One absolute truth in volleyball is that it doesn't matter how many great hitters you have. If you don't have a great setter that can feed them the ball in the right place at the right time, you are not going to be successful.
The USA men's team has lots of horses who can put the ball away with Clay Stanley, Reid Priddy, Matt Anderson, David Lee and others. But the team sometimes struggles when pressed to lead these horses to water.
When I sat down with head coach Alan Knipe this week, I couldn't help but ask him about the battle for the starting setter spot. After five weeks of World League competition, Knipe is not quite ready to crown anyone the starting setter just yet.
Currently there are three setters in the mix - Donald Suxho (6'5", UCLA), Kevin Hansen (6'5", Stanford) and Tyler Hildebrand (6'4", Long Beach State).
Suxho, who was not on the 2008 Olympic team, has logged lots of time at the helm before and after the Beijing Games. He struggles with consistency though which was evidenced at this year's World League. Suxho struggle early, but seemed to get into a great rhythm with his hitters a couple of weeks ago against Egypt. He had all the cylinders firing and for a minute there it seemed the team had regained it's Olympic form. Unfortunately, that was right before Suxho went down with a meniscus tear for which he'll have surgery today.
Kevin Hansen was the back up setter to Lloy Ball on the gold medal winning 'o8 team. Obviously, when you're playing behind Lloy Ball, you're not seeing too much court time. After Suxho's injury two weeks ago, Knipe subbed in Hansen and things fell apart rather quickly. The rhythm of the sets was off and Hansen was not able to connect with his hitters. The Americans fought hard to battle back and win that match, but never quite regained the fluidity they had with Suxho earlier.
Now that Hansen has had more time with the hitters, hopefully some of those connection problems have been solved. There is no room for inconsistency if the team is to beat Russia this weekend and make the World League playoffs. Hansen is likely to see a lot of time in these big matches.
Last but not least is Tyler Hildebrand. After Suxho's injury, Hildebrand was brought back to the team. He suffered an injury as well and he is still recovering. He may have come back a little bit before he or his doctors had planned. But he had lots of opportunities this past week against Egypt and Coach Knipe who coached Hildebrand at LBSU says he is also a contender for the top spot.
Adding to the drama of it all is the specter of the great Lloy Ball returning for one last go-round. Lloy has officially retired from the national team and is playing (and winning) over in Russia. Even at 38 years old, Lloy is proving to be one of the best setters in the world.
Who can forget that he retired before, came back in the 11th hour before Beijing and was a huge factor in that gold medal run. His return squeezed out Brandon Taliaferro and ended his hopes of an Olympic experience. Could that happen again to one of these younger setters in 2012?
Knipe says he gets this question all the time, but as of yet there is no indication that Lloy will return. Check out the rest of his response about the setter position in this week's Q and A. The bottom line is that he didn't rule it out.
So the current setters will continue to battle, Knipe will plan on developing and going with the setters he has now, Lloy will loom on the horizon most likely until the very last moment and we can watch the battle heat up over the next two years.
Comments
Beverly, I saw the two Egypt matches down in Charlotte earlier. My impression was:
The hitters were definitely more synched up with Suxho than with Hansen. When Hansen subbed in, timing was off on his backsets to the opposite and at middle (probably the bigger problem). Of course, that is a common problem when introducing any new setter in the middle of a match. My wife pointed out that Suxho seemed to have much more of an intangible leadership quality than Hansen, so the team missed that element. And especially with Priddy out, it seemed like everyone was looking for someone else to step up. But overall, the team struggled a bit and then closed out the matches with Hansen setting. I will say that Hansen was WAY better at defense and at chasing down errant passes/digs.
There was one game against Egypt where it was 23-8, Egypt’s favor (I’ve been there myself, so I understand)! I think it finished up 25-11. Most of that was due to our bad passing, along with trying too hard on some hits. Of course, the next game we turned it around completely, winning 25-14, and it really wasn’t even that close. Rooney played outside a lot even though he wasn’t that effective at the net. I think it was because he was somewhat more reliable as a passer than Anderson, Lotman, or Salmon. (BTW, Anderson had some of the most powerful hits. He will be a team leader in the future, I think.)
So, the biggest problem that I saw with the men’s team was service reception. Most of the time it was so-so. Sometimes it was great and other times it completely broke down. With regard to that, it doesn’t matter who the setter is.