Head coach Kelly Sheffield didn’t sugarcoat anything in his Monday press conference.
Addressing his team’s recent straight-set loss to Minnesota, he opened his weekly press conference by telling reporters that the players should be “ticked off” at the outcome.
Wisconsin will not have to wait long to avenge its only Big Ten blemish of the season, as the Badgers get set to take on the reigning national champion Nebraska Cornhuskers on the road this weekend.
No. 4 Wisconsin will visit top-ranked Nebraska Friday night, before heading out to Carver-Hawkeye Arena to play Iowa this Saturday.
While getting swept by the Gophers certainly doesn’t sit well with the Badger players, they are trying to reconcile with the defeat in a calculated fashion, explaining that as badly as the match turned out, there are still some lessons that can be gleaned from the sobering showing.
“The day after that loss we had a long meeting and film, and as a team we we didn’t want to play like that or get swept at home at all,” freshman hitter Molly Haggerty said in practice. “It was a really good learning experience for us and we took away a lot from that. I think just taking note of those type of games will help make our team better and better for the future.”
One hole in Wisconsin’s game plan that the Minnesota match exposed pertains to defense. A strength for the majority of the season, the usually stellar Wisconsin defense has faltered a touch as of late.
Against UM, Wisconsin allowed a season-high .328 opponent-hitting percentage, and has been unable to hold foes below a mark of .230 in four of the last five contests. On top of that, the Badgers, who have led the Big Ten in blocks all season, have posted an average of just 1.60 blocks per set.
With how stout the Badgers have shown themselves to be, the defense can return to its top-flight form at some point. But it will undoubtedly need to tighten up in order to subdue a potent Cornhusker offense, which ranks third in the conference in kills per set.
Another critical element for UW has to do with its success in the serving game. Wisconsin checks in at second in the Big Ten in service aces per set (1.72) and sits atop the conference in opponent aces per set, surrendering only 0.54. Haggerty, the team-leader in kills, believes high-caliber serving could disrupt Nebraska’s tempo.
“We’re really emphasizing our passing and our serving because we know that Nebraska is a really good defensive team and that they’re really good at passing,” Haggerty said. “I think if we can put pressure on them when we’re serving it’ll definitely take them out of their system and slow down the game. We’re just trying to put as much pressure on them as we can and just have our side of the net playing fast and get them out of rhythm.”
Mentally, the Badgers aren’t paying much attention to all of the hyperbole leading up to the match in Nebraska.
“We haven’t once talked about them being the reigning national champs. We don’t really care about the rankings or whether they’re ranked first in the Big Ten,” Haggerty said. “I think we just go into every match knowing that it’s our job to win whether we’re playing Michigan, Purdue, Indiana or Nebraska.”
The final stop in Wisconsin’s two-week-long road trip is slated for Iowa City, where the Badgers will look to take down the Hawkeyes. Led by standout setter Loxley Keala, Iowa has had an up-and-down 2016, with most of the struggles surfacing in Big Ten play.
After storming out to a non-conference record of 13-2, the Hawkeyes have stalled since the start of the Big Ten season, going 5-3 in the first eight conference games.
The Hawkeyes do possess some talent that could disrupt the Badgers. Keala has dished out the second-most assists in the Big Ten and is a floor general and fantastic facilitator. Even still, the Iowa offense appears largely unthreatening, with a relatively tame .281 overall hitting percentage.
Although Iowa may be a team on the rise, having already eclipsed its win total from last year, Wisconsin has the talent to handle the Hawkeyes with ease.
First serve of Friday's match at Nebraska, which will be televised on the Big Ten Network, starts at 8 p.m, while the Iowa match begins Saturday at 7 p.m.
