#1 Nebraska vs. #6 Texas A&M<\/p>\n
When: Sunday, December 14th at 2 pm CT<\/p>\n
Where: Devaney Sports Center, Lincoln, NE<\/p>\n
Radio: Husker Radio Network<\/a><\/p>\n Texas A&M is a very senior heavy team. Six of the seven starters are seniors. They are motivated by the desire to continue to wear the A&M uniform, and showed some real urgency to earn another match when they took Louisville down in a reverse sweep on Friday night.<\/p>\n You probably watched that reverse sweep happen, waiting for the Husker match to start. The Aggies were in control for most of sets one and two but did not find a way to earn the last five points faster than Louisville did. Louisville trailed in both opening sets but came from behind to win them.<\/p>\n Those set one and two losses really could have been completely deflating, but instead Texas A&M fought back winning set three decisively, which created momentum that carried on to wins in the next two sets.<\/p>\n Nebraska\u2019s head coach Dani Busboom Kelly talked at the end of the night how a reverse sweep can give a team so much confidence. She was pleased that her team who, in their moment, won in three sets as she said it was what they needed but A&Ms reverse sweep may have been just what the Aggies needed.<\/p>\n Now, Nebraska and Texas A&M meet Sunday afternoon in the Devaney Center at 2 pm for the right to go to Kansas City and continue to compete for the National Championship.<\/p>\n Nebraska and Texas A&M are similar in their style of play at the net. They are physically imposing teams that beat you by going over your block and overpowering your defense with pounded shots. Sure, they can both use finesse and practiced shots, but the strength of both offenses is the power and height in which they play.<\/p>\n When you play a team like Indiana or Creighton, they are going to try to beat you with speed and then well-placed attacks. Their strength as a team is different than that of Nebraska, and A&M is more like Nebraska. Which means the Huskers may have some difficulties simply trying to beat A&M at their own game. The Huskers simply need to have a better plan.<\/p>\n The Aggies can absolutely be better as we consider position by position and who lines up as the opposing blocker in this match. This first person the scouting report is designed to defend against when you play Texas A&M is 6\u20193\u201d left-handed opposite attacker, Logan Lednicky<\/a>. She had 53 attempts and 20 kills against Louisville. She attacks in the front and back row and she will earn plenty of kills.<\/p>\n Nebraska\u2019s left side attackers, Taylor Landfair<\/a> and Harper Murray<\/a> are critical to slowing Lednicky. Landfair and Murray have to set up their side of the block directly in front of Lednicky. Don\u2019t let her get too far inside or outside the middle of your body. Then Rebekah Allick<\/a> and Andi Jackson<\/a> have to be hip to hip with the left side in order to close any space between hands. Holes in blocks are always bad news but against Lednicky they are a guaranteed point for the Aggies.<\/p>\n Lednicky plays next to Aggies middle blocker Ifenna Cos-Okpalla<\/a>. She is an offensive threat and at 6\u20192\u201d with a good leap she is hitting over and around blockers. She and her teammate Morgan Perkins<\/a> will be one of the be better middle combinations Nebraska has faced this season.<\/p>\n Nebraska\u2019s middles are the best middle combination in college volleyball, so they are up for the challenge. In her postgame interview with ESPN, Allick said she couldn\u2019t wait for Sunday and the great volleyball they would play. She believes Nebraska plays their best when they are up against high quality opponents.<\/p>\n The Aggies play 6\u20193\u201d senior Emily Hellmuth<\/a> and 5\u201911\u201d sophomore Kyndal Stowers<\/a> on the left side. They will receive less sets than Lednicky on the right side, but these two players carry a heavy offensive load for the Aggies. The blockers in front of Hellmuth and Stowers are Bergen Reilly<\/a> and Virginia Adriano<\/a> on the right and again Jackson and Allick in the middle.<\/p>\n They just need to get block touches. Slow the ball down and allow the stupendous defenders in Nebraska\u2019s backcourt to pick up the ball. Hellmuth and Stowers need not be stuff-blocked. Huskers can dig them and let the Husker offense go to work.<\/p>\n Offense vs offense Nebraska has the win and the ability to beat the Aggies but the real separation between these two teams comes in the positions that don\u2019t actually score the points: defensive specialist, liberos and setters.<\/p>\n There is no doubt the Huskers are better than the Aggies in the backrow with the superior play of Laney Choboy<\/a>, Olivia Mauch<\/a>, Teraya Sigler<\/a> on serve receive and defense and Reilly in her ability to elevate the play of her hitters. Conversely, Nebraska will work to serve aggressively as they always do but with the reality that it should be disruptive specifically to this A&M team.<\/p>\n Nebraska can and will earn aces against their serve receive. Huskers will also just cause trouble and force Aggies setter, Maddie Waak<\/a>, to run. If she is on the run, she has a much harder time setting middles Cos-Okpalla and Perkins as well as getting a fast back set to Lednicky. Serving will be a factor in this match.<\/p>\n One more key skill in this match is the Aggies blocking. It is a strength of their team, and the leader of this charge is middle blocker Cos-Okpalla. She had 12 blocks against Louisville and when she is blocking next to Lednicky it is a formidable block. All this means is the Husker hitters must raise their shot game and make the smart short when those four hands are up and solid.<\/p>\n As it should the level of competition is getting better every match for the Huskers. The Aggies will present a challenging opponent that will have the Husker playing the high-level volleyball we love to watch. Let\u2019s see just how good this Nebraska team can be! GBR!<\/p>\n Below is the remaining schedule for the tournament throughout the month of December. Check out the NCAA bracket here<\/a>.<\/p>\n December 18th – Final Four (Semifinals) (TV: ESPN)December 21st – National Championship (TV: ABC at 2:30pm CST)<\/p>\n Third Round Matches December 12th Fourth Round Matches December 14th #1 Nebraska Cornhuskers (33-0, 20-0 B1G)<\/p>\n Key Wins: Kentucky, Pitt, Wisconsin #6 Texas A&M Aggies (26-4, 14-1 SEC)<\/p>\n #1 Ifenna Cos-Okpalla<\/a> 6\u20192\u201d SR MB Key Wins: Louisville, Texas, Minnesota
December 11th (# are seeds in the last AVCA Coach\u2019s Poll)
#11 Creighton Defeated #8 Arizona State 3-1
#2 Kentucky Defeated Cal Poly 3-0
#4 Pitt Defeated #17 Minnesota 3-0
#12 Purdue Defeated #7 SMU 3-1<\/p>\n
#3 Texas Defeated #15 Indiana 3-0
#10 Wisconsin Defeated #5 Stanford 3-1
#6 Texas A&M Defeated #9 Louisville 3-2
#1 Nebraska Defeated #16 Kansas 3-0<\/p>\n
December 13th
#2 Kentucky Defeated #11 Creighton 3-0
#4 Pitt Defeated #12 Purdue 3-1<\/p>\n
#1 Nebraska vs #6 Texas A&M 2:00 pm CT on ABC
#3 Texas vs #10 Wisconsin 6:30 pm CT ESPN<\/p>\n
Key Losses: None
NCAA Path: LIU 3-0, Kansas State 3-0, #16 Kansas 3-0<\/p>\n
#2 Addi Applegate<\/a> 5\u20195\u201d FR L\/DS
#3 Tatum Thomas <\/a>5\u20196\u201d SR L\/DS
#4 Emily Hellmuth<\/a> 6\u20193\u201d SR OH
#5 Lexi Guinn<\/a> 6\u20190\u201d SR OH
#6 Taryn Morris<\/a> 6\u20193\u201d FR OH
#7 Djurdju Stanojevic<\/a> 6\u20191\u201d FR MB
#8 Amare Hernandez<\/a> 5\u201911\u2019 FR OH
#9 Logan Lednicky<\/a> 6\u20193\u201d SR OPP
#10 Margot Manning<\/a> 5\u201910\u201d JR Setter
#11 Taylor Humphrey<\/a> 6\u20193\u201d SR OH
#12 Ava Underwood<\/a> 5\u20197\u201d SR L\/DS
#14 Kirra Musgrove<\/a> 6\u20192\u201d FR Setter
#16 Maddie Waak<\/a> 5\u201910\u201d SR Setter
#20 Megan Fitch<\/a> 6\u20192\u201d FR OH
#21 Morgan Perkins<\/a> 6\u20191\u201d SR MB
#37 Kyndal Stowers<\/a> 5\u201911\u201d SO OH<\/p>\n
Key Losses: Texas (SEC Tournament), Kentucky, TCU, SMU
NCAA Path: Campbell 3-0, #20 TCU 3-1, #9 Louisville 3-2<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"#1 Nebraska vs. #6 Texas A&M When: Sunday, December 14th at 2 pm CT Where: Devaney Sports Center,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[41554,41817,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-87666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-husker-volleyball","tag-nebraska-husker-athletics","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}