Sept. 25, 2011

Recap |  Box Score

Wisconsin vs. Illinois
Sept. 25, 2011
Postgame quotes

Coach Pete Waite

On playing the No. 3 team in the country:

They’re just very solid, top to bottom. Between the serving and keeping you on your heels and their serve receive is very solid (and when) they stay on offense they’ve got really nice players across the front line who are just hitting high shots off the block or banging it down or just really challenging you to change what you’re doing all the time.

I think when we were passing well, we were staying with it and doing just fine. But our passing broke down. I think they were serving really tough. The times we were passing, I thought we did really well. Again, (it’s a) young group on the court. There were times we had three (to) four freshmen (out on the court) and they’ve just got to learn. It’s trial by fire sometimes, but they proved they’re a strong team.

On the team’s poor ball control:

Yeah I don’t know if our team was pressing and trying a little too hard, or knowing it’s a strong team, but they tend to put you in those situations. It’s a big block up there so, what we needed to do was tool off the block and at times we were avoiding it a little too much. I think we gave them quite a few too many easy points and didn’t make them earn enough.

On what the team needs to improve on:

I always say it, it comes down to serve receive. If you can serve receive well your setter can set the offense and split the block and break up that big block up there. But we weren’t doing that well enough today. Our setters were chasing it around the court and they were able to set up their block a little too early. really they didn’t have that many but it was more our errors.

On the struggles of the left-side hitters:

Overall, our left side just didn’t put up good numbers today and they’re going to have to, because against a good team you’re less likely to be able to run the middle offense and they have to know how to come through no matter what block is up there. So that’s just something we have to be better at.