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

Quote from brahmin

This does not include stacking the left of the court on serve receive.

RS = OP? I can't really make sense of those tables or where the net is in relation to them But I do appreciate your attempts to educate me. If the net is to the right of the one on the left, it ends up with RS (OP?) receiving twice, and if you follow the S she rotates 1>2>3, etc., which is backwards.

I know that the very fundamental rules of rotation should be important to understand, but they seem almost silly to me beyond who's in the front and who's in the back (so, for eg., your #1 OH has three rotations where she can only spike if she wants to from behind the 3 point line), but even then an OH who is rotationally in the front goes to the back to receive.

A question for me is: if a rotation has the setter in the back row, she comes to the front to set, and then the other team makes an overpass--Can the setter jump up and kill it? Or is she disallowed from doing that because she is technically a back row player?

I discovered the Japanese don't like to call anyone an OP while trying to put up the rosters. Some teams don't offer any position at all.

Quote from Canter

Ah! Toyoto lost to Toray!!

Yeah, I only watched it off and on because I was mostly watching NEC, but Toray played without Mari Horikawa (she hasn't really played all season yet). It was one of those games that if you watched without a scoreboard you'd think Toyota won. They looked like they had better success scoring and definitely in receiving. I may re-watch it full through to see what happened. Even a quick look at the stats leaves it inexplicable

Standings 2018.11.19 -- after Week 3 (6 competition days)

I may post this every day while NEC is #1 just to bask in the glory

Kurobe and PFU have played six matches while Hisamitsu and Okayama have played only three.

Here it is broken into Conferences (for whatever purpose that may serve):

WESTERN CONFERENCE

EASTERN CONFERENCE

pope I believe that of the 83 swings she took 16 of them were from the back row. The same holds true of errors (my gosh, 82 swings and only 2 errors--but she didn't land a lot of them also). If she was 82/23 with 2 errors and 16/2 with 2 errors that would mean she made a total of 2 errors and they were from the back. In this case, she made zero errors out of 16 from the back, 2 from the front.

I think we asked brahmin about this once before and he confirmed. (I hope so any way)

I haven't watched the JT game yet because I'm in love with Kurobe and watched that one instead. I think I'll watch JT today to see what happened, also to see what's going on with upstarts Hitachi.

I agree. It's about half and half in Japan this year, maybe due to injury or just not being up to speed yet, (Heyrman?) like NEC hasn't used Alhassan yet, Denso doesn't overuse Sinéad, Kurobe/Freya. Ageo seems to be spreading the love fairly well. Maybe it's because most of the foreigners are MBs which suits my tastes better.

I'll lose interest in teams that overuse OHs real fast. I'm kind of that way about Toray right now. I grant exceptions for Brankica and Neriman because they are who they are but beyond being a cheap way to win a game, why I hate it is: it deprives the chance to locals for development. Tanaka's looking pretty good for JT, and I think Takahashi is looking real good for Toyota. She seems extra athletic this year. (I have, in fact, noticed a lot more back court attacking from Japanese players this year and I'm very happy about it).

I'm with you in hoping JT doesn't drive Brankica over a cliff, though. She's got a lot of important reasons beyond JT to avoid injury or exhaustion. Maybe two matches a week is doable for her.

Here's a few links for folks who enjoy statistics that I stumbled across in the labyrinth of idiocy the V.League thinks is a web site. I'm pretty sure they are auto-updating after each match--at least after each weekend's matches. The Team serve/receive rankings is interesting.

Technical Team Grades:

https://www.vleague.jp/form/c2…d=270&conference=-1&leg=0

Personal technology summary table (Best15):

https://www.vleague.jp/form/c3…d=270&conference=-1&leg=0

Each teams W/L with links to the stats. They're just a little easier to see than landing on the hideous V.League Home Page and scrolling for an hour.

Ageo Record W-L

Denso Record W-L

Hisamitsu Record W-L

Hitachi Record W-L

JT Record W-L

Kurobe Record W-L

NEC Record W-L

Okayama Record W-L

PFU Record W-L

Toray Record W-L

Toyota Record W-L

And the piece de resistance:

Ageo Personnel

Denso Personnel

Hisamitsu Personnel

Hitachi Personnel

JT Personnel

Kurobe Personnel

NEC Personnel

Okayama Personnel

PFU Personnel

Toray Personnel

Toyota Personnel

Hey Miyu

There's a bunch of Japanese players overseas this year 2 in Italy, 2 in Bucharest, 1 in Germany, 1 in Thailand -- All Nakada favorites (as I've had a sneaking suspicion that Nana Sakamoto is a Coach's favorite for a while). Did I miss any?

I hope you'll keep us abreast of interesting or important developments from our friends over there.

2018.11.18 JT Marvelous v Hitachi Rivale (2-3)

If you're just a viewer like me who enjoys the popular things like long rallies and great digs, exquisite block coverage, and a good helping of MB one-two punches, you'd love this match.

This is the best volleyball in the world. Seeing young players gaining confidence while enjoying their first 15 minutes of fame. It's a beautiful thing.

Here's what's fueling Hitachi these days:

• 19 y/old rookie MB #20 Mai Irisawa -- 16/24, 3 blks, (4 service errors, but she also has a league leading 9 ACES--comes with the territory)
• 19 y/old rookie OH #18 Ruriko Uesaka -- 22/59, 4/9 from downtown (and she looks great flying in)
• 23 y/old newcomer OP #19 Miyu Kubota -- 11/24

MB Irisawa looks confused or terrified most of the time and does rookie things like going after balls she has no business with, but if she can perform as well as she is without any confidence, imagine what she'll do when she grows up, and into the game. I've yet to see her kill a ball with even a hint of violence or authority. I hope it comes someday.

No idea what's up with Hisae Watanabe. She came in as a sub in the second set, took a few swings, scored a few points, and then went dark. There's one hilarious sequence where she gets 3 or 4 or 5 sets in a row on the same play and they all get blocked (imagine my block coverage joy during that play!) She got taken out.

JT, on the other hand has gone from last year's fun-loving rapscallions to Hisamitsu-style silent warriors. They are clearly a more skilled team than Hitachi, but they're lacking in the attitude department. Brankica looks so alone out on the court, simmering in a world of frustration and self-pity. She got the crap blocked out of her in this match. And got the crap dug out of her, too. Imagine 82 swings with only 2 errors and 23 kills. That leaves an awful lot of opportunity for fantastic digs on the other side. Brankica's spikes are not easy to dig. It was glorious.

Mizuki Tanaka 23/51 is having a solid and consistent year so far.

JT is a talented team, plus one of the world's best killers. They'll win games.

This is queued up to start at Set 5. Watch a few plays.

Highlights from Week 3

Sat 17 Nov 2018

Okayama Seagulls v PFU BlueCats (3-2) (21-25, 25-19, 25-17, 18-25, 15-12) Stats

Toyota Body Queens v Hitachi Rivale (3-1) (29-31, 25-21, 25-15, 29-27) Stats

Saitama Ageo Medics v Hisamitsu Springs (0-3) (20-25, 21-25, 21-25) Stats

No Highlights at this time

JT Marvelous v Toray Arrows (3-1) (16-25, 25-17, 25-19, 28-26) Stats

Kurobe AquaFairies v NEC Red Rockets (0-3) (17-25, 21-25, 23-25) Stats

Sun 18 Nov 2018

NEC Red Rockets v PFU BlueCats (3-1) (20-25, 25-18, 25–21, 25-23) Stats

Toyota Body Queens v Toray Arrows (1-3) (22-25, 25-16, 20-25, 24-26) Stats

Kurobe AquaFairies v Denso Airybees (0-3) (17-25, 23-25, 19-25) Stats

JT Marvelous v Hitachi Rivale (2-3) (18-25, 28-26, 21-25, 25-21, 11-15) Stats

The 2nd post in this thread (the Schedule) is updated with scores, stats, and highlights as they become available. Bookmark that post for convenience.

Upcoming matches scheduled to be broadcast on V.League TV

Sat 24 Nov 2018

V.TV - 12:00 PFU BlueCats v JT Marvelous

Sat 01 DEC 2018

V.TV - 13:00 NEC Red Rockets v JT Marvelous

V.TV - 13:00 Hisamitsu Springs v PFU BlueCats

Sat 08 DEC 2018

V.TV - 13:00 Saitama Ageo Medics v NEC Red Rockets

Sat 12 JAN 2019

V.TV - 14:00 Hisamitsu Springs v Kurobe AquaFairies

Sun 13 JAN 2019

V.TV - 14:00 Hisamitsu Springs v JT Marvelous

Sat 19 JAN 2019

V.TV - 13:00 PFU BlueCats v Denso Airybees

Sat 02 FEB 2019

V.TV - 13:00 PFU BlueCats v Saitama Ageo Medics

Sat 09 FEB 2019

V.TV - 12:00 NEC Red Rockets v Hitachi Rivale

Sat 16 FEB 2019

V.TV - 13:00 Hitachi Rivale v Hisamitsu Springs

---

I've also updated the 2nd post in this thread (the Schedule) which you can refer to when this post gets buried in a flurry of my upcoming blabby commentary

I don't know if this means we will be able to watch them for free, but I stumbled into one recently and was able to view it. I already had an account there which I created to watch some of the Summer League--don't know if that might be the secret sauce.

I wasn't that impressed with the faux-HD quality of the one I watched (decent resolution/poor frame rate). Maybe it was the best they could do with the Ageo equipment.

It just occurred to me that the one match from last weekend with no Highlight Video (Saitama Ageo Medics v Hisamitsu Springs in the post above), is the one that was played in Ageo's "home" gym, was broadcast on V.TV and not on DAZN, and looked like uncle Fred shot it.

It doesn't surprise me that the 'local' gyms won't be equipped with the same production hardware as the bigger, central locations.

Also, the 'strobing' effect I mentioned about the V.TV match I watched ... maybe it's a PAL vs SMPTE issue? The video is smoothly jerky. I don't know much about that stuff.

Looks like Volleyball Cup is back in business with live streams. Their streams have always seemed a little better than VB mypassion, maybe not in stream quality but in having less logo crud cluttering up the screen.

JT on V.TV is on!

This flawed HD is great. No commentators. I wish the two girls were there.

Brankica is flying in from downtown a lot. She is otherworldly when she is on. Even if she gets dug. Hitting one out of bounds or getting blocked is what upsets her.

I wish the Toyota/Denso match was on V.TV