The University of Mississippi Athletics
Steven McRoberts Weekly Press Conference
11/2/2015 | Volleyball
Ole Miss head coach Steven McRoberts met with members of the media Monday to discuss the team's recent road trips and coming home for a re-match with Arkansas.
Opening Statement
"I want to congratulate Coach (Matt) Mott and the soccer team on a tremendous regular season. I know they have their sights set high for the postseason as well. Hopefully we will get to host some in the NCAA and we can get out and support them again."
On Last Week
"We had kind of a weird week, we went to Georgia. I knew both of these matches were going to be tough. It seems like over the last year and a half our teams have had a tough time with the bottom half of the conference for some reason just mentally getting up to play those matches. Going to Georgia when they are a team that has not won one in the conference, it's an ESPNU game, playing at 9 o'clock at night. We just did not play very well. We snuck out the first set, 27-25. Then they just killed us the second set. They were killing us in the third set, I think it was 13-5, and I am thinking the ship is sinking. The ladies pulled it together and we ended up winning in four. We had a stretch there where we played really well. I think we outscored them at one point, something crazy, close to 30-5 at one point. When we just lost a set 25-12, you are just scratching your head wondering how you can come back and do that. The reason why it was so weird was we hit below .200, and it was the first time all season we had won hitting below .200. Then we go to South Carolina, and we hit .250 and it was only the second time we had lost when we hit over .200. We had a flip flop from a hitting percentage standpoint.
"Yesterday we just could not quite get over the hump. South Carolina has now won three out of four with their one loss being to Florida, who has now righted the ship and is playing better than anyone in the conference. It was just another one of those matches where we were there, we were there, get to the end, and we could not finish the set. We were down 22-12 in the first set, came all the way back to tie it at 24, so I was really proud of the effort there. They won 26-24. Second set was back and forth most of the time. South Carolina finished it out. We missed three serves after we got to 15, so that really hurt us there at the end when we lost by four. The third set was back and fourth, we lost 26-24 again. You look at the stat sheet and across the board it looks pretty even between the two teams. We probably led in four or five of the stat lines, in the ones that you would think it would be important to win the match and we just didn't."
On Arkansas Match
"We need to re-group. We have Arkansas coming here this week. It will be kind of a doubleheader. We host Arkansas on Friday night and football hosts Arkansas on Saturday. We had our best match of the year against them, winning at their place in five. Arkansas is a very talented team. I know they are going to want to come here for revenge. We need to have another great match to have a chance to get the W. We have seven matches left, four of those at home, and two or three are against top teams in the league. We still have a shot here, it's a long shot probably, but if we get on a roll here at the end we could get our RPI up high enough. We are playing so many teams in the top 50 top 100 that we could get a good bump. It is all going to start with us getting things going on Friday."
