The One Month Check-In
#2 Texas still undefeated one month on after sweeping the homestand at Gregory Gym
I know that I’m not a traditionalist in any sense of the word, but today is the first of October. As the official home of Halloween, this month is beyond question as the gold standard of the spooky season. Horror movies every night. All things ghoulish and scary with wicked surprises around every turn…most of them in the form of stealing so many Reese’s peanut butter cups from the candy stash you’re “saving for trick-or-treaters” that you puke in the office bathroom after lunch. And of course dressing in climate-inappropriate attire in the name of a “costume” for the party the local bar of your choosing is hosting where they’re giving away free beer for the rest of the year to the winner (pro tip: just don’t even risk getting canceled for that K-Pop Demon Hunters get-up you were kicking around in your head).
October 1st also marks an unofficial, rule-of-thumb kinda measurement of the 25% mark on the season with the NCAA tournament concluding in late December just before the Christmas holiday. So let’s perhaps check back in on how things are progressing for Brittany and my predictions from our “Call Your Shot” article that we released mere hours before the season-opener in Madison against the Creighton Bluejays.
Starting Line-Up - Mostly correct, but I whiffed with the prediction that Devin would start over Cari at opposite. Crow tastes good when force-fed with a wicked D-ball attack.
Madison Record - We were way too conservative to the point of it reading like pessimism now. Texas is still yet to pick up the one loss in five weeks that we expected to see the first weekend.
SEC Picks - We couldn’t pick Texas, and we both avoided the “obvious” choice in the Kentucky Wildcats. My pick in A&M has been decent so far (#9 in the most recent AVCA poll), but Jordyn Byrd hasn’t quite been able to carry the #23 Florida Gators as much as Brittany had projected.
All-American Predictions - Torrey Stafford is absolutely on track to make the All-American teams. Both Brittany and I picked AVW as a Freshman AA, but neither one of us anticipated Cari Spears being so dominant right from the jump to the point that it would be stunning if she didn’t make the team. Halter, Gary, and Swindle all remain contenders for AA status as well.
Impact Freshmen - I said Cari Spears’ ability to change the Texas offense from the right side would dictate the ceiling for Texas - that ceiling is in outer space right now. AVW is coming into her own as the season wears on too.
Record - Brittany had 19-4, and I had 20-3. Both would feel a little bit like letdowns with how the SEC appears to be shaking out at this point. The A&M match to end this month will be a huge measuring stick.
Oh, and today’s also my birthday. 🥳 Let’s get into the review of last week’s matches!
Red Lights
None. But I did consider putting blocking here. I’ll discuss more in the yellow lights section with my concerns in that department.
Yellow Lights
Winning Sleepy
While Texas did ultimately break out the brooms on Vanderbilt and Missouri last week, they weren’t quite so convincing in their all-out murderizer brand of domination like they were in the sweeps of ranked TCU and Baylor the week before. Brittany mentioned in our last article that Texas won the six sets with the in-state foes by an average of roughly 9-10 points per set.
Texas did thrash Vanderbilt in their first set, winning by a margin of twelve points. The rest of the match would be much closer, winning by seven and four points for an average set margin across the match of 7 ⅔ points in Texas’ favor. The Longhorns did see their starting setter, Ella Swindle, miss the match due to an apparent injury, but the offense looked disjointed behind Rella Binney’s efforts in relief. Cari Spears especially suffered, hitting only .100 for the match with seven errors. The left side didn’t struggle at all, however, as Torrey Stafford hit over .600 while her contemporary on that pin, Abby Vander Wal, swung over .500 for a career-best showing offensively.
Perhaps Texas’ messy effort against Vandy could be explained by the fact that the Commodores were only the second unranked team the Longhorns had faced on the year. After all, the unranked Rice Owls did take a set off Texas in Houston earlier this season. With the #21 Missouri Tigers in Gregory, the Horns would not have that explanation available if they came out sleepwalking. Despite the sweep, Texas appeared to be fighting with themselves at times, struggling with rhythm, serve-receive, and their own service woes. As a result, they won the three sets against Mizzou by less than three points per set on average with two of the sets requiring Texas to win by two beyond the typical race to 25 in each set. We will go more in-depth into the service issues in the next yellow light section.
In all, it felt like Texas at times last week lacked energy and focus, allowing sloppy play to keep them from stringing together points and building suffocating leads against both Vanderbilt and Missouri. Texas will need to find ways to keep sustained mental energy through the SEC calendar if they want to win the conference in 2025, especially if Ella Swindle’s injury that held her out against Vandy pops up again over the next 2+ months in the season.
Service Struggles
We keep bouncing service pressure back and forth in the yellow lights sections of our articles because so many of Texas’ offensive issues stem from messy passing. Vanderbilt was able to record four aces against the Longhorns while Texas only managed one (with seven service errors to boot!). The ace:error ratio for Texas improved for the Missouri game (6:5), but the Tigers were also able to deliver five aces of their own. Some of the more advanced statistics (which I won’t dive into here because it’ll read like an accounting report) bear out the idea that Texas’ service often struggles to get opposing offenses out of system, something that would also assist with the blocking issues noted above.
While the Horns do have a phenomenal back row tandem in Ramsey Gary and Emma Halter, it is unfair to expect them to have to bail out the server for not putting enough pressure on the opposing offenses in every single match. The good news is that being light on early season service pressure isn’t out-of-character for Texas under Jerritt Elliott. The staff often prioritizes getting the offense rolling early in the year, then bringing other aspects of the game like blocking and setting along as the schedule wears on. This often bears the result of opponents being unprepared for how Elliott chooses to weaponize service pressure during the tournament because of the team’s lack of emphasis on it in the regular season (hello, Asjia and Madi racking up an absurd number of aces in the waning matches of the 2022 national title run).
Blocking
For the amount of talent Texas has at the middle blocker position, it hasn’t yet amounted to a suffocating net presence. The Longhorns have a national reputation as “MBU”, developing outstanding players such as Asjia O’Neal, Chiaka Ogbogu, Molly McCage, and Brionne Butler (not an exhaustive list of standout MBs for Texas by any stretch) who have gone on to be fixtures on their pro teams as well as in international play.
That sort of pedigree is what makes the blocking struggles so far this season so concerning. As a team currently, Texas sits at #160 in the nation in blocks per set. Yes, Texas has a back row that’s more than capable of handling itself, but if you can make your libero and defensive specialists’ lives easier, why wouldn’t you want to see an improvement there? Even if the raw blocking numbers don’t come along immediately, Texas will see a tangible improvement in their performance as a team. Not only does it offer the benefit of slowing down an attacked ball, allowing the back line a better chance to get a good touch, but it also forces opposing teams to get more creative with how they attack which often materializes in the form of more attack errors on the stat sheet.
Ayden Ames leads the team in solo blocks, and Taylor Harvey’s advanced stats indicate that she’s been creating some of the most effective block touches on the team. Nya Bunton leads the team in blocks per set at a mere 1.0. Regardless of what the combination is here, the team could likely benefit from having a stable rotation of the two primary MBs to allow both the opportunity to settle into a rhythm and improve the overall team blocking. We’ve seen Cari Spears show massive improvements at the net on the block by way of getting plenty of opportunities playing as much as she has. It’s time to provide the same stability to the MBs.
Injuries/Load Management
Jerritt Elliott’s tendency to avoid press conferences makes this a little bit tricky to read. In the last few matches, we’ve seen some new faces getting more extensive playing time. While this initially began with true freshman MB Taylor Harvey getting the start over Nya Bunton, we’ve also seen Ayden Ames get the evening off two weeks ago. Last week, Rella Binney got her first start at setter while Ella Swindle was on the sideline in a walking boot for the SEC opener against Vanderbilt. Ultimately, Swindle returned for the next match against the Missouri Tigers and looked every bit like her SEC Setter of the Week self.
Because we saw Ella play at a high level on Friday night against Baylor and the following Friday against Mizzou, it creates a few questions about what the injury was that sidelined Swindle in-between for Wednesday’s tilt against the Commodores. I won’t go so far as to doubt the legitimacy of the injury, but it does cause speculation that the injury was purely a precautionary measure. Faithful followers of the team will recall that the team was forced to cancel the fall Orange-White scrimmage as a result of an injury to backup setter Rella Binney that also saw her in a walking boot. Again, this could have been a philosophical choice by the training staff to not risk aggravating a minor injury, but it is interesting to see that both setters have at different times experienced short-lived injuries necessitating the use of the walking boot.
I’m stuffing this into the yellow lights simply because the load management (or simply distribution of opportunities) in the middle blocker room and the minor injuries to the setter depth chart have seen some rhythms for the offense being thrown out of wack. This bit of struggle could pay dividends down the road, or it could be something that keeps this offense from reaching its full potential due to line-up tinkering.
Am I implying that we still haven’t seen this offense reach its pinnacle? It just so happens that I am.
Green Lights
Abby Vander Wal Heating Up
AVW has been the starting OH2 for the entirety of this season. Alongside Cari Spears, this Texas team has put a lot of reliance on the freshmen to drive the team’s offense. Spears has spent the majority of the early part of her freshman campaign racking up weekly awards on both the SEC and national levels. This week was finally Abby’s turn as she earned her first SEC Freshman of the Week honors following a week where she hit a career-high .563 against Vanderbilt for 10 kills while contributing another nine in the sweep of Missouri. For the week, AVW hit a solid .316.
Abby’s hitting just .205 for the season, but has posted a .287 hitting percentage over the last five matches. I included her in my last article as one of our “yellow lights”, needing her to get more creative with her attacks. As a freshman, the results have been streaky, but we’re finally starting to see the fruits of Jerritt’s faith in her as a player. If she can keep this steady upwards trajectory, it’ll make life even more fun for Texas fans to watch this offense operate.
Ella Swindle
The redemption arc for Ella Swindle continued last week despite the injury keeping her out of the Vanderbilt match. Her impact on a match in terms of command of the offense, her own threat on the setter dumps, and general on-floor leadership and intensity should be undeniable at this point. While Texas did technically hit better against Vanderbilt (.446 v .313 against Mizzou), the level of variety in the attacks for Texas was on full display against the Tigers. Rella Binney did an admirable job keeping the offense generally working against the ‘Dores, but Texas saw noticeable jumps in utilization and effectiveness for Ayden Ames and Cari Spears with Swindle on the floor.
Her placement continues to get better as she finds more and more rhythm and reps with the middles and her pin hitters. Her inclusion in the starting lineup means the D-ball and BIC plays are both in play. Rella leaning on Torrey Stafford and Abby Vander Wal in the Vanderbilt match reminds everyone that even when there is a disconnect, we can play “predictable” offense and still produce with either of the talented left pin hitters in the rotation, but continuing to develop Ella and the offense around the variety of sets she has built comfortability with provides an opportunity to be far more lethal and keep their opponent guessing on what’s coming next.
Rella Binney Kill
Rella got her first shot in the starting lineup last week in the Vanderbilt match following the apparent lower body injury (to steal a vague term from the NHL) to Ella Swindle. The sophomore setter out of Hawai’i was tested with running an offense loaded with weapons with mixed results. The highlight of the match was certainly hers, however, as she managed to get a rare swing for a kill. After a joust at the net came down on Texas’ side, Ayden Ames managed to keep it in the air. Abby Vander Wal was able to get the second touch on the ball to direct it towards Binney. In most situations, you’d probably ask your young setter to just get the ball over the net and live for another play, but Binney had other plans. Rella’s swing found the floor, leading to a loud reaction from the always-rowdy crowd in Gregory Gym as well as her teammates on the floor.
Next Up
The Horns hit the road for their first away matches of in-conference play!
Georgia Bulldogs (8-4, 0-2, L2) - 6 PM CT TONIGHT at Stegeman Coliseum in Athens, GA (SEC Network+)
Mississippi Bulldogs (11-1, 1-1, L1) - 2 PM CT on Sunday, 10/5 at Newell-Grissom Building in Starkville, MS (SEC Network+)
Hook ‘em!