The University of Mississippi Athletics
Coach McRoberts Press Conference: 11.03
11/3/2014 | Volleyball
Ole Miss head coach Steven McRoberts met with members of the media Monday to discuss the win over South Carolina yesterday and preview the re-match with Mississippi State. The Rebels and Bulldogs will face off Wednesday at 5 p.m. in a nationally-televised match on ESPNU.
Opening statement…
"We had one match yesterday. We had a week off after we dropped a game. I would call it one of our worst performances last Sunday against Tennessee. Our week off helped us to prepare for South Carolina. I did something I cannot remember doing in the 18 years I have coached, in season. We had our required NCAA off day on Monday, and then on Tuesday we had a team meeting. I let them know how hard practice was going to be on Tuesday. I was pretty angry after the Tennessee match. Sometimes that required NCAA off-day is as good for coaches as it is for players. It allows us to calm down and figure some things out. When we came in on Tuesday we had a team meeting, and then we went to a team dinner and took them to a movie. We just took a step back from the game of volleyball. When we came in Wednesday, we got them warmed up for practice and then we had a really long practice written on the board, like we were going to work hard again. We divided them up into whiffle ball teams and played some whiffle ball in the gym. At this point in the season I felt as though we were just getting mentally drained. Physically we have been fine, but mentally I felt like we were starting to slide backwards. Luckily for me, it paid off. I do not think I would be talking about this if we had lost.
I think it was one of our better defensive efforts of the year against South Carolina. We held them below .030 in the first two sets. We got our offense going in the third set when they got their offense going in the third set. We were just a little bit better than South Carolina was and we finished in three. It was a nice revenge game for us. We had match point against them in the fourth set at their place, and let it slip away. It was one of the matches where we were really motivated to come out and play well and we did that, definitely defensively. Nakeyta Clair played great offensively. The last couple matches she has been a little off. Clair even admitted to me she was disappointed in her performance last week, and that says a lot about her and how she takes ownership. She came out yesterday and had 17 kills. I believe she hit .467. We really needed her offensively yesterday to help us. But, the rest of the team played exceptionally well defensively.
This week we head to Mississippi State on Wednesday. We are expecting a rowdy crowd there. Then at the end of the week, we travel to Texas A&M on Saturday. Texas A&M is currently in the Top 25 and it is one of those matches that I have talked about as we are finishing up the season. We have five opportunities against top 25 RPI schools to help offset that Tennessee loss last week and possibly put us back in the talk when the NCAA tournament comes."
On how he views the first year...
"Somebody asked what my expectations were the other day. Your first season, you just do not know. I had played some SEC schools before when I was as Tulsa and Central Arkansas, but it is different when you are playing two in a weekend, or an 18-match schedule against SEC schools - versus catching them on a weekend pre-conference.
Then, getting to know our team was important, too. My expectations are always high. Maybe I am unrealistic sometimes. But, every time we go out to play I expect to win. From a realistic standpoint, I am disappointed we dropped that match at South Carolina earlier in the year. I am disappointed in our effort against Tennessee. When I look at that I think that we could easily be 7-3 right now, and maybe inside of the bubble for the NCAA tournament, whereas right now we are just outside of it. I talk to you about the NCAA tournament stuff, but I try to get away from that with our team. I want them to worry about Mississippi State. I do not want them to worry about what is going to happen a month from now, because if we do not beat Mississippi State it is probably not going to matter.
Our whole week's message going into the South Carolina match was that I just want us to give a full effort and have a good effort out there. When we have done that we have been successful. It may not always turn into a win, but most of the time it has. Our record right now is 19-5. We are just trying to get back to the basics and back to our core values. We need to quit worrying about what could potentially happen after Thanksgiving. Even though it is only three weeks, it is a long way away before we are worried about NCAA tournament. So, we have refocused on a daily basis. I will take responsibility for getting away from that a little bit because we got off to such a great start.
I am happy with where we are right now. We have the majority of the team coming back next year and that is why I think it is so important to make sure that we are sending the right message on a daily basis knowing that we have our core group returning. Hopefully we will have this kind of record again next year and be talking about making a postseason run."
