The University of Mississippi Athletics
Coach McRoberts Press Conference: 10.20
10/20/2014 | Volleyball
Ole Miss head coach Steven McRoberts met with members of the media Monday to discuss last week's road wins against Auburn and Alabama and preview the LSU match. The Rebels will host LSU Wednesday at 6 p.m. in a nationally-televised match on the SEC Network.
Opening statement …
"It was a great weekend for us. We had two much needed road wins. We played five of our first seven matches on the road and started off 0-3. We had a match point against South Carolina, and the first one we really let get away. I felt like we really needed to gain some self-confidence and this weekend helped us to do so. We host LSU on Wednesday and we have a chance to move to fourth place in the conference with a win.
"I want to give credit to my assistants (Ronaldo Pacheco and Angela Mooney). They did, and have been doing, such a good job training our players and getting them prepared for matches. Of course, a lot of the credit goes to the players. I thought we had a great weekend and were mentally tough. They are getting better every week. It is fun to watch the growth.
"We defeated Auburn in four sets. We had a couple of players who had career highs. Freshman Lexi Thompson led the team with 23 kills. Our senior libero led the team with 23 digs. It was a crazy match. It seemed like we controlled the whole game except for the second set. We allowed Auburn to kill us in that set. We bounced back after the break. Yesterday we defeated Alabama in five sets. It was an interesting match. Any time there was a timeout I felt like I was telling my team how well we were playing. I think it was our most complete match of the entire year, especially against a team the caliber of Alabama. We had four players in double digits versus Alabama who had two. We did a great job in the fifth set of controlling them. We pulled out a close one against Alabama. They are a top 30 RPI team. That is really going to help us as we move forward and look to hopefully being in the NCAA tournament. We have six or seven more opportunities with top 50 RPI teams. One of those opportunities will be on Wednesday against LSU.
"Our team hit for a very high percentage against Alabama. We hit .311, which is way above our average. Aubrey Edie was named SEC Offensive Player of the Week. That is our fifth player to receive an SEC award this year. This leads the conference for the year. It has been nice to have that balance this year. Again, we play LSU on Wednesday at 6 p.m. and it is an SEC Network match. It is another big match for us and gives us an opportunity to move up in the standings."
On turning points in on-the-road success ...
"We have had some moments, such as against South Carolina, where I thought that we were handling it well. Then all of a sudden the wheels just kind of came off. Sometimes I almost feel a panic when I am feeling comfortable. I do not know if we should ever feel comfortable when playing on the road. We have shown that we can do well, and then it just goes downhill. We talked last week about how we were going to do some things differently once we got on the road. And we did. We had shorter practices, but we went really hard. Everything was focused. Whether that was the difference or not, I am not sure. As coaches, we are going to hang our hat on it because it worked. I think one thing this team really needs is focus. We have leaders who are confident. We can play with anybody. We just cannot go on the road and relax. We cannot take it easy and lose focus after a long travel day. Again, that is why I am giving a lot of credit to Ronaldo and Angela. I felt like they did a great job of keeping us on task throughout the weekend. The team came out focused both matches. We started off both really well."
On LSU …
"They started off this year struggling. You can tell by their record. It is not glowing, but they are still a top 30 RPI ranked team. That shows what kind of schedule they have played. LSU is very athletic. They have a middle, who along with Nakeyta Clair, are probably the top two middles in the conference right now. Florida also has a stud middle. LSU is playing with confidence. They have won five games in a row. They go on the road and get down to Kentucky, and then you see that they pulled off that third set 26-24. Then all of a sudden they win the fourth set 25-9. When you are doing that against a top 15 team that is impressive. They are going to come in with a lot of confidence. We are going to be playing with a lot of confidence. It should be a really good match."
