Conference play begins tonight

by **pawball** » September 24th, 2015, 7:48 pm

w Loyola @ Bradley. Loyola wins, 16, 15 and 18. Loyola is the new sleeper in The Valley. Good RPI and Pablo. Bradley, Evansville and Drake are the three laggards in the conference. Everyone else is what I'd call "competitive" to "decent" to "good." No one "outstanding", as yet.

Best Friday matches:

Illinois St @ Missouri St
Southern Illinoius @ Northern Iowa

Those two, plus Indiana St @ Wichita St, will be on ESPN 3.

Redbirds/Bears seems like close to a toss-up, so gotta go with the home team.
Same with SIU/UNI.

Shocks should handle Sycs, but I wouldn't be surprised if Sycs won a set.

**Sponsor**

by **pawball** » September 26th, 2015, 9:20 am

Thanks to Flying Moose for this info from Shockernet:

Bradley 0-3 Loyola (Thu)
16, 15, 18

Missouri State 3-0 Illinois State
24, 15, 19

Northern Iowa 3-1 Southern Illinois
23, (16), 17, 21

Drake 3-0 Evansville
15, 11, 18

Concerning Bears' match.....MSU came out sluggish, down 1-6, Redbirds were firing at a nice clip, but Bears came back from 15-22 to win 1st set 26-24; then continued their tear by jumping out to a 19-6 lead in Set 2, and finally closed things out, never trailing in the third. Bears dug and blocked as well as I've seen them over the past 5 years. Very encouraging.

by **isumvc1** » September 26th, 2015, 10:48 am

the Sycamores did win the first set, and were very competitive in sets 2 and 4 as well, that was the first time ISU has won a set at Wichita since 2002, seriously.

by **pawball** » September 26th, 2015, 10:28 pm

Well, Sycs came into Springfield tonight and played their butts off, losing in 5 sets. It was a really weird match. Not a single set was what I would call close, although the Bears came back from being down by 7 to make it 20-22 in first set. Otherwise, each team dominated the sets they won. I mean dominated. Probably the best Sycs team I've seen play at Hammons. Played Bears tougher than Illinois St did.

by **isumvc1** » September 27th, 2015, 8:23 am

the Sycamore record all time vs. Missouri State is 2-58 I believe now. So the odds we ever beat MSU in VB are slim and none. We have had many recent 5 setters vs. MSU, but MSU always wins. ISU just can't get over the proverbial hump to beat the likes of MSU, WSU, and UNI.

by **DUBulldog** » September 28th, 2015, 7:19 pm

pawball wrote:w Loyola @ Bradley. Loyola wins, 16, 15 and 18. Loyola is the new sleeper in The Valley. Good RPI and Pablo. Bradley, Evansville and Drake are the three laggards in the conference.

Drake wins at Loyola, 3-1.

by **pawball** » September 30th, 2015, 4:41 am

Drake's win is some kind of upset. Loyola had won 11 matches in a row coming into that. After that, can't call Drake a laggard. Also, Evansville extended UNI to 5 sets last weekend.

All this points to an extremely competitive season; the top teams had better not take anyone for granted.

by **isumvc1** » October 2nd, 2015, 9:06 pm

Sycamores with a huge win over UNI tonight 3-2, only the 4th time EVER that ISU has defeated UNI.

by **pawball** » October 3rd, 2015, 5:44 am

Bears looked good tonight against WSU. Lots of room for improvement; showed big-time resiliency.

by **JayJ79** » October 3rd, 2015, 3:29 pm

isumvc1 wrote:Sycamores with a huge win over UNI tonight 3-2, only the 4th time EVER that ISU has defeated UNI.

Indiana State volleyball has definitely improved the past couple seasons.
And UNI has hit a bit of a rough patch