Tennessee welcomes its second new assistant coach of the offseason today with the announcement that former Iona College head coach Alan Edwards will be joining the Lady Vols. Edwards served as an assistant at Wyoming and Southeastern Louisiana and head coach of Iona and Mercer. He’s a graduate of Western Carolina.
Edwards: “When Rob called and asked if I wanted to join his coaching staff, it was a no-brainer for me I’ve known Rob for over 10 years and have the utmost respect for what he has accomplished here at Tennessee. I believe in what Rob is teaching and know that he runs his program with a tireless work ethic geared toward winning a national championship. The opportunity to pursue that goal with a person I respect as much as Rob was simply not one I could pass up.
I realize that anything I do here at UT will only be building upon the work that some of my best friends in this business have already done in Rob, Gregg Whitis, Mike Minnis and many others. My only goal is to pick up where they left off and continue to make this program better each and every day. I am looking forward to the challenge and hope that I can contribute something to the future success of Tennessee volleyball.”
The official site reports that the Lady Vols will have two matches broadcast on ESPNU this season: at Florida on September 25th and at Kentucky on October 12th.
Congratulations to Kayla Jeter who was named to the COBRA Magazine All Preseason First Team. She’s also been pegged as one of the magazine’s Preseason National Player of the Year candidates.
After two months of hard work, strenuous coding, and monotonous data entry I’ve thrilled to be able to finally share with you a major update to the Matchbook (the stats section of this site).
When I started last year you were able to view and interact with individual player stats for the current roster. The update is a complete rewrite that goes much further. In addition to recent matches you can now search through data from since the beginning of the rally-scoring era. Every Lady Vol match since 2001 is available to sort through (except three I’m missing). Also online are season by season stats, series records with opponents, complete box scores, and even the career records of 10 years worth of opposing players vs Tennessee! It’s a lot to wade through so here are a few example pages to show you what you can do:
• Kayla Jeter’s match by match career stats showing only three-set matches, sorted by kills, and highlighting games she hit over .500.• Series stats for every match vs Auburn in the last 10 years.
• Tennessee and our opponents match by match total team stats for 2005.
• Box score from Tennessee’s win over California in 2001.
• Career stats vs UT for Florida’s Kelly Murphy, the 2010 SEC Player of the Year.
OK, let’s be honest here. Yes, I mainly did this because it will make my job a lot easier! I know there aren’t a ton of number geeks out there craving this info! But I hope those of you who are interested enjoy this. I’m still tinkering with the code and squashing last minute bugs. So let me know if you spot any problems or have any suggestions.
Be sure to start at the Matchbook Index page for all the ways you can start digging into the data.
Congratulations to Ellen Mullins, Kelsey Robinson, and Carly Sahagian on being named to the 2011 First-Year SEC Academic Honor Roll!
We’re getting closer to the first serve of 2011 — just 50 days! I’m working behind the scenes here at the site to get everything updated, so you may see some glitches or non working links from time to time. I’m also working on an update to the player stats section that I hope to be able to announce in the next week or so!
If you need something to satisfy your volleyball fix until late August head over to the Tennessee Team Shop which has several Lady Vol volleyball items for sale, including hats, shirts, stickers, license plates, and lanyards.
UT today announced the resignation of assistant volleyball coach Gregg Whitis. I had hoped we dodged this bullet earlier this offseason. But Whitis was too good a recruiter and coach to hope we would be able to hold onto him for long. Best of luck to him and big congrats to whatever “opportunity” lands him next.
Congratulations to Nikki Brice who was named to the second team of PrepVolleyball.com’s “Gym Dandies“. The list recognizes the top “full time back row players, both high school and club, who work their butts off during practice and play to help the team at all costs”.
Congratulations to Kayla Jeter and Kelsey Robinson who won silver at the USA Volleyball Open National Championships. Photos from the event are online here, here, and here (Both were on the Red Team: Jeter #14, and Robinson #8). USAV also has an article about what the teams did in their off time.
UPDATE: USA Volleyball has the details on the championship match and exactly how close Jeter and Robinson were to gold.
Good luck to Kayla Jeter and Kelsey Robinson who are in Dallas TX this weekend competing in the USA Volleyball Open National Championships!
Another bit of news coming out of the previous PrepVolleyball story is that Tennessee has finally picked up a new middle blocker to fortify that area of their game: Washington transfer Stephanie Stoll. The Huskies know how to pick ’em, with five different All-American middles on the team over the past five years. So hopefully their loss is our gain! More info on Stoll can be found on her UW bio page.
UPDATE: Déjà vu — UT has more including quotes from the coach!
PrepVolleyball.com has ranked Tennessee’s incoming recruiting class as the 8th best in the country. The Lady Vols are the highest rated in the SEC with Florida coming in next at #16. The site notes that “the 2011 class addresses Tennessee’s needs and provides the Vols with depth at some important positions. All of the players are very physical and have a high volleyball IQ. They should be able to come in and contribute immediately, whether during matches or by providing top-flight competition for the starters during practice time.” This is the third time in four years Tennessee has ranked near the top of the list, coming in 13th in 2008 and 4th last year.
UPDATE: UT has more including quotes from the coach.
Recently the Knoxville News Sentinel looked at the upcoming sports related building projects at UT, giving us some of the first public news on the new volleyball home. Here’s some of the relevant quotes from the piece:
How quickly the projects are built could depend heavily on coming up with money to handle the multimillion-dollar price tags.Most of the projects are still in the design phase and staring down big fundraising goals, especially for sports with smaller donor pools than the traditional money magnets of football and basketball.
“It depends on the priorities of the department and the ability to fund the projects,” athletic director Mike Hamilton said. “All of these we’re funding either out of excess operating revenue or donor gifts for capital projects. If someone steps up and says ‘I would like to fund this project,’ it could move up the list.”
When the department began considering a new track and volleyball facility after being forced out of Stokely Athletics Center because of the crumbling conditions, Hamilton went directly to two donors who were never athletes at UT but are supporters of the programs. One donated $5 million and the other gave $3 million.That allowed the department to sketch its sleek new renderings of what a new facility would look like, with its slanted roof and triangular shape.
The indoor track stadium would seat 5,000, large enough for the NCAA championships, and the volleyball arena would seat 2,500, enough for the first and second round of the NCAA tournament.The location for the facility is off Neyland Drive next to the new softball and soccer fields. The projected cost is $25 million. No completion or construction dates are set yet.
Anyone got a few (million) bucks to kick in?
Some artist renderings from Studio Four Design follow:
[ click to continue article… ]
With 100 days left until the season begins Tennessee has filled the hole in their staff caused by former assistant coach Dani Busboom’s move to Louisville. UT has announced that Rachel Cooper will be joining the Lady Vols this year. Cooper was a player at Mississippi State, and spent the past three years as an assistant coach with ETSU.
Assistant coach Cooper: “I’m really excited about being back in the SEC and competing on a national level. The things I have seen Rob do are very exciting and I know that he has the program ready to make a run at another Final Four. I know I can learn a lot from both him and Gregg and am just thankful to be able to be a part of the University of Tennessee and this volleyball program.”
Congratulations to Nikki Fowler and Emily Steinbeck who graduated from the University this week!
“I’m extremely proud of our student-athletes that are graduating this weekend,” said director of women’s athletics Joan Cronan. “Our goal is to build champions while winning championships, and these student-athletes exemplify that mission, both in the classroom and the athletic arena.”