errors at the Net / Set - 6.05 = Kansas - 4.98
OU - Service Aces / Set - 1.52 = Kansas - 1.16
OU - Service Errors / Set - 3.39 = Kansas - 3.00
OU - Digs / Set - 11.48 = Kansas - 16.19
OU - Receive Errors / Set - 1.80 = Kansas - 0.81

The offensive numbers with Kills, Aces and Blocks are virtually even. OU - 17.19 = Kansas - 17.18
But the Error numbers do favor Kansas. Total Errors per set, OU - 11.24 = Kansas - 8.79

What I believe will occur today is that the Sooners will be able to receive the Kansas serves with more efficiency today and will be 'in system' more which will produce better sets by Chamberlain after the first touch and that the Sooners have more strong Kill attempts and less errors on the attack at the net.

At the same time, I think (really it is a hope) that the Sooners will serve better in the clutch (beyond 18 points in the match) and make Kansas play the ball when receiving serve. With OU advantage in size, I think the Sooners will pick up additional blocks for extra points.

I also think that the Sooners with better options at the net from receiving serve or the ball on points, will reduce their errors and hit the ball into the floor more reducing the digs by Kansas.

I simply think the Sooners are due for a win in the Big 12 after the very tough 5 set loss to TCU on Wednesday. I expect Shelton, Preston and Burts to have big days with 55 points earned for them perhaps. Pfiffner and Carrington and maybe Ellison will add another 15 points also. I think the Sooners will serve better today as their work on upgrading their service game will pay off.

I think the Sooner can afford to have a 'big' (Shelton/Preston/Burts/Pfiffner/Ellison) on the back row today when Chamberlain is on the front line for those 3 rotations, that the 'big' can be used on back-row sets to add offensive variety for the Sooners. If the Sooners can keep Kemohah and one of Blagojevich/McNees/Thompson/Kaminski on the back row with one big on those 3 rotations, the Sooners can utilize that back-row set effectively and still receive the ball well.

Watch the service game today, and the first touch on defense for the Sooners. If the Sooners play well in those to phases of the game, the Sooners can return to Norman with their first Big 12 win of the year and of Coach Mansfield's staff at OU. Good luck to the Sooners today.

Boomer Sooner!

[OUBeliever56A]

Well, this title bombed - "Oklahoma VB Team travels to Kansas for Sat Match- OU upsets KU!". As Lee Corso said every week on Gameday, "Not so Fast!"

I guess I tried to "will" the Sooner Volleyball Team to an upset over Kansas and the good thoughts just never arrived at the OU Bus as it traveled north to Lawrence. I would have to say that I must have just seen the stats that I wanted to see and ignored the stats that were right there in front of me. That stat was those errors that OU commits. OU committed 28 errors in the 3-set match on Saturday while Kansas committed just 16. Those 12 points proved more or less the difference. Kansa won in 3 sets by the scores of 25-20, 25-12 and 25-18.

Another difference was the # of serves by each team and the side-out%. OU defended against 73 serves with a side-out% of .616% which is decent. But Kansas only defended 61 serves and had a side-out% of .770%.

In the first set, OU picked up a point to make the score 9-10 and bring OU to within 1-point at the 40% mark of the set. Immediately after that, Kansas ran off 4 straight points and opened a 5 point lead at 14-9. The Sooners never closed that gap more than one point the rest of the set as Kansas won 25-21. In the second set, Kansas opened a 3 or 4 point lead early and held that until OU closed the set to a 1-point match at 17-16 and 18-17 in favor of Kansas. Once again, Kansas ran off 4 straight points to lead 22-17. Kansas traded points with OU to win 25-21. In the 3rd set, OU led 10-8 after an OU service error. Kansas rallied a bit as the score was tied at 10-10, 11-11 and 12-12, Kansas once again ran off 5 straight point to lead 17-12 at that point. OU did not recover after that as the lead grew to 7 points at 21-14 and remained that way until the 25-18 win in the 3rd set to take the match.

Kansas was about 10% better than OU at the net in Hitting% with a .371% compared to OU's .260%. Kansas held about a 5% better Kill% with 48.5% compared to OU's 43.0%. Another interesting stat was that Kansas picked up 5 assists on plays with their setter, Turner, setting the ball (5 of 16) while OU did not pick up an assist unless it was Chamberlain setting the ball. OU was 0 for 16 on sets by other players. Another difference is that Kansas had 5 players with 6 or more digs, they had 34 of the 37 Digs for Kansas. OU had two players with more 6 digs. Kemohah hd 13 and Corral-Blagojevich had 6 for 19 of the 32 digs for OU. I think this means that the Jayhawks funnelled the ball into the hands of the back-row players by design around the block well. OU was not as successful in doing that. I did notice during the match that OU was not very effective at getting hand up in front of the Kansas hitters at the net. While OU did have 6 team block points, the Kansas hitters were not challenged well at the net most of the match.

I guess I understand better why Kansas is ranked after Saturday. I still do not think they can play with the leaders in the Big 12, but they did beat Oklahoma fairly easily on Saturday.

Oklahoma is now 0-7 in the Big 12 conference and sets at 6-10 overall. On a pr match basis, OU has played Big 12 teams with a 42-8 record in the conference in 7 matches. In their next 10 Big 12 matches the record of the teams is currently 29-39. The remaining schedule is much more favorable for the Sooners. Only Iowa State and Baylor are left on the schedule for a top 6 conference team to play. They have played the other 5 teams already. Probably only I-State will be a ranked team for OU to play. I think the second 'half' of the conference schedule will be a time where OU may be able to build some momentum and run off some wins.

Here is the Sooner staff wrtiers article about the day in Kansas.

https://soonersports.com/news/2023/10/1 ... s-in-three

Oklahoma hosts Kansas State (4-4 and 10-7 overall) on Thursday and Friday nights in McCasland Field House. Tulsa U comes to Norman to play on the the following Tuesday for a nice 3-game home stretch. Tulsa is 4-5 in their conference play and 11-9 overall. I am hoping that the Sooners can break their 8-match losing streak during that 3-game home stretch.

Boomer Sooner!