Posts by sitenoise

Toyota and Toray into a Tie Break. That's three of four matches tonight.

I give it to Toray. They're finally playing the Mari Horikawa card. Toyota is short handed or something.

This is cool. Mid Season, teams finding their rhythm, their chemistry. Competitive matches.

Sillynameplus567 wrote:

Has Rhamat seen any more court time since her debut? What do you think of her game so far?

Rhamat has played full time since the break. Only two matches but seems she's going to be there. I imagine the reason she didn't play in the first Leg is everyone was being super careful towards her rehab. She looks great to me except on serve, but that can be worked around. I watch players "off the ball", so to speak, and I really like her game there. She's comfortable with the floor, seems very quick for someone her size.

The unfortunate thing is: MB is about the only position NEC wasn't suffering. She went 8/18 in this 5 set match against Saitama (Shimamura=15/31). It's certainly not all on her but she needs to have a bigger impact. Or she at least could have a bigger impact. I'm not making a call on foreign middle blocker dork timing yet. Give her one more match

Sillynameplus567 wrote:

Intrigued. Elaborate. Details. ☺

I'm loyal. NEC is the team that got me into this stuff and I will always love them for that. It's impossible for me to see what they do wrong--except they seem totally sucky at floor defense. That's usually a fatal error for me. Seems like it is for them, too.

Add someone like Rhamat to a group of already great players and they should be undefeated, but they are not.

Gee Whiz

oh, and they had just lost the tie-break to Saitama

VBmyPassion has re-emerged as mypassion-vb. Streaming the Toray/Toyota match sans Mandarin dude. That's a good sign re: the Apocalypse.

NEC. Gee Whiz.

haley wrote:

It’s not easy forcing the mighty Hisamitsu into tie-break. There were errors here and there, but the young squad of Hitachi did a great job today. No 13 Osanai has improved a lot.

Watching them play definitely bring so much joy and entertainment value.

Hitachi and their 5-Set matches This has to be a record.

Miwako is great. I picked her as youngster of the year last year. I love her swing. It's got a little extra oomph and she has a nice wrist snap. I wish she would up her batting average. I also like the jump serve she's bringing. Jump serves are tough. If they let you down it can effect your whole game. I don't think I've ever seen her cop out on it. She's only 21, should have a good future

Well ... that was at least pre-Enlightenment. It may work in Hitachi's favor, though. They had a 2 set winning momentum going into the tie-break against Toray and collapsed.

Miya, I'm sorry for all the negative things I've ever said about you. You're my hero. Bring us a win

I forgot Hitachi has to play 5 sets in all their matches, so no surprise we are where we are

Hisamitsu may come out and get medieval on the way to a tie break, tho

NEC Red Rockets blow chunks. It hurts me to watch them.

guilhermessartor wrote:

any link? sorry, same question

For Hisamitsu?

I don't think the Mandarin dude is actually from a Chinese broadcast. I think it's the night watchman down the hall talking to himself and somehow it's being fed into the stream

[Update] Mandarin dude's been turned off

When Volleyball Cup streamed these Japanese matches from a Chinese source I actually watched him a couple times open up some Control Panel and turn it off. I wish this youtuber would do that. You can hear the Japanese announcers in the background

The problem Hitachi has now that they've taken the first set from Hisamitsu is that this kind of upstart rapscallionism usually pisses Hisamitsu off. And Hisamitsu plays better when they are angry.

Guide us home Miya

I'm switching to the crap stream from the betting site. Ugh.

Sat 19 Jan 2019 Results

Himeji still undefeated

Kana Yoshioka has returned to the lineup

Yuka Kanasugi 15/28 @53.6% You go girl!

#14 Rie Takaki 5/10 and 4 blocks in 2 sets. She's fabulous and 36! One of my favorite players to watch.

Yuki Kawai only played a set and a half. I didn't know Himeji even had another setter.

The two Himeji matches from last weekend are available to watch for free at V.League TV. They don't broadcast any of them live but apparently there is only a seven day waiting period for On-Demand (compared to 30 days for V1 matches).

pope wrote:

I'm glad Heyrman is back. I was thinking the season was over for her and she would not return.

I forgot what Heyrman's injury was but she didn't appear to be favoring any body parts. She was "jumping out of the gym", smiling ear to ear. She's going to be important for Hitachi to do more than just surprise us a little. Irasawa has been doing great in her absence, and I like her, but with all the Hitachi 5-setters and Irasawa's apparent lack of any conditioning (I wouldn't be surprised if she can't bend down and touch her toes) I don't think she could take Hitachi far into the Finals on her own.

Sat 19 Jan 2019 Results

The first three matches were on youtube with foreign commentary, not available from the betting sites, although the videostream site was down. The Hitachi match was the opposite. Watched it at "fromhot", not available on youtube. The youtube streams were better video quality but the foreign commentary was distracting, so I watched in silence. No fun. The Denso/PFU match was scheduled to be broadcast at V.League TV but got pulled. Don't know if that's related to the apocalypse but I think it is.

Hisamitsu toyed with Toyota as Denso did with PFU, but Hisamitsu looked good, Denso not so much.

Saitama v JT has been covered.

Hitachi just has to play 5 sets all the time Hitachi coach was subbing all over the place, except for Watanabe who remained constant, and I thought they were going to pull it off. They collapsed in the Tie-Break Heyrman looks great. I was concerned that her return might break some of the Hitachi magic, but she doesn't suffer from the foreign middle blocker dork timing problem. We should probably credit Miya Sato (S) for a lot of that. So happy she has returned, but even she got subbed out a couple times. Don't see that very often. Kudos to backup setter 2 Yuka Onodera. I thought she did quite well when called in for duty the last couple matches.

Speaking of the end of matches Ai Kurogo has been getting that call over the big tall foreigner often this season, and even though I don't like Kurogo's overall performance, she has stepped up and delivered most of the time. And she looks happy and confident doing it. Respect.

I can't bring myself to write "Final 3 (semi-final)" so I went with "whoop-de-doo"

QueenPiccininiLover wrote:

How do the play-off work this season?

Top four teams from each Conference will play a straight up Round Robin.

The Round Robin is about points, not victories

The top teams from each Conference get 6 gift points to start. 2nd placers get 4 points, 3rd place 2, 4th zero)

At the end of the Round Robin the top team hangs out while the 2nd and 3rd place teams play a 2 match whoop-de-doo. A Golden Set will be deployed if necessary.

The Final is also 2 matches.

brahmin did I get that right?

brahmin wrote:

JT may regret not playing Brankica

JT is a good team even without Brankica.

I think the regret should come from not playing OH Yuka Meguro instead of Yuka Kitsui. And I'm not sure Kaewkalaya Kamulthala has proven herself yet over Anna Ogawa at MB.

Yuka Kitsui 5/18 @27.8% (Meguro is batting 41% on the season with 64% reception)

Kotona Hayashi 25/59 @42.4%

Mizuki Tanaka 28/63 @44.4%

Aika Akutagawa 11/22 @50%

Kamulthala 1/7 , 2 blocks

Keti 26/51 @51% The end of the match was Keti vs Brankica. Keti won.

I think Briankica Has the flu or more likely strep throat. It looked like she was having trouble swallowing