I sat down with Coach Wayne Kreklow today and covered a wide range of topics, from last week’s Kansas and Oklahoma matches to this week’s upcoming UMKC and Texas A&M matches. Here’s what Kreklow had to say:
On the atmosphere at last week’s 3-1 win over Kansas:
Playing at home for us is big. We do get a lot of people, we do get big crowds. That’s what’s really special about playing here in the Hearnes Center—we do get a great following. We have a great student group, we had a lot of the athletes come. It was really fun, and that’s what Big 12 volleyball is all about—the atmosphere is really great. For us against KU here, with that kind of atmosphere it’s a fun thing. It’s what all volleyball players want to be a part of.
On Saturday’s 3-1 loss at Oklahoma:
Overall we had our ups and downs. At times we played really well, I think we got off to a good start. It was a tough time to play, it was an 11:30 start time which is odd for us. But sometimes you have to do those things to accommodate football. I thought that was a little bit tough for us.
Oklahoma’s a good team. They’ve done very well, and they picked up as the match went on. We shot ourselves in the foot a lot. We made a lot of unforced errors that kept us from really getting going. At this point in the season what we have to do as a team is look at things we did well and things we need to work on and keep plugging away—come back to practice and work on those things. And I do feel again, there are a lot of things we can do better. While we were obviously disappointed in not winning the match, winning on the road in the Big 12 is tough, always. I felt we did some good things—we need to keep working on those—and just go back to the practice court and get better at some things.
On the strength of Oklahoma’s defense and ability to throw a team’s system off:
When you play somebody who does those particular things well, it really places a premium on being in system and being able to run your offense—trying to find ways to spread the blockers out, making the defenders in the back move and make decisions. When we were in system early, we were doing that and had a lot of success with that. As the match went on, the tables turned in terms of the serve and pass game. I thought overall we didn’t serve as well as we had been—maybe one ace to maybe nine errors. So we had a lot of errors from the service line. And the balls we were getting in weren’t as tough as they needed to be. On the other hand, they served pretty well and kept us out of system. As the match went on, that became a factor. The rallies got longer, they started digging more balls. It was tougher to put balls away for us. And then what follows is some hitting errors because you’re trying too hard, trying to make things happen that aren’t really there. The serve/pass game for us wasn’t as good as it normally is.
On playing UMKC tonight:
In the Big 12—because there’s 11 teams—every team has two dates during the conference season that you have byes. Often early on we like to schedule a match on that so we keep in rhythm and aren’t out too long. Later in the year, we have another bye that we did not schedule a match. Usually by that time of year, you’re looking to try to rest your players a little bit. We felt we needed to have a match tonight. We’ve played UMKC on and off over the years and they’re close, so it’s convenient. It’s a great match for them. You have to be very careful with these matches because UMKC is a much-improved team. They’ve got some good players, and Geno—the coach—has done a great job with that program. For us as a coaching staff, we know how good UMKC is. Now, to try to get your players to believe that as well sometimes is another story. I’m hoping that our players understand that UMKC is a very good volleyball team and they’re quite capable of knocking people off if we’re not prepared and not ready to play.
On the strength of the Big 12 and Texas A&M:
Going into our 10th season at MU, I feel like this season the Big 12 is strongest from top to bottom. Texas obviously is a clear No. 1 and Nebraska maybe isn’t quite as strong as they have been, but they’re still one of the top teams in the country. What’s changed is beyond that, you’ve got us, Kansas, Kansas State, Texas A&M, Baylor, Oklahoma…you’ve got a big group of teams that are really good, and A&M is one of those. They’re a very good volleyball team. They’ve got a great core of seniors, two outside hitters, a great setter, and they’re just a very well-coached volleyball team. They’re as good as anybody. I think we have in the Big 12 this year seven to eight teams that I think would fall in the top 40. I think A&M’s a top 25 team.
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