The season has wrapped up and the NCAA Tourney starts at the end of the week. The Illini were successful in getting back to the NCAA. We are not ranked in the top 16 so unfortunately we have to go all the way to Washington. First match is Friday night against Hawaii. Too bad it isn't at their place as they have a storied program with a passionate fan base that put on incredible shows for their home games.
Short version: I think new head coach Tamas did very well for his first season and exceeded expectations. Would not say we shocked the world but we did better than we planned and are on track. I would say grade A-
Making the NCAA wasn't expected and we were supposed to finish pretty low like 9th or 10th in the BIG, so finishing 7th is very respectable and making the tourney a great accomplishment to build on. The team has some really good players but was lacking in a lot of important positions esp on offense. It is also very young team with only one senior so this will be extremely valuable experience. There has been a noticeable change in the team demeanor in being better able to bounce back and more aggressive which for me was the main thing I was looking for. The negative is that while we outperformed we also didn't shock anyone as we managed only one real upset and some old habits were on display at times. So this will be no overnight success and will take time to get back to national prominence. Thats too bad as we have a few players that are among the best in the country but I don't think we will be able to take full advantage of their talents before they graduate. I will say that the change in coaching was definitely a good thing, for everyone involved. Hambly had definitely checked out the past few years. For the toruney, a first or second round exit is most likely. If we make the quaters that would turn this season from good to awesome. Looking down the road, the coach has us in the right direction, but it will take time, the right players and luck before we are a threat for a title.
On VB in general, the biggest surprise was the sec getting two top four spots in the torney. Top four seeds are super valuable because as of last year, they will host the super regionals before the final four. That was really surprising as the sec is pretty weak and all the metrics said either nebraska or texas should be top 4. Big ten is the toughest conference again in my opinion as the top three or four are all contenders, albeit it is a little top heavy. They did get robbed again as only three got seeds and a lot of teams from much weaker cons got more than 1 and pac-12 got 5. Who knows what this new selection process is based on. Penn state has been number 1 for most of the year, lost only once and probably has the inside track. Stanford (#3) is also very dangerous as they won last year and returned everybody, but repeating is hard and they can't surprise anyone like last year. Nebraska, Florida, Texas, Minnesota all have a shot as well. I would expect Wisconsin, BYU, creighton, and someone else from the pac-12 to make some noise. As a whole volleyball tho has parity issues that makes it frustrating. Like a lot of other olympic sports, especially women's, you have one or two gorillas (stanford and penn state) that win almost every year and suck up the best recruits year in and year out. Not as bad as women's bball as there are others that regularly compete for the title like Nebraska, Texas and Florida, plus recently Minnesota and Wisconsin, but every year it feels like the same teams are shoe-ins for the final 4 and the rest are playing catch up. That makes it hard for others to break in as there doesn't seem to be a middle ground, just haves and have-nots. Hopefully Illinois can climb (back) into the elite group. In my mind it all come down to having the right coach and I feel more confident in the coaching than I have the last few years. We'll see how it pans out.