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!

Match thread - Volleyball faces So. Carolina in NCAA 1st round match-up (Friday, 11/30, 3:30 PM MT)

AztecBuff

Club Member
Club Member
Moderator
It's a rare meeting against a challenging SEC squad against "the other USC" (U. of South Carolina) to start up the Buffs' 2018 tournament. The winner will likely face (on Saturday) overall #2 seed Minnesota, who is hosting these 1st 2 rounds. Buffs had better bring the "A Game against" the Gamecocks, with the below preview indicating a special need (as usual) for a STRONG serve-receive needed by the Buffs in this one against one of the tougher serving teams.

Go Buffs!!!


Preview -


Direct link - https://cubuffs.com/news/2018/11/28/volleyball-buffs-set-for-showdown-with-south-carolina.aspx

"
BOULDER – The University of Colorado women's volleyball team is off to Minneapolis, Minn., to take on the University of South Carolina Friday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. MT for the first round of the 2018 NCAA Tournament.

The Buffaloes (18-13, 10-10 Pac-12) are in familiar territory in their 20th appearance in the postseason in program history. This is the fourth appearance in Minnesota for the program in the postseason, with the team earning a 1-1 record in first round action. The first-ever postseason appearance for the program in 1989 was a first round loss to Minnesota in Minneapolis.

CU's counterpart in the first round is South Carolina (19-9, 10-8 SEC). The Gamecocks are returning to the big dance for the first time since 2002 after earning an at-large bid due to their strong conference play early in the season. South Carolina has been a streaky team, winning its first four matches by a set-score of 12-1. They started their overall season with a 13-1 record with a lone loss to Rice on the road. Of the 13 wins to start the season, eight came by way of sweeps. A sweep by Missouri ended a nine-match win streak and started a stretch where the Gamecocks went 2-5 including four losses by sweeps. A five-set homestand against No.20-Missouri reignited the team to four-straight wins, but the team has finished on a downslide with three-straight losses at LSU, against Kentucky and at Florida.

The Gamecock's most dangerous weapon as a team is the service game. South Carolina boasts the 28th-best serving game in the nation and lead the SEC with 1.57 aces per set.

Both teams have a nearly identical hitting percentage at .237 for South Carolina and .238 for Colorado. The Buffs edge their opponent by an assist per set more and nearly a full kill per set. CU also has a more prominent defensive game with 14.3 digs per set compared to just 13. The defensive battle heavily favors Colorado with 319 total team blocks compared to just 191. The Gamecocks are averaging 1.8 blocks per set while CU is at 2.7, good for 24th in the nation.

The key for Colorado is going to be their ability to quickly sideout, especially when Aubrey Ezell is at the service line. The libero is second in the nation in aces per set with 0.67 and is third in the nation in total aces this season with 70. If the Buffs can limit her jump serve and sideout to more favorable rotations the superior blocking game should be enough to send CU to the next round.

The Gamecocks, under the supervision of first-year head coach Tom Mendoza, were led by two All-SEC players at right side and in the middle. Junior Mikayla Shields leads the team with 335 kills but has not had a single 20-kill match this season. She is hitting a respectable .272, has 26 aces, nearly 250 digs and 57 blocks. The other All-SEC performer is sophomore middle Mikayla Robinson who leads her team with 96 blocks and has a team-high .298 hitting percentage. She also has 225 total kills.
...

Friday's match will be streamed by Minnesota Athletics and is available here. Should Colorado advance along with host and No.2-ranked Minnesota, the match Saturday will move to an 8 p.m. CT start and will be televised by the BIG TEN Network. For more information and game-time updates, follow Colorado Volleyball on Twitter at @cubuffsvb.
"
____________________________________________________________________

NCAA Volleyball homepage - https://www.ncaa.com/sports/volleyball-women/d1

Full updating tournament bracket - https://www.ncaa.com/brackets/volleyball-women/d1/2018

Buff - Gamecock NCAA match homepage (Hopefully will become or link to a live stats page when the match starts. It's the equivalent to this page for their match that Minnesota is linking to in for live stats.) - https://www.ncaa.com/game/volleyball-women/d1/2018/11/30/colorado-south-carolina

Match notes - https://cubuffs.com/documents/2018/11/28//Match_Notes_NCAA_First_Round.pdf

Match Media links -
Live video
(Looking like it's a free live stream.) - https://www.btn2go.com/game/ncaa-1st-round-south-carolina-vs-colorado

Link to link to live stats -See NCAA Match homepage link above. Edit- And/ or https://stats.statbroadcast.com/statmonitr/?id=241947 .

(IF the Buffs manage to win their tough 1st round match, anyone wanting to check out the 2nd round opponent may view the Minnesota - Bryant match (scheduled to start 6:00 PM MT) via another free stream, which is available at https://www.btn2go.com/game/ncaa-1st-round-bryant-vs-minnesota . (Note- I'm getting a security warning (Not private- security error message) before reaching this webpage. Assume the Big 10 just needs to update their certs?))
 
Last edited:
Yeah! There will be a live stream.

When I click on the link for the Minnesota/Bryant match is says the event has not started.
 
A couple more volleyball related articles up-

On all-time Buff block leader Naghede Abu-


"
BOULDER – When Colorado takes the court tomorrow against South Carolina the Gamecocks will have wide eyes looking across the net to see the 6-foot, 4-inch tall All-Pac-12 Naghede Abu bearing down on them ready to stuff their dreams and pick apart their defense.

The senior from Riverside, Calif., is the most dominant middle blocker in the history of Colorado Volleyball. This is no longer a thought but a fact after Abu marked her first block against UCLA last Wednesday. With a second block to give CU its 14th point of the third set she stood alone as the school record holder in career total blocks, passing Meghan Barkman's record that dated back to November 30, 2002 when she finished her career with her final six of her 565 total blocks.

"It feels great," said Abu when asked about the record. "That record was set a while ago. It means a really great deal to me to be able to leave a legacy at CU. For me that's pretty important."
...
"
___________________________________________________________________________________________________

And, off the court, congrats to Ms. DeLuzio and company!


"
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – The University of Colorado women's volleyball team's sophomore setter Brynna DeLuzio leads a group of seven total Buffaloes that were named to the 2018 Pac-12 All-Academic Team, the conference announced Thursday afternoon.

DeLuzio was named to the Pac-12 All-Academic Second Team, while teammates Naghede Abu, Emily DeMure, Lillie Klemmer, Danielle Price, Alexa Smith and Rachel Whipple were named Pac-12 All-Academic honorable mentions.
...
"
 
So does CU win 3-0 or 3-1?

I'll take a 2 point win in 5.

(Although, in a perfect world, if the Buffs do advance, hope they have treated EVERY point as crucial, with no let up, as a quicker match today can only help whichever team wins this match; tomorrow's match will be tough enough without any unneeded extra effort being expended today. (the host (and #2 overall seed/ ranked) Gophers are playing auto-qualifier Bryant, who is around #200 in RPI, so the odds are heavily in the host's favor, and they probably won't have to work too hard in their match tonight.)
 
Buffs have been down as much as 3 (7-10), but have come back well- their lead 15-13 in the 1st set at the media timeout.

Note- you can tell they haven't played South Carolina before, as they don't seem to have ANY block going so far.
 
Buff timeout down 17-19.

Buffs still not seeming to have much idea what to do defensively against usc, as neither the block or digging has been there so far. usc serve also with 2 early aces. Buff offense doing OK.
 
Buffs went down 17-21, but now have gotten back in it behind Ewert serve causing problems. timeout usc with the Buffs within 1 20-21.
 
Ugh- Buffs lose a marathon 1st 32-34 on what looks like an unnecessary in the net violation. Fans definitely getting their money's worth.

 
Last edited:
Coach Mahoney was busy late in this one, as he 1st won a challenge that saved the match when the Buffs showed down 30-32, then gets a point replayed after the Buffs lose one by successfully arguing HIS wrong player had served that point (after consulting with the statisticians). It wasn't enough at the end, however, as usc still gets the win.
 
Buffs continuing STRONG offensive play in the 2nd (they're hitting .556 in the set)- they're up 18-10 as usc takes their 2nd timeout.
 
And, the Buffs start the 3rd weakly (lots of dinky kill attempts along with 2 unforced hitting errors), and take a timeout down 4-10.
 
Not going well in the 3rd- Buffs playing a little better to stabilize the score, but no service pressure equals them still being down 8-15. Timeout Buffs after they give up a couple points in a row.

Note- Forgot to mention- from some pictures of the bench, Gabby Carta-Samuels and Brynna DeLuzio are not suited up for the Buffs in this one.
 
Buffs could never get ANY momentum going in the 3rd, and usc's defense picked up, leading to an ugly 12-25 set.

Buffs going to have to hope they can get the often fickle volleyball momentum god/ goddess back to their side QUICKLY in the 4th.
 
Buffs go up 17-11 as Spann successfully reads the setter dump attempt and dumps it back for a BLOCK. Timeout #2 for usc.
 
This is turning into one of those weird matches where there's a "right" side of the court.
 
Back
Top