What's new
AllBuffs | Unofficial fan site for the University of Colorado at Boulder Athletics programs

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • Prime Time. Prime Time. Its a new era for Colorado football. Consider signing up for a club membership! For $20/year, you can get access to all the special features at Allbuffs, including club member only forums, dark mode, avatars and best of all no ads ! But seriously, please sign up so that we can pay the bills. No one earns money here, and we can use your $20 to keep this hellhole running. You can sign up for a club membership by navigating to your account in the upper right and clicking on "Account Upgrades". Make it happen!

Buffs Start Pac-12 Schedule Vs. Utah, At Oregon

Taylor with a nice kill down the line 8-7 and the teams will change sides
 
Nice dig for the Buffs and they follow with a block but it goes long 11-10
 
Another nice off speed shot by the Buffs and it's match point 14-12
Timeout Utah
 
Buffs almost blew this match but they fought hard and the most important thing was to get the win and are 1-0 in conference
 
Four Buffs with double-digit kills tonight: T. Simpson 23, G. Simpson 12, Cuff 11, Austin 11.
 
Good job, ladies!

Needed this one. Let's get this season turned around and make some noise in the Pac-12 to get back to the Dance.

9-4 (1-0)

:gobuffs:
 
Good job Buffs. I was holding my breath following the updates. Thanks cmgoods!!! Livestats were non-existent.
 
Nice win for the Buffs. I felt they kept their play up pretty well throughout the match- Utah just picked their game up a lot after the 1st two sets, although the Buffs were obviously still in the games they lost. (Well, maybe the defense may have gone down a little in the latter sets, but not drastically.)

A few random notes from an uninformed fan:
1) Setting- Interesting watching the 2 setter setup (6-2 I believe it's called). Never seen it used at CU before, but I guess makes sense when 2 of your best 3-5 players play that position. With the Buffs hitting .333 as a team, obviously a great job by the setters, along with of course the defense making usable passes and the hitters for “delivering the pain”.

2) Hitting- Again, hitting .333 is a great number- so good start there. (The Buffs in total hit .202 during conference play last year, finishing 8th in that stat. Stanford led the conference with .307). Everyone seemed to me to be hitting a lot harder than they had most of non-conference, so that was great. Taylor Simpson has definitely taken her skills to another level this year (all that extra national team training and Pac 12 China trip must have been fruitful!), and she's doing great. Good distribution tonight- with 5 hitters with 9 or more kills, and all the attackers hitting at least .210. Gabby Simpson was lowest at .214, which is still a respectable number, but from what I saw she had a few errors where she flew a few balls long early in the match, but then improved as the match went on (VERY understandable for a freshman).

2) Serving- Looks like the freshmen all have serves that might be able to pressure other teams, and the veterans looked like their serves have, in general, also improved. Overall, the Buffs had 5 aces and 10 service errors, the latter of which isn't bad for a 5 set match, especially since my perception, at least, is that EVERYONE on the team was being pretty aggressive with their serves. (I believe I read somewhere in Allbuffs that Sr. K. English might be a little injured but she, (and her tough serve- best by far for the Buffs last year) was able to come in for serving duty later in the match and contributed that way.)

3) Block- We weren't horrible on the block. Utah's usually one of the best in the Pac 12 at blocking- and we were only out blocked 13-9. However, I think we can improve that stat a lot as there were probably at least a half dozen block opportunities where the technique or quickness was just a little off so our blockers were at the point of attack but the ball was blocked down to the Buff's side of the court rather than back to the Utes side. (In other matches I've seen, that usually only seems to happen one or two times to a team at most.) This is probably understandable since the middles tonight are both so young, one being a freshman and the other a lightly used sophomore. And, the fact the blockers were at least in the right place means that we have the talent to be a very solid blocking team, it’s just a matter of continuing to work on the little things to get the block down on the right side of the court.

4) Serve receive/ Defense- Looking at the stats, the most impressive thing I see is only one service return error. That's an AWESOME number in any case, and is even more impressive since that was definitely one of the weak points last weekend when the Buffs got swept. Once the point was beyond the serve, the Buffs seemed pretty solid, with probably the main weak point that could have cost us the match being too many soft shots getting down. (Sounding like a broken record, I again would assume this should get better as the season goes on and the team, full of freshmen and sophomores playing crucial roles, gets more time to instinctively know how to work with each other.)

5) General-
It was awesome to see Alexis Austin play the whole match (in the front row only), and she seemed fine. I can also remember late in the match, Utah also targeted her a couple times with serves, and she handled both of those passes fine.

Nicole Edelman also seemed fine physically, and also seemed to be almost a 4th coach and helping keep the others players “up” (as a captain should) for the 3 rotations she was off the court while G. Simpson set. (I also remember just a gorgeous quick back set Ms. Edelman made across the court to G. Simpson that I might give "set of the match" honors to.)

I thought the 3 freshmen all played VERY solid in their 1st Pac 12 matches, so the future seems bright there. Also, kudos to sophomore K. Cuff, who hadn't played much last year or even early this year, who came in and "only" hit .556 with 11 kills, I assume replacing K. English while she heals. Awesome job! With her and Ms. Pfefferle, looks like one way or the other the middle position will hopefully be in good hands for the next three years.

Finally, hope all the "walking wounded" Buffs keep feeling better, and those not able to play can get back on the court soon.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Looking forward a couple days, the road only gets tougher of course, as the Buffs now go to visit the #13 Oregon Ducks Saturday. If they can use this Utah match’s efforts and accomplishments as a starting point, hopefully they can compete hard and smart, and if they do that will have a chance to get a (rare so far) conference road win. Oregon is undefeated, but have only one win against a team currently in the top 25 (#25 Hawaii in Hawaii). Oregon traditionally is known for having maybe the fastest offense in the Pac 12 (although they did lose their great setter L. Plum to graduation last year), so it will be fun to see how the Buffs do against the speed. Going through prior years’ results, it looks like the Ducks are one of four Pac 12 teams (along with Stanford, Cal and USC) that the Buffs haven't beaten since joining the conference, so hopefully they can get them off the list this Saturday.

Go Buffs!
 
Last edited:
I watched the match online until the soccer game that went to double OT ended. Then I got to watch it on television. The commentators said Utah really picked up their game after halftime, particularly the one player who hadn't played much in 1st two sets.

It was fun watching 4 players get double digit kill numbers for the night.

The freshmen are doing fine so far and are going to help the program improve. Tough schedule ahead though in the Pac 12.
 
I watched the match online until the soccer game that went to double OT ended. Then I got to watch it on television. The commentators said Utah really picked up their game after halftime, particularly the one player who hadn't played much in 1st two sets.

It was fun watching 4 players get double digit kill numbers for the night.

The freshmen are doing fine so far and are going to help the program improve. Tough schedule ahead though in the Pac 12.

I was really nervous about this one after the first 2 sets. It felt like the Northwestern match when we were a couple of points from a sweep only to lose the match. On the positive side, it was a good win and a good way to start conference play. Unfortunately, Utah is probably in the bottom 3rd of the conference in talent.
 
Back
Top