Japan - V.League V1 (Division 1, Women) 2018-2019

Unless someone can read something else here, I'm going with the fact that Nana Iwasaka is still the captain of Hisamitsu (not Fumika Moriya, as the V.League site suggests. The Hisamitsu site is speechless).

They interviewed her (along with Saori Takehashi, Toyota's Captain) before the match. I've seen this before as well. Iwasaka is the Captain.

Quote from brahmin

On the Springs website, Iwasaka is wearing the captain’s line on her player pages.

Thanks for the confirmation. I don't see it. Means it's either something that doesn't translate because they posted it as an image, or it's some kind of thing hosted on Facebook and hence I won't see it. I have my computer set to block all connections to Facebook at the system level.

V.League site still has Moriya

I don't want to make a big deal about this ... but it is a big deal

22 y/old Teen Idol #8 Mayu Oikawa, who just joined the team at the end of November and made her court debut in the match with Toyota December 9, didn't get the No Smiling/No Joy Memo.

After scoring her first Big League point she thrust her arms up in the air over her head and jumped up and down as she made her way back to the mid-court huddle. And look what happened:

Her team mates went out on a limb and smiled back at her. Then she went for a double dip with Miyashita:

Good Golly!

Okayama went on to beat Toyota 3-1. The first and only promoted Challenge League team to beat a Premier Team this year. And not just any Premier Team. They beat freaking Toyota!

I wonder if Mayu knows the Seagull Secret Society Handshake:

I love this team

Mid Season Batting Leaders

Take the middle blockers out of the equation and it's kind of interesting. Take out the foreigners and you have a top ten.

Somebody's gonna have to give pope CPR

Speaking of linebackers ... and other mid season awards ...

In case it wasn't clear:

In the post above about Batting Leaders, I simply removed middle-blockers from the list, and went until I had 10 Japanese players. So, Hisae Watanabe is:

10th Japanese who isn't a MB; 15th who just isn't a MB; and she is 29th in the League including foreigners and MBs (for reference).

Mid Season Block Love

NEC Red Rockets have the most blocks in the League with 98. I should repeat that ... but ... NEC has played one more game than Hitachi and Denso who have 91. So NEC won't have the most for very long. Hisamitsu have 81 and they've played three fewer games than NEC, and Foluke only recently started playing, and Hisamitsu has the best Blocks/set ratio at 2.79 thanks to Nana Iwasaka, you haters.

NEC Red Rockets are 3rd in Blocks/set. Not bad. Blocking is about the only area where NEC doesn't suck. It's local talent and spread about: The three MBs have 50; Koga/Yamauchi (OHs) have 29; misc. have 19. I say throw caution to the wind and play Rhamat and wunderkid Nichika Yamada anyway and see what happens. Neither one has seen court time yet.

Hitachi's doing it with local talent as well, thanks to the odd phenomenon that is Mai Irisawa. She has 33; Heyrman had 5 before she got injured. Pipsqueak 171cm rookie I love #19 Miyu Kubota has 9! (She's got a good Batting Average, too). Everyone else has a dozen or so.

Denso has Sinéad. She has 44. She's a monster and fun to watch, but I can't help thinking she can deliver about 20% more than she is now. Maybe I'm just hoping.

Toyota is in the running with 87 because they have the best MB team in the league, plus Neriman who has 20. Neriman is a blocking machine. Erika Araki, say no more. The other two MBs: #12 Aya Watanabe is a part time beast; #15 Ayaka Sugi has the most likeable person face I've ever seen. They're both scoring more, and more efficiently than Araki, especially Sugi, but let's stick to blocking .... Saori Takahashi has 15. She's having an all around fabulous year.

Okayama Seagulls #28 Aimi Kawashima

Okay, she's just my flavor of the month. Everybody knows it Sinéad. But this is about more than blocking. Kawashima has great style. She's quiet and humble in her work--very much an Okayama NoSmiler. She's 9th in Blocking and 21st in Attack. What's exciting to me about her is how quick and aware she is with loose balls inside the 3-point line. Balls off the net, tips, and block coverage--both forward and reverse. She goes up for a block, and if the ball just kind of pops up in the air: She's on it. That's reverse block coverage. She doesn't get every ball but she's gotten enough to get my attention. A lot of MBs come down from an attempt and look around the stadium wondering where the ball went. Foluke, I'm looking at you. Kawashima also cleans up broken plays and delivers them with authority instead of a wimpy pushover. She's adaptable, agile, and spry. She is surprisingly less effective in the back row. Nothing special.

I may link to this match in my next five posts:

Toyota Body Queens (1-3) Okayama Seagulls (28-26, 29-31, 22-25, 20-25) because it's the MATCH OF THE YEAR, so far. I'll queue it up to 15-20 in the 4th set for those with limited free time. It's basically Kawashima vs Neriman to close out the match . It starts with a fabulous Kawashima kill, not a HULK SMASH but lovely nonetheless. Then, Neriman either hits it into the net or Kawashima shows her the roof. It's hard to tell. The commentator called it a Blockkkuuuuh. Neriman beats her a couple times, digs her a couple times. There's a few very crazy rallies (first match point is nail-biter), monster blocks, the southpaw OP swinging with her off arm, a rare Okayama group smile, diving, striving, and finally arriving for Okayama. I think a couple of the Okayama players smiled briefly after beating one of the best teams in the league, being the first Challenge Team to beat a Premier Team.

There are a lot of timeouts and Okayama uses several of its allotted 9 substitutions, it seems, so it drags a little. The whole match is filled with these fun fun stuffs, btw.

Here it is in unheard of 1080p with only mild frame rate stutter:

And here it is from the betting site because that youtuber posting 1080s of these V.League matches is going to have them taken down:

The Green Card

I think I read something about this on the V.League site, but I can't find it now. Apparently a player can plead guilty to a block touch (or some other infraction, presumably), saving everyone the hassle and time out for doing a challenge, and receive a green card for their good behavior. At least that's what I think is going on. I'm pretty sure it's new this year, and it's great because challenges in these club matches can take a very long time.

I thought I'd revisit my pre-season predictions as we gear up for the second half of the season.

Before seeing any team play I predicted, for the semi-finals:

• Hisamitsu
• Toyota
• NEC
• Denso

Now I predict:

• Hisamitsu
• Toyota
• JT Marvelous
• Toray Arrows

Hisamitsu and Toyota are no-brainers. A critical injury could spoil Toyota, but absent that they should be Title contenders.

• NEC has the best players in the league at every position except setter and libero. And the best bench. It makes no sense to me why they don't win every game they play. True love always foggies the windshield, I guess. I give them 5th place.
• Denso is also inexplicable. They are essentially the same team as last year with a huge upgrade at MB in Sinéad Jack. Nabeya has been inconsistent. Rei Kudo has not grasp her opportunity. It can't be that they are missing Sakamoto. If Nabeya gets her act together things might change. 6th place.

JT Marvelous have proven themselves to be better than last year's team. Tanaka and Meguro are more consistent and reliable than Kitsui and Kanasugi were in sidekicking to Brankica. And youngster OH Hayashi has proven to be pretty good. MB Aika Akutagawa is 27 years old and has been around a while but she played last year like a rookie with potential. She's playing this year like a veteran with smarts. I guess that's what a season with the NT can do for you. Okumura is not too sorely missed. Add to those solid players one of the best swingers in the world and one of the best liberos in the world--a shot at the title should be easy. Surprised me.

Toray Arrows. Why? Mari Horikawa has taken five swings so far this season. If she plays in the second half, look out. Also, and I don't like this, Toray has a big Caucasian swinger. (I'll get to Saitama in a moment) These white girls swing a lot more and with a better % than Japanese. Nineteen year old #14 Nanami Seki is a giant upgrade for them at setter (not over Tashiro who didn't play much last year, but over Misaki Shirai), and twenty year old #12 MB Erina Ogawa has also upped the Toray game. Youngsters are good. I have nothing to say about Love, After Dark.

I wish I could say that Hitachi or Okayama are dark horse candidates but Hitachi is too young across the board and Okayama is just too weird. They are the ones I'm rooting for. I wish them the best. At this point in time Hitachi has the same W-L record as Toyota but Hitachi had a far easier schedule. I did say I'd be surprised if Hitachi won a single game this year. Crow is delicious.

Saitama (Ageo for those not keeping score at home) might be the best candidate to sneak in. Jaja is doing great (not so great at blocking), and her partner at the net #11 Kyōko Aoyagi is also performing well. Big white swinger 'Keti' is a force. #13 Misaki Inoue, the setter, seems to improve every match. If she keeps it up everyone will be better. They have an NT libero (sort of meh, imo, but ...) and a very promising youngster #29 Yuri Yoshino at OH and reception. Youngsters in moderation are good.

Kurobe and PFU bring up the rear. Leg 2 (or whatever) starts tomorrow!

Oh yeah, I forgot about the peculiar way they finish things up. That would have made things easier, the 4th spot being the hardest to assign. I just see Toray as improving and Denso/NEC as de-proving.

Great little table of East / West games remaining. Thanks for that.

I would love to see Hitachi sneak in there.

Quote from pope

This conference thing is really stupid, makes no sense. And I don`t like "Final 3" either. Hopefully next season with 12 teams they will do like almost every other league out there does. Each team plays each other twice in the regular season and the TOP 8 advances to the quarterfinals, semis and final.

I got a email notification that said "A new Euro-comment has been posted in a thread you are following"

Kidding!

I'm stupid, but I don't understand what difference it would make, for example, for the Toray Arrows if they were in the 'easier' Eastern Conference. They still play the same number of games against the same teams every other team plays. They end up with the same number of points that ranks them 1 - 8, then they round robin.

Maybe next year they'll do something to make Conferences meaningful when there is 12 teams instead of 11?

I posted this when the season started:

Quote from sitenoise

I wonder why they split the Division into Conferences. Presumably the top four teams from each Conference will advance to the Final 8, but since each team plays every opponent twice, regardless of Conference, I'm not sure how different that will be from not having Conferences.

At least the All Star Game will make sense.

I wonder what will happen if Okayama ends the Regular Round with more points than three Eastern Conference Teams. Would they play in the Final 8? Or not, because only 4 teams from each conference get in? I'd Euro-comment the hell out of that if it happened!

Okayama v Hisamitsu is live

Okayama's two best MBs, Koyuki Okusu and Aimi Kawashima, are in street clothes

Arisa Inoue is playing instead of Yuka Imamura for Hisamitsu.

#18 Syuuka Kaneda is hitting pretty well from the left side for Okayama. I'm keeping an eye on her. She is also a very good floor defender.

Okayama 25-23 Hisamitsu - Set 1

Funny how often this has played out this year: Top team loses the first set to a bottom half team and then crushes them.