Steven McRoberts Weekly Press Conference

Sept. 11, 2017

Ole Miss volleyball head coach Steven McRoberts met with members of the media on Monday as part of his weekly press conference. Coach McRoberts discussed the Ole Miss Classic and previewed the upcoming conference play.

Opening Statement...

"I want to congratulate Coach (Matt) Mott on a great two-win weekend and to Coach (Matt) Luke and the football team on their win. It was a nice weekend for Ole Miss Athletics. We are thankful to be in the winning party. We had a great weekend for our team and two good wins on Thursday that went pretty quick, which we needed. It seems like a lot of our matches have been grinded it out, so to have a day where we play twice and both of them be about a total of less than three hours really helped our spirits, physically and mentally going into Friday. We needed every bit of it. We came out and started really well against Mercer, a team that has dealt with some injuries and they had everyone back against us. After that first set you could tell Mercer started gaining some confidence and played really well in the second and third sets. For us to go down 2-1 and then win 25-11 (in the fourth), and pull away at the end of the fifth set to win 15-11 was good. A lot of good performances over the weekend led by Lexi Thompson, a senior outside hitter. She was MVP of the tournament. She had 24 kills against Mercer and hit for a very high percentage over the weekend. We will need her to continue to play well for us to rack up some wins when SEC play starts next week."

On standout players in the Ole Miss Classic...

"Kate Gibson and Caroline Adams were both named to the All-Tournament Team. Both played some great back row defense and with great passing. That is one of the things that is kind of tough, especially for people who aren't so familiar with the sport to pick up on. It is not statable necessarily unless you get aced, so it's not a great stat that you get picked up on. When you are not doing it well, everybody notices, but when you are doing it well everyone just expects it and you see the offense rolling in that respect. Both of them did a great job in the serve receive and defense category."

"Emily Stroup and Caitlin Wernentin both had some great moments on the right side for us. Both of our setters did a great job over the weekend making good decisions. Probably our best offensive output of the year."

On upcoming travel...

"Crazy week this week, we head out this afternoon on about a four-hour flight to Colorado. We are going to play at Northern Colorado. We wanted to get one of our seniors, Kate Gibson close to home for a match and then we will have Wednesday off and will get on another flight to head to Orlando to get Lexi Thompson, our other senior, close to home for a weekend. Some of that is still up in the air on the weekend, depending on what happens today with the hurricane. The plans are right now for us to head that way."

On heading into SEC play...

"I think we are on schedule. There are definitely areas we can improve in that would help us feel more confident. We make some big runs and then we give up some big runs as well. We have got to somehow stop that end of it. In my opinion, we have the best offense that we have had since we've been here. Definitely we are playing really well. We are leading the league in defensive hitting percentage, so that is something that you can always hang your hat on in any sport if you can slow the other side down, you give yourself a chance. We are doing that in every match up until this point. I am confident where this group is at. We feel like our conference schedule sets up more competitive for us this year early than it did in the past. We don't have Florida on the first weekend like we have had for the last three years. We have some teams that looking at scores, they will be tough, but we feel like we will be competitive."

On the offense...

"We tried a new offense and switched it up in the middle of that Mercer game. I said it after the match, when it works your players make you look really smart and when it doesn't work you look like an idiot. It worked and it may be something that we explore again as we go into our match tomorrow night. It puts one of our hitters on the bench, but it gives us some depth to plug somebody in if something is not going well. We used two setters. We put Jordan (Fate) in the back row and Lauren (Bars) in the front row. It is a modified 5-1. I thought it looked pretty good when we ran it in the match, so we will see where we go from here."

For more information on Ole Miss Volleyball, follow the Rebels on Twitter, @OleMissVB, on Facebook at OleMissVolleyball and on Instagram at OleMissVB. Also follow Coach McRoberts on Twitter, @CoachMcRoberts.

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Players Mentioned

Caroline Adams

Kate Gibson

Emily Stroup

Lexi Thompson

Caitlin Wernentin

The University of Mississippi Athletics