Mustangs Look to Bounce Back in Dallas

After a grueling back-to-back with number 5 Pittsburgh, the Mustangs return home to face top 25 RPI team in the Georgia Tech Yellowjackets and the surprise of the ACC in the preseason Clemson Tigers. This Georgia Tech team is like the Mustangs; they rely heavily on younger players and can look great at times. They went to Purdue and beat them in 4, something the Mustangs were unable to do at a neutral site. Clemson came out hot with a completely retooled roster out of the transfer portal to go through the preseason 12-0.

The Yellow Jackets come to Dallas after a 1-1 weekend at home against the Florida schools (Miami and Florida State). They are led by their freshman phenom Lameen Mambu with 2.89 kills per set and junior anchor Larissa Mendes 2.59 kills per set. The question for this team is where will they get the rest of their offense? If they can get one of their middles to produce, usually it is DeAndre Pierce and the other outside this could be a dangerous game for the Mustangs to walk into. This Georgia Tech team has struggled when they break down in receive and tend to get high error. Look for Coach Collier to mix up her line up to keep them in system and play with intensity that matches their coach. 

Clemson came out of the preseason as a HUGE winner. After only winning 11 games all season last year, they came into conference with 12 wins already! Two of those are against power conference schools in Georgia and South Carolina. Clemson likes to spread the love on offense getting a lot of players involved but led by outside hitter Kennedy Wagner at 3.9 kills per set which is up significantly from last year at 2.5 per set. This Clemson team seems to still be an unknown, can they bounce back and keep the momentum from the preseason? 

On SMUs side of the Net

Coming off the Pitt matches, Erger and staff have a big weekend to regain confidence. She mentioned in her press conferences that this team is young. My first reaction was, they have a few seniors, what does she mean by this? The more I watch and think about this team, they are inexperienced and young as a team. None of these players, not one played together last year. Malaya Jones for as good as she is did not play top teams’ night in and night out, Jordan Schilling came from a mid-major as well, Jadyn and Favor got pulled in and out of the lineup with USC all year. Other than Averi Carlson, it is freshman or players who have not played throughout a season against top teams every week. This team has talent, I think most people can see that, but they are still learning how to play together and to be disciplined throughout the match. I think what Erger and staff are hoping for through the next few weeks is growth, if that is happening then naturally wins will come. What major area of improvement this team needs to see if their defense, extending rallies with positive block touches and digs to the center of the court so they can get into the potent offense we have seen so far this season. It is a long season, and we can see this team get inch by inch better throughout the next month and a half, they could be really danger come tourney time. 

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