Coaches Talk about NCAA Volleyball Tournament

Lincoln -- Nebraska Volleyball John Cook and the other three coaches in this weekend's NCAA First and Second Round matches met with the Nebraska media on Tuesday to discuss this weekend's action.

American Head Coach Barry Goldberg
On being sent to Lincoln, Neb. for the first round of the NCAA Tournament for the second year in a row
"It was complete silence when we were put up on the screen, and there might have been 150 to 200 people in a cozy room in our University watching. It was silence, and kind of shocking to be quite honest with you. We felt as though we were kind of placed in a way that was similar to just what happened last year, and we noticed that it was a pattern that went around the country. For us, we kind of felt like we were disrespected in a way, because for us, we felt like we had a really good season, and we're a different team (than last year). This will be the eighth year were in the tournament, and all the kids have on their lockers that they want to get through the first round, and get to the second round, and here they go and put us against the top team in the country to start the NCAA Tournament, which is kind of disheartening. Although we're excited to play, and we feel very confident about the way we've been playing as a team. So we're looking forward to playing for sure."

On recruiting twins Ann and Claire Recht
"In recruiting the twins, to me, was less of a risk than me recruiting a lot of the players I have. (Nebraska Head Coach) John Cook takes a risk with every player he recruits as well. So, yes, we knew that these players were not as experienced in the sport, but I've recruited a number of players (that have minimal experience), including Cutrina Biddulph, who played last year in the first round against Duke in Lincoln, and she was really the only one that played pretty well. She had only two years of club experience out of high school, and a lot of schools will pass on that player because they're not that developed, and here's a chance to get two kids that are six-foot-eight. Publicity-wise, I didn't really know anything about them until I went out to their house after they had already showed a lot of interest. So here we had the opportunity to get two bigger players. It is risk with anyone you take at any time. Polished player, not polished player, where they come from, so to me, yes it was a risk, but it was a calculated risk, and that's what you do in recruiting."

On what makes Rubena Suka so special
"She's from Albania. Her family wanted a green card to come here, and I had a friend in Washington D.C. who was from that area, and his son saw her when he went to visit. A couple years ago, it was pretty tough to get people through the immigration here. She was the youngest player on their national team there, she was 16 when she started playing on it. What makes her so special is she has experience in the realm. We don't really get that many players with that type of experience to come here. Normally, a lot of the big schools are all in there recruiting those types of players from our country; those that are on the Junior National team, so that's the special thing about it. This is a girl that can match up experience-wise with some of the best players in our country that have had the opportunity to play in National-type programs."

On how Rubena Suka came to America
"I guess in Albania, the way it works is they have a type of lottery and I guess it is that way in a lot of Eastern European. One of the reasons I've recruited Eastern Europe is what you find over there is a lot of people who have difficult scenarios in terms of their country or their economic or just general opportunities, that they're very appreciative when they have the opportunity to come (here). Now with her family, they applied for their green card through the American Embassy, and I believe they were denied the application to go for a green card two years prior to accepting this one, and something happened where they lost the opportunity. So they reapplied, and got the opportunity to come here and work and live here. It's kind of an immigration standard we have where we let a certain number of people from around the world come here. So that's kind of how it happened. The second time they were trying to make plans and my friend said you might want to get in contact with this girl. So that's what happened, and her family came as well."

On the benefits he sees in having four players from overseas and one from Canada
"It's not like I don't see the talent here, I see the talent here. However, when we recruit a lot of the players with that caliber of talent, many of them want to come to schools that have big football programs, or they're coming to school for different reasons than what we have at American University. We're by the Embassies in Washington D.C. Many of the children of these Embassies come to our school here, and there's a nice national community here, therefore, this is the type of school we are. Nebraska is a different type of school. You have thousands of people who attend school there, and you offer many big-time programs with a lot of publicity, with one of the best state school opportunities in the country. Therefore you're able to get a different type of person than someone who might want to come to ours, where you can get a national experience. So you have to have a niche for our University, and all I've done is recognize what our niche is here at our University, and try to cultivate that. There are Americans here, and we have found many of them, and that as well has been a part of our success. Over the years, we've had a couple of players from other countries and a couple of good American players, and I think you'll see that every year on our roster."

On the reason for the team's number of service aces
"We've got a couple of jump servers, and we have the type of scheduling opportunities that will allow us to rack up the aces. So we have a couple of teams on our schedule that have allowed us to score as many as 15 aces a match, sometimes four and five in a game, which is a pretty high number. I think that may have something to do with why we been at the top nationally in service aces per game. We also have a men's approach to volleyball here. You'll notice that we're hitting out of the back row, out of the middle back, and you'll notice that we also serve pretty tough. So that means there's a higher risk in terms of aces to errors. If you watch the men's games, these guys are making as many as 15 or 20 errors in matches, and we've had some matches where we've missed a lot of balls. That may happen Friday night. I know that in our losses early in the season, that's exactly what happened. We missed 23, or 25 serves in a match. That means we're going for it when we're out there serving, and I'm pretty sure that's what's going to probably happen when we get up there and play Nebraska. Obviously that's a team that's pretty big and can side out, and their ball control has been pretty good over the year, and the only way you can attack a team that physical is to try to aggressively serve them, and we'll try to do that."

Northern Iowa Head Coach Bobbi Petersen
Opening statement
"Obviously we’re thrilled to be a part of the NCAA Tournament, and we’re thrilled to be going to such a great volleyball facility. Obviously Nebraska is one of the best places in the country to play. We’ve been there before, and we know about the awesome fans that they have.  We feel it’s a pretty tough draw with Winthrop being our first opponent, and then if we would make it by Winthrop, to play the No. 1 team in the country, but our team is really excited about the opportunity, and we’re going to go in there and give it all we have.”

On the rebuilding that the program has done to reach the NCAA Tournament again
"I think the most difficult part has been that I feel like the last couple of years we have had successful seasons, but it just hasn’t been to the level that has been expected. There was a couple of years in there where we feel like we had an opportunity for an at-large bid, or we felt like we might be in the tournament, but just weren’t able to get there. I’m just very excited for this group, because most of these kids have been playing on the squads that didn’t’ make it, and I know they feel a lot of, I don’t know if pressure is the right word, but I know they want to be part of a team that makes it to the NCAA Tournament. So I’m very excited for them to have an opportunity to do that, and they’ve worked their tails off this year to make sure that’s happened. That was their number one goal from day one. We’ve had a lot of youngness over the last couple of years, and that’s why I’m saying that these kids have all been a part of that, and they have really come along and matured, and now they’re getting the opportunity to do what they’ve wanted to do the last couple of years.”

On what benefit Northern Iowa has in having traveled to Omaha and swept the series against Creighton
"Obviously we’re very comfortable with the Nebraska area because we compete there. I think with Creighton taking a game from Nebraska is huge in the minds of our players. We obviously get the opportunity to watch a lot of volleyball, and we know there are different reasons why teams win, and games are going four games. I think it’s a definite help to our team and their mindset if we were to have the opportunity to play Nebraska.”

On recruiting in the state of Nebraska
"We’re definitely a University that tries to stay in the Midwest. We’re definitely more successful in that area. We’ve tried going out of that before and haven’t been successful, and we just feel that after Iowa the next place to be in the Midwest would be Nebraska, and we just look at it as Nebraska can’t have all the good ones, or their team would be loaded, or more loaded than it is. There is tons of great volleyball in Nebraska, and we’ve been fortunate enough to get a couple of those kids, so we will continue to try to recruit that area.”

On Danielle Brazda
"She’s obviously been a force for us. Since day one, she’s been a huge blocker for us, and has excelled every year in that area. This year, she’s been able to do some things offensively for us. She hasn’t been known much as an offensive threat (in the past) but she has worked hard in that area and has the ability to do some things for us offensively. She’s not somebody to completely leave, and I think that’s been the strategy of some teams we’ve played in the past, and so she continues to be a huge blocker for us. She leads the team in blocking and is the orchestrator for us out there in the blocking. She’s the one that does all the signals and gives the information from the bench. It has been really awesome how she’s just stepped up on the offensive side of things. If anybody has seen any of our matches, you’ll see she has also been the emotional leader on our team, and is the person that can get the team going for sure.”

On the relationship between assistant coach Kalani Mahi and former college teammate Joel McCartney
"Yeah its interesting. When it popped up, I don’t know what the feelings were. Joe and Kalani obviously have an awesome relationship, and they’ve been together in a lot of different ways, as teammates and fellow coaches. It’ll be a neat experience, and then it’s also too bad that we have to go up against each other, because I know if we weren’t going up against each other, we’d definitely be rooting for each other. But they definitely both know how each other coaches, and some have different philosophies, and it’ll be a tough and interesting match, I know.”

Winthrop Head Coach Joel McCartney
Opening statement
"We’re excited to compete in our fifth consecutive NCAA Tournament. I’m thrilled on a personal note to be able to come back to my home and compete in Nebraska, and against the UNI program, where specifically we are great family friends with the staff. It’s almost a fairy tale ending to a great season we’re having, and we’re just very excited to fly into Omaha tomorrow, and get this process started.”

On what coming home to Lincoln means
"First of all, in talking about the draw and coming back to Nebraska, it’s been a possibility in the past. But with regionalization being one of the predominant factors in the draw, the possibilities are much slimmer to fly and travel than they are to bus and travel to the first and second rounds. So it’s never really been on the forefront of the possibilities that we would think of, because we’ve only had teams within the regional radius to travel to. The excitement for me is obvious, because it’s my homeland. For our players, it’s exciting because we have a lot of Midwest players who know the history of Nebraska volleyball, and the Midwest volleyball is much more progressive than our local area here. Our players are familiar with that, and they know that I have specific ties to Nebraska. We actually began our season this year showing a video during our preseason of Nebraska’s 1995 Championship documentary, because they have three seniors, an outside, a setter and a middle, and we have three seniors, an outside, a setter and a middle, so we were trying to draw comparisons to what we have and what they accomplished with their first championship. We have not won a match in the NCAA Tournament, so that has been our overreaching goal throughout this season.”

On the possibility of coaching after Nebraska with a win over the University of Northern Iowa
"What I’ve told the team is that our overreaching goal has everything to do with the University of Northern Iowa, and wining that match. The dream would be to go on and play against Nebraska. One is a goal that we’ve been working towards the entire season; the other is just a dream. I think our team is fully aware of Nebraska’s history, and their immediate success within this season, and all eyes are on the University of Northern Iowa at this point.”

Nebraska Coach John Cook
Opening statement
"First of all, we’re glad that this weekend is working out to where the Husker fans and the Husker nation will get to see great volleyball and watch our football team play. I’m glad that worked out, and the biggest news in our program today is Sarah Pavan being honored as Academic All-American player of the year. It’s a great honor for her, and just adds to the great tradition of academic excellence here at Nebraska. (Academic Advisor Keith) Zimmer and Sarah (Pavan) obviously deserve a lot of praise and credit for representing our University at such a high level.”

On the high level of difficulty that Pavan has in reaching her level of play and achievements in the classroom
"I know it’s a lot of hard work involved. One of the things that we try to do is to everything possible to try to get our student-athletes to have as little stress as possible and miss as little school as possible. It’s one of the reasons we played so many home matches this year. We try to keep them here so they can get to class. I think that certainly helps. This year, we practice really late because Sarah (Pavan) has labs. So we’re always trying to do everything we can to make class and school a high priority.”

On the visualizations the team has done to set goals to get to the National Championship in Omaha
"We’re still working on it, and we’ve got a couple of versions up there right now. Essentially what it is now is that we’re on a journey from Lincoln, to Gainsville to Omaha. We’ve been waiting on it all year. We talked about goal setting, and how you’ve got to see it to be able to know where we want to go. I think it’s really important for the team to know what we’ve got to do to make this happen.”

On how the team is handling the preparations for a National Championship run this year
"They’re showing more of a sense of urgency, and there’s definitely a buzz. It’s really different because we haven’t played American, we haven’t played Winthrop, and we haven’t played UNI since 2003. So there are just a lot of new and interesting things going on, along with the awards coming out that are a reflection of our team and the hard work they’ve put forth this season. There is a lot of more going on. For coaches, the preparation we usually go through for just one team, we’ve got to go through for a bunch of teams. So coaching wise, it really cranks up for us and presents a lot of interesting challenges for us in how we balance and prioritize.”

On how the regular season prepared the team for the NCAA Tournament
"Our non-conference season gave us some great preparation, because if you remember, we played back-to-back several weekends, so we’re used to doing that. I think playing Texas, Missouri and (Texas) A&M on the road is great preparation. Those are all loud arenas. Then playing Texas (at home) on Saturday gave us the mindset of how we need to feel, and what it’s going to feel like during these matches.

On the improvements junior right side hitter Sarah Pavan has made this year
"Sarah sets the bar so high, it’s hard to measure dramatic improvements. She sets it so high already that her measurements of improvement are going to be very slight. I think the biggest improvement with Sarah is that she’s our go-to player. When the game’s on the line, with just two points to go, she’s going to get the ball. Last year that wasn’t always the case.

On how the team will approach the NCAA Tournament after losing in the Championship match in 2005
"We talked this spring about how we don’t want to let a loss beat us twice. We learned a lot in that Washington match. We know that here, and now we get a chance to make it better. We addressed it way back when we planned the foundation for the season.”