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

Hey! Here's one of those Brankica pushovers I keep talking about. She puts a little feeling into this one so it's not her best, but it is pretty funny --and the end of court view lets you see this clearly-- it just stupefies the NEC Red Rockets. And the sound the commentator makes is hilarious: "Uuuuhhhmm"

Queued up:

Final 8 Predictions Based on hope, yeah, so sue me

Hisamitsu beats JT in the Final

JT beats NEC in the Final 3

NEC has been steady, developing like a complex carbohydrate, coming from behind in sets and matches to avoid embarrassment, or actually win. These are Final Stage qualities. And they have top Gift Points going in.

Toyota has been squishy. Not having their core squad playing together down the RR stretch might have worked to their advantage though. Deep Bench.

Toray and Saitama are both teams with strong contributors but rely on the Big Caucasian too much, like 70/30. So do JT and Toyota, but they're like 60/40. JT is boring compared to last year but they are better, and they play like soldiers.

Denso has been a nightmare but if Nabeya plays consistently at the level she's capable of, and Sinéad actually blocks, I wouldn't be surprised by anything.

Hitachi. When I really enjoy watching a team play I'm incapable of seeing what they do wrong. So I dunno.

Quote from pope

Hisamitsu won easily against Denso. ( I did not watch because I could not find a free stream anywhere)... I want anyone to win besides Hisamitsu....I don`t want the V-League to be 1 vs everyone type thing like we see in other leagues.

That youtuber who films it in his garage, or whatever, got it going in the third set. I enjoyed watching the live box score more.

Hisamitsu is better than everyone else but not that much, I hope. I won't be to surprised by any surprises. I don't want a dynasty thing either.

Looks like Toyota is playing without Captain Takahashi. Not fatal, but unfortunate.

Miya Sato sporting a new hair-do. Looks like she is going to tend to it a lot.

Makes me nervous in these Post-Apocalyptic times when the betting sites aren't picking up either of the matches so far. Or at least sport365 isn't. And videostream site is still down

A few of the regular youtubers have the Toyota v Hitachi match, but sport365 doesn't.

I missed the beginning of the match but I haven't seen Laura Heyrman either.

Toyota looks a little squishy still.

Hitachi showing a little spark

Just saw Heyrman in street clothes on the bench

NEC starting Yamauchi instead of Aratani. Hmm ... and Tsukada setting instead of Yamaguchi. No Rhamat. I guess I just have to go with the flow and not try to understand.

Sarina Koga sporting a new shorty-do like Miya Sato, but they have different heads.

No commentary. It's there, but only pops up momentarily every now and then. I remember last year the Final Stage matches mostly lacked commentary. There's a reason but I don't know what it is.

Sarina Koga is playing okay. That's nice.

Mari Horikawa is in street clothes. What a mystery she has been this year.

NEC squandered some riches letting this go to a Tie-Break. I hope they don't do a full squander

Sarina Koga just had to leave the court. She landed weird at the end of Set 4. Looked to be in considerable pain.

A Full Squander

Losing to Toray after taking the first two sets, and a possible injury to Sarina Koga is not a good start for NEC

Sat 02 March 2019 Results - Day 1/8 Final 8 Stage

Sinéad with ZERO blocks again. What is up with that? I watched the live box score as no stream was available, and Denso had a few good leads throughout the match but then, obviously, lost them. Seems like Denso still hasn't settled on a core lineup. Ishida and Kudo didn't play; Asahi (7/26); Nabeya (13/29). Nakamoto (5/25); Yikes. I'd like to see more of 19 y/old southpaw OP Rena Sano (1/3) if Ishida isn't going to play. I saw Sano in a couple Summer League games and she's a whacker.

Toyota's MBs, Araki (10/17, 2 blocks) and Watanabe (9/15, 4 blocks) dominated. Neriman (22/63) was a little off. If I'd have watched the match without a scoreboard I would have picked Hitachi as the winner. They relied on Watanabe (25/71) a little too much but they had to. The others weren't glowing, but I still think Miyu Kubota (8/21, 63% reception) is the real 171cm deal. Opposing teams seem to have figured out MB Mai Irisawa (8/26). She's not scoring like she used to. Her main shtick is to stand there in the middle and whack a fast set from Miya Sato. She's slow and can hardly jump. Without more variety, she's been made.

NEC, the bums. They fell apart in the third set but that shouldn't have been a problem. Rhamat and Nanami Hirose were brought in to repair matters. The first two plays went to Hirose and she killed them, but that's as long as the party lasted. I thought Hirose was injured and was surprised to see her coming off the bench. She's not good in that role. She tries, but she looks like she's been working more on how to respond when she hits one out of bounds than not hitting one out of bounds. Rhamat has indeed stumbled accidentally on an effective serve. Big player with a big arm and then the ball barely has the energy to get over the net and die, and even though every one of her serves goes like that it still seems to surprise the receivers. NEC lost a competitive 4th set and might have won if Koga had played the Tie-Break. Koga isn't a big hitter but she can be a smart one. There was IQ in her attacks and she remembered to play defense. But it wasn't meant to be. Credit to Toray. More than any other team, being down 2 sets to none doesn't bother them.

Toyota didn't eat their Wheaties. They looked like senior citizens on defense.

That was the only match of the three that was remotely possible to view. (I wish I knew why the streams cut out the commentary. It creeps in at the end of timeouts when the team is standing on the sideline waiting to return to court. Then it's gone. Weird.)

The JT/Saitama match was so blurry you couldn't even read the score bug. The Hitachi match from that youtuber's garage, with traffic noise, Mandarin mumbling, and squeaky flanged-out crowd noise--how, and where on earth, does that come about?--not to mention the feed dying every few minutes along with a constant barrage of messages that pop up and fly across the screen ....

I'm sort of beyond the point of being grateful that "at least something" exists.

This is a bummer, but it is what it is. I guess we just don't get to watch the Final 8.