‘Nebraska Knows It’s Really Good And Isn’t Afraid To Talk About It’: Volleyball State

Nebraska volleyball is 2-0 through two matches, and there was plenty to react to in their wins over Pitt and Stanford. On Sunday night’s episode of Volleyball State, Jeff Sheldon and Lincoln Arneal unpacked it all, including the defense against Stanford, as well as the confidence the program has at this time.

Below is a lightly edited transcript of portions of their conversations.

Nebraska’s defense was impressive in each of the first two games

Jeff: Can we talk about Nebraska’s defense against Stanford today? Nebraska out-blocked Stanford 9-2, which means if I’m doing the quick math in my head after out-blocking Pitt 15-8, that’s 24-10. Nebraska has a block advantage in [seven] sets. 24-10, Nebraska out-blocks its first two opponents of the year. And what really stood out to me today, too, you normally don’t see this in a match that you win by sweep, but Nebraska had 21 more digs than Stanford; 56 to 35.

Olivia Mauch and Laney Choboy each had 12 digs, which means Stanford just could not terminate; they had a hard time putting the ball away, and Nebraska was turning them into transition offense. And you know, we’ve been talking about all these players that had good matches. I don’t want us to forget about Laney Choboy, who was just kind of everywhere. And I bet the numbers when we see them tomorrow bear this out. She had a better serve-receive match than she did against Pittsburgh on Friday.

Lincoln: And she was targeted a bulk of the time, too. Of Stanford’s 39 serves, she passed 21 of them. I think she was credited for that one ace that which I think they let fall to the floor. It wasn’t a bad pass, but she was kind of credited as a service receive error; but she passed 21 of them as well. And both her and Mauch finished with 12 digs.

Andi Jackson, I thought she did a nice job serving, but when she’s in the back row, she can expect for hitters to go after her. And she had one diving play. She’s not asked to do this a lot, but she was serving back there in the back row for her limited role.

Jeff: Yeah, absolutely. In fact, you know, go back to that ace; When I saw it, it was kind of one of the few nits I could pick, I guess, about Nebraska early in the season. They’ve let some serves go that landed clearly in. And you know, you got some new people back there. Sigler has played two collegiate matches, and she’s become a primary passer. So, I think that judgment is going to come. Plus, passing serves in Pinnacle Bank Arena has to be a lot different than passing them in the Devaney Center or some of the other smaller venues that they’re going to play at later in the season.

But, you know, Nebraska is in system a lot. Stanford, on the other hand, just kind of is still feeling things out. You know, we talked about going in on our preview show on Friday that Stanford had a lot of pin hitters returning, but they’re they’ve got a new setter. They’re still trying to figure out what to do there. They’ve got a new libero. In fact, Kevin Hambly started the match in a 6-2, like we saw on Friday when they played Florida. And then after two sets, he decided to change things up and go to the 5-1 with Taylor Yu being the only setter.

And I thought Stanford’s offense actually looked better as the match went on. But you know, they hit I think, two over .200 in game two, but in games one and three, they were down there near zero.

Lincoln: Yeah, they’re .031 first and they were at .000 that third set

“Nebraska knows it’s really good”

Jeff: Nebraska knows it’s really good and isn’t afraid to talk about it. I mean, what Dani said after the match was, and I think this is going to be in every single person’s game story who was there; she said, “Today wasn’t an anomaly. That is us. Now, we’re not going to play great every single night, but now that we’ve kind of set the bar of what we’re capable of.” Nebraska knows they’re really good and so I think they’re going to hold themselves to a pretty high standard. The competition level in the gym is really high.

This is a really deep team. You’re going to see a lot of different players probably come off the bench and get a chance to affect the match. I’m still waiting for Skyler Pierce to come in and get some swings. I think she’s going to turn some heads when she finally gets a chance. Maybe on a night when one of the other outside hitters is struggling. Nebraska understands that they’ve got a lot of talent and they’re not shying away from the high expectations that come along with a preseason ranking and are certainly not going to be dialed back after the weekend they’ve just had here.

Lincoln: I was trying to think of all the players that we didn’t get to see this weekend. Skyler Pierce, we’ll get to see her probably either next week at Lipscomb or the week following, I imagine, because she can’t redshirt because she already has. We didn’t see either of the backup middle blockers, Manaia Ogbechie, or Kenna Cogill. We didn’t see the third opposite hitter in Ryan Hunter, and also Keri Leimbach, another freshman defensive specialist.

I don’t know if we’re doing a redshirt watch, but there’s just something to keep track. Talk to us in two weeks. Then we’ll get to a better imagination of who might be a potential redshirt. But when you’re playing two top 10 teams, you’re going to play people who are experienced and have been on the big stage and will seize the moment

Watch the entire episode below!

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