bleedCrimson.net will be conducting weekly interviews with Aggie head volleyball coach Mike Jordan during the 2008 season. We caught up with Coach Jordan as the Aggies go through offseason workouts. Coach Jordan talks about replacing his senior class, this year's recruiting class and talks about putting together their toughest schedule yet.
bleedCrimson.net: Can you talk a little bit about NCAA tournament game against LSU?
Mike Jordan: I think it was a real even matchup athletically. LSU was the second best team in the SEC this year behind Florida, who's a perennial Top 10 caliber team. They had a good year. They're quick and athletic, they have a lot of big jumpers like we do. The problem we had obviously was Krista [Altermatt] not being able to play because of the injury she suffered against Hawai'i in the conference tournament, it was really tough. That set us back quite a bit because she's our second best passer behind Krystal [Torres] and a real good outside hitter so that was tough.
bc.net: Talk about Whitney Phillips' outstanding performances in WAC championship match and the NCAA match.
MJ: Whitney, she's a big jumper, she's only 5'10" but she's a big jumper. She played well against LSU for three games, she was very good. She passed deep in serve/receive, not as good as Krista would have but offensively she did fine filling in for Krista for three games. Then at the end of game four she made some critical errors and as a freshman it's tougher to bounce back from those mistakes. I think it got in her head a little bit and she got off to a bad start in game five which hurt but all in all a freshman thrown into that adversity, thrown into that fire, I think she did a pretty good job. I'm a huge Whitney Phillips fan. I think she's competitive, she's very athletic. I think she's gonna be a very good player for us, it's just tough to throw her into that NCAA tournament match and expect her to be great throughout the entire match. It's tough for anybody to do, nevermind a freshman.
bc.net: Can you talk about about replacing seniors Kim Oguh, Jordan Bostic, Anna Callis, Bri Akrie? You've lost some really good players over the past couple of seasons.
MJ: It's going to be tough. I'll talk about Kim in a second because physically she's the toughest to replace. Jordan, Bri, Kim and Anna were all exceptional people. They were good leaders. They did a great job of taking care of the younger players, helping the younger players. All in all, I think when you lose people of that caliber it's very difficult to replace. They were competitive and they were good leaders, four players who played a lot in their careers, had a huge impact on our program. As much as they did during games where everybody saw, they were even twice as valuable in practice and so having people step up and fill their shoes, a group like that is gonna be real difficult. It's not so bad when it's just one player or maybe two like in years past like with Stevie Adams who was a great senior leader for us, she was the only senior on that team. So leadership wise we were able to replace her with numbers the next year. It's gonna be tough to replace these guys' leadership. I'm expecting a lot from Krystal Torres and Lindsey Yon and Amber Simpson in that regard.
From a physical standpoint, replacing Kim Oguh is damn near impossible. She's so athletic, she's just one of those players that come along too infrequently. You just don't see athletes like that enough. I think she's the most gifted athlete we've ever had in our program and certainly a difference maker on the floor. But we have a tremendous recruiting class, some of our younger players are going to develop. I feel real good about how athletic we're going to be next year.
bc.net: Can you talk about the two kids you signed, Jennah DeVries (setter) and Kelsey Brennan (middle hitter)?
MJ: Jennah is a polished setter and the best athlete of the setters on our roster. She's quick, a big jumper, Jennah is pretty polished for someone of her age. I think she's going to come in and compete for playing time right away. She plays at the highest elite club level. She plays with one of the best club programs in the country and her team in particular, Front Range, is maybe one of the best in the country. She's playing a real high level which will make the transition to college volleyball a lot easier for her.
Kelsey Brennan is a gifted athlete in terms of her arm speed, which is top notch. She's a great slide hitter so she's really really high off one foot. She elevates great. In fact, she's probably higher off one foot than Kim [Oguh] was or at least a tie, which is great. It makes it easier to set a kid like that who's that high in the air. She's got some work to do off two feet attacking in front of the setter and what we ask our middles to do it takes a while to get used to that and figure all that stuff out so it's a tougher transition period for a middle in our system than most.
bc.net: How things are going so far in spring practices?
MJ: So far so good. We're trying to get healthy. Krista's healthy now, Whitney Phillips had off-season shoulder surgery on her non-hitting arm. She played high school softball, long story short she dislocated her shoulder and it started to pop out so often that it popped out a lot, so she had to get that tightened up. She's going to miss probably most of spring if not all spring which is a setback for her. Alex Steinmetz is doing well, she's been in a boot with a little bit of a stress fracture but nothing too serious, we just had to rest her for a little bit. It was something that was bothering her a lot more towards the end of the year but she's about ready to get cleared here in maybe another two weeks. Whitney Woods is pretty much fully recovered from her shoulder surgery that she had last spring. Whitney couldn't play the majority of the season but got cleared right at the end and made a huge difference for us. She's just a fantastic athlete, maybe the best athlete on the team. Having her healthy will be real beneficial to us. It was tough for us not having her this year. Imagine how good we would have been if we'd had her all year playing on the right. From the health standpoint we're doing okay.
We're in individuals now, we're working on skill level. Just working on technique and correcting those little flaws, they're all working very hard. We talk about making sure you're making changes. If you're changing, you're improving. That's something that they've bought into and they're doing a great job in that respect. I'm anxious to start team practice, which will start right about March 1st, that's a real important time for us. We start rolling lineups out there and players get used playing without those players that have graduated and we find out who the on court leaders are, get an opportunity to compete a little bit, it's a real important time for us. I'm liking where we're at right now.
bc.net: Can you talk about Lindsey Yon? I had heard that Lindsey was only able to play to about 75% of her physical capability because of the broken arm she suffered before she transferred to NMSU.
MJ: Lindsey broke her arm last spring and because of that really couldn't lift or work out at all and all she could do was rehab and she got cleared but couldn't lift weights. She was real thin, no muscle up there. She started out fine but over the course of time, it was tougher on her because her body started to wear down. She just didn't have that muscle where she could play an entire season. That was hard on her, she wasn't able to do the things at the end of the year that she could do in the beginning and the middle. She's doing very well right now, we've just kept her from hitting and had her hit the weights again and we've been really impressed with what she's done. She looks better, she starting to develop that muscle. I think by the time we hit the floor in August, she's going to be physically so much more prepared to handle an entire year than she was last year.
bc.net: Can you talk about the schedule that you're working on for for '08?
MJ: It's the toughest in school history. It's going to be hard. We're going to open the season at Illinois who's going to be a much improved team in the Big 10. So we'll have Illinois and North Carolina there, they [UNC] should be one of the favorites to win the ACC title and another team to be determined, they haven't set the tournament field yet. We'll come home and play our tournament the following weekend which will be the 5th and 6th of September and that's going to be Utah which will be very good, Houston and we're still looking for another team. Then in the following weekend we go to Stanford and we play Stanford, Santa Clara and UC-Santa Barbara. That's a tough tournament.
Then we have the locals, UTEP and UNM. We'll play UTEP home and home, UNM still only wants to play one time a year which is kind of a bone of contention for me.
bc.net: Can you talk about what your feelings are on the pending NCAA legislation to shorten the volleyball games and also the new ball handing directive?
MJ: I'm disappointed. I hope that they don't change the point scoring to 25. I think it'd be a huge mistake. I think the majority of coaches don't want it. Part of the rationale is that there are still matches that are going over the two hour time frame that television wants. Well the reverse of that is you play a three game match and we go kick your butt and that match is going to be over in 45 minutes playing to 25. So that can't be good for television either. So I don't buy that as a reason to change. They're really thinking about changing because everybody else plays to 25. That's not a good enough reason. I think that we've made a lot of changes in our game the last few years, I think we need to stick to where we're at. I think it's unique, I think when you play to 25, the better team is going to win less than normal and that's not good. The more you extend the match, the more likely the better team is to win. So you suddenly play to 25 and you're gonna have teams beating team that shouldn't be. It's going to happen more often. I don't like it, I don't like it at all and I know most of my fellow coaches feel that way.
The other thing they proposed to change is the substitution rule. They'll change that from 15 to 12. Well when you run a 6-2 like we do and a few other programs, when you run that 6-2 and you're subbing those two players all the time, you're gonna run out of subs with 12 pretty quick and that's not going to allow coaches to play other players. So we get late in the game and we have a lead, now I can't put people in the game that I want to put in the game and get some experience. So from that standpoint I'm really disappointed in that possible rule change. I think it's a huge disappointment for our sport and would really set teams back that are in a 6-2 system and we're one of those teams.
I think the ball handling thing is interesting. I'm not opposed to it at this point. What I don't like about it is that I read that they were not going to penalize you if it was an athletic play. So let's say it's a tight pass up on the net and I decide to go up and get it and I set it and I double it and they don't call it. Okay, fine. But they're going to call the one where the kid stands there and doubles it. I think you're going to put too much in the hands of the referee in making that determination. Was it a double because it was an athletic play, should she have made a good set because she was stationary. I think that's a joke, if you're going to let the double go then let it go all the time. I'm not as upset about that rule change as the other one but I think that if they're going to do it, they need to just say we're letting the doubles go period and then you're making the referee less involved in the match which is a good thing.
bc.net: Can you talk about losing Debby Baker from your staff and what kind of impact that's going to have?
MJ: As an assistant coach, Debby was a fantastic recruiter. She's did a lot of great things for us. As the Director of Operations she was the most organized person we have by far. Obviously losing someone of her talent is always tough. Losing someone with Debby's character and drive and abilities is always tough on a program but that's why other people want her. We're excited for her that she gets to go home to Utah. We wish them well and hopefully we'll get them on the schedule in the not too distant future.
