Wow – another amazingly in depth article about Pitt Women’s Volley by John Demko. This is bragging folks but I don’t think any other independent media site has anywhere near the fine reporting and excellent writing about this subject than The Pitt POV does. Thanks and kudos to John Demko for taking the time and effort in doing this!
The NCAA Women’s volleyball committee announced the 2023 sixty-four team bracket for the tournament on Sunday and Pitt was the #4 seed overall. They will host the first four rounds if they win their first two games in the tournament. Pitt is #1 in their bracket with Louisville as the #2 in the same bracket. I will discuss this more later in the article.
Here is the entire bracket for the tournament.
2023 Division I Women’s Volleyball Official Bracket | NCAA.com
The NCAA Women’s volleyball committee announced the 2023 sixty-four team bracket for the tournament on Sunday and Pitt was the #4 seed overall. They will host the first four rounds if they win their first two games in the tournament. Pitt is #1 in their bracket with Louisville as the #2 in the same bracket. I will discuss this more later in the article.
Before we get to the tournament a brief recap on what happened last week. On Wednesday Pitt swept Miami in three sets convincingly. Pitt’s serving gave Miami fits all night. Pitt’s serve receive was much better than the previous Miami match in Florida.
On Friday Pitt went up to Syracuse and ended the Orange’s miserable season. The Orange only had 7 players dressed and all played. The Orange ended up 0-18 in conference play. Coach Fisher rested Rachel Fairbanks. All the other healthy Pitt players participated in a blowout. Cat Flood played middle blocker. Syracuse’s coach is using all the injuries to his team as an excuse. Something is horribly wrong in their program as the injury rate for his team is off the charts. Would you send your daughter to play for him?
With the win at Syracuse Pitt won the ACC co-championship of the ACC with Florida State. Due to FSU’s head-to-head victory over Pitt, they got the ACC automatic bid. That mattered very little to the selection committee. FSU was placed in the Nebraska bracket and must travel to Arkansas for their first two matches. They face a pretty decent TCU team in the first round. I see them winning that match but then falling to host Arkansas in the second round.
Besides Pitt and Florida State the ACC also has Louisville, Georgia Tech, and Miami in the field. We will discuss Louisville later. Georgia Tech, also in the Nebraska bracket, has an easy first round match before facing Florida in the second round at Florida. Tech may beat Florida. If they do that they get to travel to Nebraska for the third round to face Nebraska. That is the end of the road for Georgia Tech.
Miami travels to Wisconsin for the first two rounds. Miami has a winnable first round match against a higher seeded opponent. If they win that match, they then face Wisconsin. Miami joins FSU in not making it to the Sweet Sixteen.
Two other ACC teams that had a chance of getting into the tournament were Duke and NC State. Duke played a tough OOC but managed to lose to UNC in their last match of the season. That probably cost them their spot in the tournament. NC State scheduled an OOC against a bunch of patsies. Even though they were able to defeat Louisville, the committee justifiably punished them for their schedule and left them out.
Now we get to Pitt’s bracket. Steel sharpens steel! The committee gave Pitt a lot of opponents to sharpen themselves against! Pitt’s first round opponent is Coppin State. The match will be played at 7 PM on Friday, December 1st at the Pete. I do not know much about them other than Pitt should easily handle them. The key for Pitt during this match is staying healthy while dominating the match. This will allow Coach Fisher to rest some players and give others tournament experience. In the second round, Pitt starts their sharpening early!
Pitt should face USC in the second-round match at 7 PM on Saturday, December 2nd at the Pete. Unfortunately, it is not the one from South Carolina named after chickens. The University of Southern California is a very dangerous opponent if not taken seriously. Southern Cal’s best wins are against Purdue, Arizona State, and Washington State. Washington State defeated them in the rematch later in the season. UCLA defeated USC in their last match of the season.
USC is led by a senior 6’2” outside hitter six position player, Skylar Fields. She leads the team with 586 of their 1,613 kills. The next closest player only has 210 kills. Skylar, who wears #5, also leads the team with 633 of their total 2,033 points. Pitt needs to shut her down at the net. Because Skylar stays on the court for all rotations, Pitt will probably serve at her when she is in the back row. Skylar is hitting 0.295 for the season.
Overall USC is hitting 0.254 versus 0.227 for the opposition. Pitt is hitting 0.309 and holding the opposition to 0.144. USC serving stats are 173 errors versus 307 errors. Pitt serving stats are 142 aces versus 214 errors. Pitt averages 2.9 blocks/set versus 1.9 blocks/set for USC. Pitt is the much better team on paper.
Stanford, a team in Pitt’s class, held Skylar to a 0.111 hitting percentage in their sweep against USC. The scores for the match were 22-25, 14-25, 14-25. Stanford wore them down in the first set and crushed them the rest of the way. Stanford hit 0.402 while holding USC to 0.112.
Southern Cal will need other players to step up if they want to beat Pitt. Southern Cal plays a 5-1 offense with their setter being #91 junior 5’9” Mia Tuaniga. Their other outside hitters are #2 freshman 5’10” London Wijay with 183 kills/0.185 hitting percentage and #8 grad student 6’0” Kaylah Williams with 154 kills/0.165 hitting percentage. The middles for USC are led by their second leading scorer #13 redshirt sophomore 6’1” Tyrah Ariail with 210 kills and 14 single blocks/93 block assists. Their second middle blocker is #10 senior 6’4” Lindsey Miller with 179 kills and 11 BS/87BA. Notice Pitt has a height advantage over the Trojans.
While some Pitt volleyball supporters and writers are worried about USC, I am confident Pitt can defeat USC and their “one trick pony” offense. Stanford handled them, so can Pitt! To put things in perspective, if Pitt cannot defeat USC then they should not be hosting the next round anyway. This is not the Pitt team that lost to a “one trick pony” Cincinnati team at the Pete in the second round in 2019!
There has been some complaining on the part of Pitt’s volleyball supporters and writers that Pitt has a very difficult path to the Final Four. I do not see it that way. Pitt is not interested in making it just to the Final Four any more. They are after a NCAA championship! If they get there this year, they will be ready to play Nebraska. Nebraska will need to make sure they are ready to play our Panthers.
Down the road other major opponents in Pitt’s bracket are Washington State and that ACC team from Kentucky, Louisville. Given that Pitt and Louisville were the last two teams considered for the #4 spot and final regional hosting spot, it makes sense that Louisville was the #5 seed and is on the opposite side of Pitt’s bracket. Louisville’s second round opponent will be a strong Auburn team which I see them defeating in four sets. This assumes the Cardinals play up to their potential. Their loss to NC State still puzzles me.
Assuming all four top seeds in Pitt’s bracket win, the four teams playing in Pittsburgh for round three will be Pitt versus Washington State and Louisville versus Creighton. But let us not get too far ahead of ourselves. First, Pitt must win their first two matches!
Ed Note: Here is what the ladies did to earn that #1 Seed…
Hail to Pitt!
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