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The University of Mississippi Athletics
Steven McRoberts Weekly Press Conference #5
9/23/2019 | Volleyball
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 Rebels eight-match win streak, touring the nation's capital, and the impressive play from his squad as they enter the first weekend of SEC action...
Opening Statement:
"We went to Washington D.C. to play Howard and American. We beat Howard in three sets; they're a team that is expected to win the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, so it'll end up being a good RPI win for us. Same with American. I did a little reading before we played them and saw that over the last 30 years they had won 84 percent of their home matches so it wasn't an easy place to go in and play and win. I believe they had been in the NCAA Tournament 17 of the last 20 years, so it's very good program. They came out and beat us the first set and then we kind of started finding ourselves more in our play. They helped us out a lot because they missed nine serves in the second set in a 26-24 win. Then we kind of held on and played well in the third set. In the fourth set they had a set point on us and we had a couple big kills. Our sports kind of a weird sport. If you ever come to a game and hear a team yell, 'Free!' it's when a team is passing it over with just their arms. It's an easy ball to the other side, so the team receiving it yells, 'Free!' or 'Ball coming.' As we yell that when the ball is over the opponent this week passed the it out of bounds to end the match which you don't see very often. I was very grateful for that play at the end."
On the Washington, D.C. cultural experience:
"We did a lot of sightseeing. We don't get to do it very often, but we definitely wanted to take advantage of going to Washington, D.C. We did a night tour of the monuments on Saturday night and got up yesterday morning and went to Arlington National Cemetery. We saw the Changing of the Guard, which was a neat thing for us. We then went to the Smithsonian. Of course everything is planned out so well that instead of spending three or four hours at the airport, we ended up being there for eight. We got back at about 1 a.m., so we're going to do a light practice today."
On this weekend's match hosting Tennessee:
"We have one match this week with Tennessee coming to town. I think we have 10 of 11 matches on the road, and this is our one at home. We're 0-3 at home and 8-0 on the road so maybe we want to play them on the road. But we're going to turn that around. Tennessee is a really good team. In my opinion, they're in the mix for an SEC title this year. They had a really good run last season with a lot of players returning. Their four losses are to four Top 25 teams with one of those being Baylor, who could be No. 1 this week, so no bad losses for them. It should be a really good match."
On individual standout performances:
"Our libero Nicole Purcell is leading the SEC in digs and having a great senior year. Middle blocker Nayo Warnellhad another great weekend. She had almost two blocks per set and she's just climbing the record charts. Hopefully in the next couple weeks she'll be third all-time in program history for blocks. There were just a lot of contributions. Four wins on the road already. I said eight earlier, four of those were neutral, but four road wins doubles what we had last year already. So this team is showing good mental toughness on the road in some tough environments and it only gets tougher. SEC play starts this week and looking forward to playing Tennessee."
Opening Statement:
"We went to Washington D.C. to play Howard and American. We beat Howard in three sets; they're a team that is expected to win the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, so it'll end up being a good RPI win for us. Same with American. I did a little reading before we played them and saw that over the last 30 years they had won 84 percent of their home matches so it wasn't an easy place to go in and play and win. I believe they had been in the NCAA Tournament 17 of the last 20 years, so it's very good program. They came out and beat us the first set and then we kind of started finding ourselves more in our play. They helped us out a lot because they missed nine serves in the second set in a 26-24 win. Then we kind of held on and played well in the third set. In the fourth set they had a set point on us and we had a couple big kills. Our sports kind of a weird sport. If you ever come to a game and hear a team yell, 'Free!' it's when a team is passing it over with just their arms. It's an easy ball to the other side, so the team receiving it yells, 'Free!' or 'Ball coming.' As we yell that when the ball is over the opponent this week passed the it out of bounds to end the match which you don't see very often. I was very grateful for that play at the end."
On the Washington, D.C. cultural experience:
"We did a lot of sightseeing. We don't get to do it very often, but we definitely wanted to take advantage of going to Washington, D.C. We did a night tour of the monuments on Saturday night and got up yesterday morning and went to Arlington National Cemetery. We saw the Changing of the Guard, which was a neat thing for us. We then went to the Smithsonian. Of course everything is planned out so well that instead of spending three or four hours at the airport, we ended up being there for eight. We got back at about 1 a.m., so we're going to do a light practice today."
On this weekend's match hosting Tennessee:
"We have one match this week with Tennessee coming to town. I think we have 10 of 11 matches on the road, and this is our one at home. We're 0-3 at home and 8-0 on the road so maybe we want to play them on the road. But we're going to turn that around. Tennessee is a really good team. In my opinion, they're in the mix for an SEC title this year. They had a really good run last season with a lot of players returning. Their four losses are to four Top 25 teams with one of those being Baylor, who could be No. 1 this week, so no bad losses for them. It should be a really good match."
On individual standout performances:
"Our libero Nicole Purcell is leading the SEC in digs and having a great senior year. Middle blocker Nayo Warnellhad another great weekend. She had almost two blocks per set and she's just climbing the record charts. Hopefully in the next couple weeks she'll be third all-time in program history for blocks. There were just a lot of contributions. Four wins on the road already. I said eight earlier, four of those were neutral, but four road wins doubles what we had last year already. So this team is showing good mental toughness on the road in some tough environments and it only gets tougher. SEC play starts this week and looking forward to playing Tennessee."
Players Mentioned
DS
/ VolleyballMonday, November 24
Sunday, November 23
Sunday, November 23
Saturday, November 22