Coach McRoberts Press Conference: 09.29

Sept. 29, 2014

Ole Miss head coach Steven McRoberts met with members of the media Monday to discuss last weekend's opening SEC matches and Wednesday's SEC home opener against Missouri. The Rebels and Tigers will square off at 6 p.m., and the match will be televised on the SEC Network.

Opening statement…
"I want to thank everybody for coming out today and being here. We just completed our first weekend of SEC play. Of course, it wasn't the results that we were looking for. We started at South Carolina on Friday. From watching film and preparing for them, we really felt like we were going to have a good shot to win that match. We gave ourselves a chance. They had over 1,500 at their match and they have a gym that's not much bigger than the Gillom Center. It was really loud. We spent every timeout screaming in the huddle and still had players look at me like they couldn't understand what I was saying.

Really, the match was a tale of two halves. We played really well the first two sets, and then after the 10-minute break and came out a little flat. South Carolina did a good job of making some adjustments. They won the third set, and we came out in the fourth, and it was going back and forth. We take the lead late and had match point, 24-23 and just don't get it done. I really thought after we lost that set we would be in trouble going into the fifth and we came out and played the fifth set really well. We were up 12-11 going to 15, and they take a timeout, and then they come out and score four straight to end the match.

It's just really disappointing any time you're in conference play no matter who you're playing to let one get away. You feel like when you have those opportunities you have to take advantage of it, and we didn't do it. And just by happenstance, we had to turn around and play the best team in the conference, Florida, at their place. They had over 1,500 there and they're just playing really well. They're really well-coached. We definitely would have had to have been firing on all cylinders to be competitive. It's not a fun place to go when you're licking your wounds from a Friday night close loss.

We came out flat and you can't come out flat against Florida. They whooped us pretty good the first two sets. We took a 10-minute break and regrouped. I felt like we played a pretty good third set. We hit well over .300, and if it wasn't for three missed serves that we had, (we lost 25-19), and if you flip those, you might be looking at 22-22 and having a chance to take a set off of them. It was a good way to end as far as from a confidence standpoint. Hopefully, it will be something to build on knowing that we can play with anybody in the conference. Where we need to get as a program is knowing we can beat anybody in the conference.

Of course, in the SEC, you have to have a short memory. We play Wednesday at 6 o'clock versus Missouri and they're coming in 2-0 in the conference, so it's going to be a tough match. Hopefully we learned a lot from this past weekend. We're going to challenge our team to come out and use the frustration from this past weekend to have a good week of practice.

On adjustments South Carolina made…
"They have some primary hitters that they like to set to. It's called commit blocking, where we're telling our middle blocker to release and line up on the primary hitter when the ball is passed to the set. We already had a double block set up. We did that a lot in the first two sets and they didn't adjust. They weren't setting some of their non-primary hitters, so they were getting frustrated they weren't putting the ball away. They made a good adjustment because early in the third set, they started setting players that they weren't, and they were putting the ball away. It started putting our defense off-balance because we had to play them straight-up. It was a good adjustment by them. We made some adjustments going into the fourth that gave ourselves a chance to win, but we just didn't do it. One point away from 1-0 to start conference and it hurts."

The University of Mississippi Athletics

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