dj_paige

Not following the incoming recruits as carefully as others, but it seems to me we must have something like 18 players on the roster. I wonder if this is BB's way of avoiding the situation we had during the season where we really didn't have enough players. And I saw Briyanna Baron will return, what is the point there? Baron couldn't contribute in any meaningful way during the last season, she played only in blow-out games.

Saturday, 4/29/2023: UB Volleyball wins 6 of 8 sets at the Army Tournament. 2–0 wins over both Hofstra and St. Peter's. 1–1 splits against both Army Gold and Army Black.

We played the #1 seed Toledo in the Conference Tournament, and we were leading by 3 with 13 seconds left in the 4Q, and in the overtime we were tied with 14 seconds left and had two shot attempts after that.

In related news, former UB Volleyball player Andrea Mitrovic's professional team, Karayolları (Ankara, Turkey) in the Turkish B league has won the league championship. So next season, Karayolları will play in the Turkish A league, which is one of the top professional leagues in the world. I could not find any statistics for Mitrovic. She also plays on the Canadian national team.

I would rephrase: if they charged admission, her attacks are worth the price. But its free for everyone ...

The UB Volleyball team, playing at a spring tournament at Cleveland State, played two sets each against St. Francis (PA), Akron and the host team, and the Bulls won all six sets. That means the Bulls have now played 11 sets this spring, and haven't lost a set. Add in a partial set against Canisius, in which the Bulls were leading 22-12 when the whole campus suffered a power failure, and you could claim Buffalo has now won all 12 sets they have played. Buffalo got a very strong performance from sophomore outside hitter Katrin Trebichavská, who used her typical high velocity attacks, a couple of tips, at least three aces (by my count) and a block to help the Bulls to their sweep. Trebichavská didn't use her jump serve on this day, but her float serve seemed effective. Another outside hitter, freshman Lauren Otten, also picked up a lot of points with some very impressive swings. Otten didn't play much in the fall, and so fans didn't really know what to expect from her. She also rarely (never?) played back row in the fall, but she played all six rotations, served a few aces, took a back row attack or two, and looked like she deserved more playing time. The Bulls started off against MAC rival Akron, a team that Buffalo swept twice in the fall season. In a very close set, the Bulls came away with a 26–24 win in the first set, the final point on an overpass by the Zips which Trebichavská pounded down to the Akron side to end the set, one of many kills for KT in that set. Otten also scored well in the set. In the second set, Buffalo took a 13–8 lead, only to see Akron tie the set at 13. Then Buffalo ran away from the Zips, outscoring them 12–1. It was another strong set for Trebichavská, who was helped by senior middle blocker Courtney Okwara, who had at least 4 blocks in the set, scoring Buffalo's first three points of the set all with her blocking. Sophomore outside hitter Katrin Trebichavská (7) attacks around the block Buffalo next faced Cleveland State, whom they had also beaten twice in the fall, losing just one set. Buffalo looked like they were about to take the first set with a 24–20 lead, but the Vikings scored the next four points. A kill by junior right side Emma Gielas gave the Bulls a 27–26 lead, but then a Viking kill tied the set again. Another huge kill by Gielas put the Bulls ahead and then a kill by freshman outside hitter Manoela Forlín ended the set. It looked like there would be more drama in the second set as Buffalo took a 14–8 lead, only to see the Vikings tie the set at 17. At 19–19, Trebichavská came up with the Play(s) of the Match™. She put the Bulls up by one with another laser beam kill, this one causing sonic booms heard all over the Cleveland area and putting a dent in the floor. And on the next play KT had a great diving dig to keep the play alive. The Bulls would wind up with a 25–22 win. Against St. Francis, the first set was close most of the way until a kill from Okwara gave Buffalo a 23–21 lead, and two Red Flash errors ended the set. Buffalo led most of the way in the second set, taking a 21–15 lead on a big kill from Forlín. Gielas made it 23–17, a back row kill from Forlín gave Buffalo set point, and another huge kill from Gielas completed the sweep. If you have been following along, it was another typical strong performance from Gielas, a weapon on the right side. Buffalo coach Scott Smith also used Gielas to play back row defense when she wasn't serving, something we haven't seen in the regular season. On one play, we saw a rare event, with Gielas attacking from the right back position. You just don't see right back attacks very often in NCAA Volleyball. And, if since fall volleyball ended you've been missing seeing that trademark Emma Gielas cross court attack, here you go. Gielas's first attack is returned, sophomore libero Maria Futey bump sets the ball to Gielas, and this time Gielas's attack lands. Untitled video - Made with Clipchamp (2).mp4 Futey played well at libero, giving Buffalo solid back row defense in all six sets. She was the only player used at the libero position. Junior defensive specialist Emilie Davis, who doesn't play much in the regular season, got a chance to play three consecutive rotations in the back row a couple of times, and against Akron made strong digs on three plays in a row. So, with all that, what didn't the Bulls do well? Buffalo often times was unable to hold onto leads of five points or more, and wound up in a few close sets that didn't look like they were going to be close. Okwara led the MAC in hitting percentage in the fall, but on this day, she just didn't get the ball much on offense, Buffalo needs to use her more in the offense. (I add Okwara's blocking was outstanding). And then there's the Leigh sisters, sophomore setter Mandy and senior middle blocker Abby, who really did a lot of things very well, as they usually do, but the connection between the two on offense just wasn't there today. Most of Abby's attacks were hit softly rather than hard, which is usually because the timing wasn't there; and either the set was a little off target or the attacker wasn't in the right position. Notes: Buffalo plays their final spring game at Army on April 29. Freshman middle blocker Tehya Shaw, who played well against Niagara, was not in uniform. Several incoming recruits were at the match to cheer the Bulls on.

Was HC BB intense in games? Not particularly, not compared to FLJ. She was normally a relatively calm during games, on a similar level as Jim Whitesell. Now did she get in players' faces from time to time, yes I think she did, but I didn't see anything out of line. All the out-of-line stuff comes from the fact that players and coaches are leaving, and if this is HC BBs fault (I'm not saying it is) then likely this has something to with her behavior in private rather than in games.

UB did not pay for food. UB did not pay for drinks.

I think the purse strings are very tight for the athletic department. They did not pay for food, as they did last August for the Coaches Caravan. The next event where food was provided — the Basketball Season Ticket holder appreciation dinner in late Feb or early March — the only food was pizza (no wings, no Coke, no cookies as in past events) and there wasn't enough pizza for everyone, even though people had to RSVP so they knew how many to expect. But no students in attendance last night. I was going to say "very few students" but as I thought about it, there were really zero people there that looked like students.

Unlike @MuchMany, I thought the crowd was kind of light. We're in essentially a bar, the people were not packed in very tightly, not packed in at all, you didn't have to squeeze between people to walk over to the bar or back to your seat. I was hoping for more. In addition, lots of the people in attendance were UB Athletic Dept employees, I'm going to guess >25% were UB employees which isn't bad but I kind of wish the non-employee turnout was higher. No sign of ADMA, Satish, Coach Mo, Coach Burke (perhaps they were out of town and have valid excuses, but it sure would have been great to see them there as well).

I just assumed that its in his contract that he can't have ranch with chicken wings, it has to be bleu cheese. Why do you ask?

I will be there! Probably right at 5pm, maybe even a little earlier. I have my questions about Philly Cheese Steak and Chicken Wings ready for HC GH3!

I should walk over to Nan Harvey field next time I'm in the area (which is, actually, every single day). So I can let you know.

I'll try to be diplomatic here: KT played but was not a big contributor

The UB Volleyball team, coming off their most successful season ever in the MAC, in which they advanced to the MAC Tournament Semi-Finals for the first time ever, return almost the entire starting lineup. And against Niagara today at Alumni Arena, Buffalo took all five sets and looked as good as you might expect in an exhibition match after last year. The only regular starter who does not return is outside hitter Cali Assaley, who has no more eligibility. Assaley's spot in the rotation was taken by freshman Manoela Forlín, a 6–3 Brazilian who played internationally on the Brazil Under-19 team and won silver medals at both the Pan-American games and the South American championships. To give some perspective, Brazil is one of the giants of international volleyball, having won two gold and one silver medal in the last four Olympics. The fact that Forlín made the Brazil Under-19 team indicates that someone felt she has the talent to play for the Brazil national team some day. To give even more perspective, I am not aware of any MAC player current or past who has played on the USA Under-19 team. Forlín played opposite for Brazil — in the United States, the opposite position is called the right side position — and since Buffalo already has a strong right side in junior Emma Gielas, Forlín moved to the outside hitter position for Buffalo. Since international rules are different than NCAA rules, opposites/right sides in international play have to play back row defense, unlike most right side hitters in the USA, and so moving Forlín to outside hitter where she had to return serve and play back row didn't seem to be a problem. In fact, Forlín attacked well, blocked well, served well, and returned serve and played back row defense well. An all-around solid performance today from Forlín. In fact, in the fourth set, Forlín only played back row, and in one very long rally, made a rather spectacular one-handed rescue, while diving away from the net; something she repeated in the fifth set; but on the unspectacular plays of serve receive and back row defense, Forlín usually put up very nice passes. Freshman outside hitter Manoela Forlín The star of the match for UB was senior middle blocker Abby Leigh. In the fall season, Leigh finished third in the MAC in hitting percentage, fifth in blocks per set and first in solo blocks. Leigh continued to attack well and block well today and was most likely Buffalo's leading scorer. Since no stats were kept, and since it is April 1st, I am going to claim with a straight face that Abby Leigh had 37 blocks. If stats had been kept, I think Abby Leigh most likely had a double-double in blocks and kills. Her sister, sophomore setter Mandy Leigh most likely had a double-double as well, in assists and kills. So if you are keeping score at home, that's a double double-double for the Leigh family. Mandy Leigh was extremely aggressive on offense, attacking regularly, including her trademark no-look behind the back setter dump, at least two full swing kills, and one pineapple. (Yes, in volleyball there is a shot called a pineapple, its not an April Fool's thing). Her career high during the fall season is 8 kills. I captured one of her full swing kills on video, Leigh is wearing #3. DSC_6256.mp4 Other strong performances for the Bulls were from freshman middle blocker Tehya Shaw and Gielas. Shaw missed the entire fall season recovering from a surgery, and so this was the first time UB fans got to see Shaw. She attacked well, both on the slide and in front of the setter, and blocked well. Gielas, who led the Bulls in kills per set a year ago, looked in mid-season form. In the first set, Gielas picked up four of UB's first five points, three coming on kills and one on a block. Last year, Buffalo ran a special play for Gielas, in which she would attack from the front row middle, which was rarely effective, but Gielas scored on this play several times, including the second play of the match. Buffalo's other right side, Stacia Gollogly, also scored on this play. Buffalo's back row defenders also played well, looking very smooth and effective. Buffalo used three liberos in the match, sophomore Maria Futey, junior Hayley Montoya and sophomore Julianna Lopez. Any of those looked like they could start for UB based on their performance today. Buffalo won the first set 25–22 leading the entire way. In the second set, Buffalo led 24–20 but then Niagara scored four straight points to tie the set, three of those points coming on attack errors by Forlín (two shots out of bounds, and one into the Niagara block). But Forlín made up for it with a solo block and then Mandy Leigh finished the set with a kill. In the third set, Buffalo ran out to a 19–4 lead, and won easily. The fourth and fifth sets were much closer, with Niagara tying the set late and even briefly taking the lead, but Buffalo stayed composed, went to their best players, and won sets 4 and 5, each by two points. Notes: Senior middle blocker Courtney Okwara was not in uniform. She did play a few weeks ago in the exhibition match against Canisius, which because of a blackout on campus, the match ended late in the first set. Buffalo coach Scott Smith brought his approximately two-year old son to the match. Several times during the match, Smith had to get up from his position on the UB bench and chase after the young lad, who decided he wanted to explore the corners of Alumni Arena. No referees were used. Players used the honor system on block touches, and it seemed to work well. Two incoming freshman have not joined the team yet — setter Liv Gravatt and defensive specialist Chloe Brown. Assistant coach Aaron Gordon, just hired recently, was present and hard at work. Buffalo plays exhibition matches at Cleveland State on April 22nd and at Army on April 29. The road trips were funded by crowdfunding.

Teams shoot 70% every now and then, but that is not a reasonable expectation in the next game. We did out-rebound Bowling Green nearly 2-to-1, so we need to keep doing that, although again I'm skeptical we can keep that up.

It appears that assistant coach Candyce Wheeler is no longer with the team. Apparently her Twitter bio no longer lists her as a UB assistant coach.

Well I'm glad it helped. I don't have to "create an account" each time. So I don't know why you do.

I don't believe I see anything indicating what you say. If I try to connect to the UB WiFi, and I provide my e-mail and password, web pages simply don't load in my Firefox browser on my Android phone. There's no message indicating would I like to connect, or advanced, or anything like that. Even if I go through the process several times, web pages don't connect. If I go through my restart the phone process, and sign in via that web page, everything works. Nevertheless, the question is ... who should we contact at UB to get this fixed? (Or maybe they don't want to fix it...)

Wing prices aside, certainly, they could have informed people that it was a pizza dinner, and then I wouldn't have bothered attending.

The dinner itself was a disaster, for all the reasons mentioned, but also because I cannot eat dairy products. So the only food available for this appreciation dinner was food I cannot eat. In the past, similar events had chicken wings, cookies and coke or pepsi, plus enough plates and napkins for the event. I would like to write a letter of complaint, and I ask for suggestions as to the proper person to send it to (don't tell me Dr. Tripathi, but someone who might actually have the responsibility for this event and the power to fix it). As far as the wifi goes, when I visit other arenas around the country, the Wifi connects automatically, no login required. If Canisius and Niagara and Lehigh and Ball State can do this, why can't UB? Nevertheless, I do have a method that seems to work at Alumni Arena. I restart my phone, make sure UB_Connect is chosen for the Wifi service, open the web browser and navigate to this URL clearpass-portal1.cit.buffalo.edu (make a browser shortcut for that so you won't have to type it in), which then lets me log in with my e-mail ID and password. This works rather reliably, once I figured it out. I usually don't have to log in again even if I don't use the service for 15 minutes or so. Before that, I tried a number of methods, none of which worked well.

But that's where the team is right now. That's an accurate reflection of our MAC play.

I'm going to have to disagree with the comments that the all-female ref crew was any different than the previous home game, a 3 pt loss to Bowling Green. In the BG game there were 2 male officials, and they called 11 fouls on UB all game. Why? Did it have anything to do with the gender of the officials? Of course not. The reason there were only 11 fouls on UB against BG and only 14 the other day against NIU was that head coach Becky Burke has told her team to be less aggressive on defense, because we can't afford to have players foul out. Similarly, we are not aggressive on the boards, again because we don't want players fouling out. In both games, the refs called the game appropriately, there were simply not a lot of fouls to call. Also, when a team is less aggressive on defense, its a lot easier for the refs to get the calls right (i.e. fewer mistakes or questionable calls). Also, the lead official in the game against NIU, Maggie Tiernan (you might remember) called an intentional foul on Teresa Onwuka with about 2 seconds left in double overtime (before the ball was alive) with Central Michigan ahead by 1 in early 2020 (when Central Michigan/UB rivalry was the best in the MAC). Did she do this because of her gender? I doubt it. Would a male official have made the same call? Yes I think so. https://www.ubbullrun.com/2020/1/30/21116045/wbb-about-that-intentional-foul-with-2-seconds-left-in-2ot-against-cmu

And now I have figured out how to block someone here at UBFan. So UB Horns Up is now blocked, and I will never see his posts again. 👦 If you'd like to do this yourself, go to the top of the screen, click on your user name, a drop-down menu appears and you can then select Ignored Users. From there, select any user you wish to ignore. High fives gratefully accepted!

I will be there. ChubbyHubby will be there. That qualifies as a decent crowd in my mind.