Posts by zenith

It is really amazing to watch the game today. It is almost full house though the wodespread corona virus.

The 1st and 2nd set was below the expectation. GS got the sets so easily with Hyundai seems very unsettled. However as Hayley waking up in the 3rd set, Hyundai won the 3rd and the 4th set with the deuce. 5th set was also amazing with many consecutive scores, and GS takes the game coming back from 10-12 with 5 cinsecutive points.

It will be much fun to watch the battle between Hyundai and GS with their point gap is just 1 point. I guess GS will be placed in the top at the end of the season because Hyundai is going through very hard time after the libero Kim yeon gyeon is out.

https://m.sports.naver.com/news.nhn?oid=472&aid=0000019217

KOVO announced they will play the games without spectators until the corona virus(COVID-19) stops spreading.

I think games could be played like this until the end of season. The speed of corona virus spreading is getting much faster as the days go by.

https://m.sports.naver.com/news.nhn?oid=003&aid=0009716106

Due to the corona virus rapidly spreading in South Korea, Hi-pass decided to play the rest of their home games in the opponent's home.

Corona virus became a huge problem in south Korea, especially in the region Daegu, and it is very near to hi-pass's homeground, Gimcheon. So they decided not to play their games in their home.

The number of the patients who are diagnosed as corona virus in Korea is exponentially rising in the recent days. 351 people were diagnosed as corona, which is 142 people plus compared to yesterday. 4 days before it was 28, and now we cannot ignore this rapid spread of the virus.

Therefore, KBL(Korean Basketball League) decided to play the games without the spectators.

So KOVO is also considering to play the rest of the season without the spectators. The result isn't out yet, but I think there are a high possibilities of playing the test of the matches without the spectators. Hope this virus doesn't spread rapidly anymore and not hurt the players.

WHAT AN AMAZING COMEBACK OF LEE JAE YEONG!

I'm a bit worried because she came back earlier than expected. However she played awesome today and rewarded her first triple crown within her career with 4 blocks, 3 aces. What is more amazing is 3 of her 4 blocks made from Diouf! She proved why many people want her and showed she is the best player in this league.

In the 3rd set which was the most important set for both teams, because points gap between 2 teams would be totally different with that set.

Lee jaeyeong played perfect in that important moment with blocking 2 of Diouf's attack and finishes the rallies with her attack. KGC became out of control after that set and lost the whole match giving 3 points to Heunguk.

Moreover, the performance of Han songyi these days is outstanding! She blocks very well, and attacks very diverse with a,b quick and moving attack. I think she would be using as a starting MB in the national team because Lavarini doesn't like Yang hyojin's playing style. Beside from that she is really amazing these days. Anyone would expect this because she seemed too old to adjust to a new position. She was very successful player as a OH, and now she is also very good player as a MB. I'll cheer her for new golden days as a MB!

theloneracer wrote:

Actually, Hi-pass originally re-drafted Leslie Cikra for the 2016/17 season but she got injured before the season started and Hi-pass then brought in Kennedy Bryan and then later Hillary Hurley.

Interesting about how Kim Jong-Min wanted to keep Diouck for another season but chose someone else and then also Diouck turning down Hi-pass approach after they released Sherridan Atkinson. zenith Were these from news reports sources or were they just rumours among Korean fans?

I have to said it is fairly hard to find a replacement for the foreign player. Teams can only choose from the players who attended the draft (and some other players who are qualified like Hayley Spelman who didn't attend the draft last May in Toronto), plus all the decent one have already joined other teams by August and September. And if they want to recruit one of those qualified player who has already joined another team then they have to buy out the player's contract.

I think it is a rumor but rumors from fans were quite trustworthy. I know it's hard to find a good replacement player during the season, and that's why teams should be very careful when choosing players in the draft. I would tolerate it was the first time, but it is countless that jongmin made mistakes.

Now I just hope no more players got injured from the match. Also I want just an appropriate level of foreign players. No change or injury please😔😔

And today's match between KGC and Heunguk would be an epic!!

Lee jaeyeomg came back for heunguk and Oh ji yeong came back for KGC.

I hope KGC will win because it will lead to a much interesting 6th round!

theloneracer wrote:

Even Heungkuk head coach Park Mi-Hee got another chance. Three seasons ago, she led Heungkuk to win the regular-season title but lost the championship. The following season afterward was a nightmare for Heungkuk where they came in last place. Park Mi-Hee managed to keep her job was then able to recruit Kim Mi-Youn and Kim Se-Young as well as the getting Lee Ju-Ah from the rookie draft. This allows her to sort out Heungkuk weaknesses and help Heungkuk to another regular-season title and their fourth title championship.

So I think Kim Jong-Min deserve a bit more leniency. I don't care much for any of the Korean head coaches but he did lead them to two straight finals and help Hi-pass win their first championship. He deserves at the very least one more season to get things right but if the poor results continue then he needs to be shown the door.

Sanchez had a terrible match and if this is all she got then Hi-pass shouldn't have even bother recruiting her. It would have been better if they had just given their young Korean players game time. This season everything that could go wrong for Hi-pass did go wrong. They might as well come last and hope they win the first picks for both the 2020/21 rookie draft and foreign player draft.

I think the media will only report about a player relationship if their partner is someone that is known to the public like a celebrity or an athlete.

I came across another piece of news about Lee Jae-Yeong's injury today. The article re-stated the fact that it will be difficult for Jae-Yeong to come back in round 5. However, it went on to state that Jae-Yeong coming back for Heungkuk's last match of the regular season on March 12th will also be difficult. I haven't seen other articles stating this yet so let keep our fingers crossed that this isn't the case. Source: 1

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I thought he is quite good coach so far, but his choice of foreign players are so terrible. Hi-pass's line up was almost perfect in recent years, but has won only 1 title and I think it is because of their foreign players.

In 2016-2017, Kennedy Brian was their foreign player, and she was as terrible as Sanchez right now. She usually taken out of the court because of the bad performance and they play without foreigner many times. After changing foreign player to Hillary Hurly, they won 5 games in a row, which means their korean players are good.

In 2017-2018, Ivana Nesovic was their foreign players and she was excellent. But she was the 1st choice of that draft, all the other coaches said they would choose her.

In 2018-2019, Ivana was hired again. But she has waist injury, which was said before the draft but Jongmin insisted on going with her. As a result she almost did not play with the team and hi-pass again have to play without foreigner for 7(as I remember)games. After Patou Diouck has come, they won 9 straight games and reached the championship games but lost to Heunguk.

In 2019-2020 this season, he could choose Patou again and she wanted that either. She played amazing in the play-off and the championship games, but he didn't choose her.

He chose Sherridan Etkinson and she got out even not playing the 1st match of the regular season. It is said she didn't follow the training session and she was so stubborn.

Hi-pass tried to get Patou again but she was dissapointed that Jongmin didn't chose her, so she didn't come.

He chose Taylor Simpson who has so bad reputation. Again she didn't show up in the games like the past 2 seasons in Heunguk, and hi-pass was planning to accuse her for not fulfilling the contract , but she escaped to US without saying goodbye to teammates.

Their last choice was Sanchez, but as we can see she is no better than korean players.

My patience is done. As we can see hi-pass performed excellent with just middle level foreigner because their Korean member was so good. But they won only 1 title with so many bad foreigners and I think they should win much more with this member.

It is very important to choose good foreign players as a Korean league coach. Lee jungchul got so much title with that. However Kim jongmin is soooo terrible with this task.

Moreover he put aside the substitute players and not using them. As a result they didn't grow well and the starting players got old, there is no one left to play well now.

I would accept hi-pass just go with Jongmin for winning the 1st title, but he already made so many errors with the foreigners. I don't want to see players suffering from bad foreigners agian😥

I'm done with hi-pass this season. They absolutely need rebuilding. Their starting setter, middle blockers are really old

Lee hyohee can't play a whole game in her own, Jung daeyeong plays still okay but she is getting older everyday, Bae yoona is injury-prone.

What is worse is 2 women reception system seems to be out of system. Both Moonjungwon and Lim myeongok looks very tired.

Park jeongah has to take all the blockers because there is no good foreigners.

All they need is a preparation for the next generation. Hope this works well and personally I don't want to see Kim jongmin anymore.

It's really sad that Lucia got injured. Heunguk would suffer veru hard time because their 2 main scorers are all injured. And they already lost 6 matches in a row, with KGC trailing them by 9 points.

However Korean league usually use players who is not in a good state. They usually say that it was player's opinion to play the matches even though she is not in a good state. But usually it is just used not to get some criticisms from the fans.

It would be hard to suppress temptations for Park mi-hee using Lee jaeyeong and Lucia fresco as fast as she could, but I hope they all not play until they fully recover from the injury.

Looks like thompson is better than vargas

I saw an article (interviewed by hyundai's coach lee dohee) saying that Go yumin will be playing as a starting libero. She is OH but she is a defense specialist, and that is why Lee dohee wanted her to play as a libero.

That some kind of boooo sound is really annoying🤨🤨

They make noise when eczasibashi serves and ecz is making a lot of service errors.

Poor Heunguk... lose almost every match afterLee jaeyeong is out.

They almost got to win most of the time but finally they lose😅😅

Think Lee jaeyeong has a lot to do in this team. But I hope Park mihee won't use her even her injury is fully recovered.

Lee jaeyeong definitely needs rest because she always plays the game in the season and off the season with NT.

Hope she came back with perfect state and make a lot of contributions in the OG!

Jeniawithlove wrote:

Last time I check Japan beat Korea in Korean home in Asian Championship 2019.

Yes right. That was the only win for Japan and that is why I said almost. These days asian championship is not recognized as a important tournament as there was no ranking points. Also it was not the match between A team vs A team.

However astonishing point is that Japan was with B team while Korea was playing with A team. Japan B beat Korea in 2019 but Japan A kept losing to Korea except for vnl 2018, and lost almost all important matches.

I think this system is much better than the previous one, with counting all the matches and sets with different weight value. It shows the current strength of the countries much better than before. There are some weird standings but it just counts 1 year and it will become better as the year goes by. Serbia's fall is because they throw the vnl and world cup which counts the most in rhe current ranking system.

But the one thing I cannot understand is too big counts of VNL. 50 for olympics, 45 for the Wch and 40 for the vnl?? Can't agree with this. VNL is for $$$ and it is so exhausting tournaments for the players.

ian3373 wrote:

i'm very sorry theloneracer and tiffany .. I got the location mixed up... 2016 was in Rio ... not London...

I know they got 4th place in London (n KYK MVP)...And I've watched those matches....thanks for the info....

My previous post was about qualification for 2016 that Lee JC coached...

I edited the previous post to make it less confusing....🙏

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2016 Rio was a big mess fore me. Korea could make it into semifinal again, as they met their possible easiest opponent, the Nederlands. Korea beat nederlands by 3-0 in OQ, and scored 1-1(1-3, 3-1)in friendly match before the olympics.

Lee jung chul only take 3 OH with 2 Liberos. He take only Kyk, Park jeongah and Lee jaeyoung. It is a golden standard to take 4 OH and 1 Li with 12 entries.

In the quarterfinal vs nederlands, He uses Park jeongah as a starting OH. She doesn't get receptions in her club team, however Lee jungchul forced her to got receptions, and she make a lot of mistakes in the receptions.

More absurd thing was park was playing in IBK when Lee jungchul coaches. He never uses her as a receiving OH, but he makes her receive in the most important matches with crazy tensions. It is natural because she is not used to get some receptions.

Park jeongah kicked out because of receptions, and Lee jaeyeong got in. However she makes a lot of mistakes (She was very young and inexperienced at that time) either and there were no players left to play in OH because there are only 3 OHs. If he took 1 OH more, fore example Lee soyoung, it would be much better to overcome the reception problems. With the crazy mide of KYK korea got 3rd set, but is not enough because reception problem rose up again in the 4th set.

Moreover, Yang hyojin's middle open attack was very effective against nederlands leading to victory in the past matches. But nederland's head coach was Guidetti, he prepared a lot for it and defend it very well. However Lee jungchul didn't prepare anything and finally korean NT end up setting all balls to KYK with very unstable receptions. It seems there were no plan B for the match. In the post-game interview, he just blamed players for not playing a good match, showing the worst thing a coach can do.

Lee jungchul was NT head coach in 2008 Beijing OQ either. And it is the only olympics when Korea didn't make it into the olympics in the last 7 Olympics!!(from 1996 Atlanta to 2020 tokyo) He didn't know the rule of the OQ precisely, all korea has to do was hust to win against Kazakhstan, but he made some meaningless efforts against other teams and end up losing to Kazakhstan with very exhausted players.

Lee jungchul was honored as the best korean coaches at that time. But I think it is definitely overestimated. He never made good results before IBK, and everybody would make good results with the great squad of IBK, with Park jeongah and Kim heejin. I think the only strength of him is the ability to see good foreigners. He never made mistakes in choosing good foreign players and that is why he made so good results. He just give so many balls to foreign players though there are very good attackers, Park jeongah and Kim heejin.

Also, Park jeongah get reception in her rookie season, and she was quite good. But Lee decided to take her out of reception line to maximize her attacking skills. It just end up with non-receiving OH. I think Park's reception will gradually got better taking into account that she made okay reception though she was a rookie. The reason she changed her team was Lee jungchul.

Moreover, Kim heejin could be grown as a complete Opp. She was very talanted attackers with very good physicals. However Lee jungchul changed her position as MB and Opp even in the same game. It made her very confused and end up with neither excellent MB nor Opp.

Kim heejin cried a lot when 2019 world cup was over, because she felt so grateful for Lavarini for believing her as a great opposite. Lee jungchul's coaching style was shouting and criticizing to players. Kim heejin never had a chance to recover when she was not good because when she does a not good match, Lee jungchul changed her position. However Lavarini believed her and finally showed good performances in the world cup.

I think Korea lost a tall receiving OH and ferocious Opp because of Lee jungchul. It is very big reason why I hate him and I feel very sad for the players. Hope they show their full abilities through Lavarini in 2020 tokyo! Let's make it Korea!!

werka wrote:

https://twitter.com/FIVBVolley…/1223204751141146624?s=20

Olympic pools are confirmed! Russia will play in Pool B as we have previously assumed.

Japan will play their last match against Serbia🤗

(1st seed in the pool plays the match in the hind-foremost order )

Japan will have hard time beating Korea, they have lost almost all the matches in the major tournaments. (2016 OQ, 2016 olympic games, 2018 asian games, 2019 world cup).

Also Dominicam Republic is getting stronger these days, and they are very fluctuating team so we don't know how they'll perform vs Japan. Though Japan was consistent at beating DR in every competition, DR these days is much stronger than they were before.

If Japan lost both matches, or at least one match, they will have hard time going to knockout stage. However, they have Serbia!

Japan vs Serbia😄😄 2012 and 2018, and now 2020?

I'm sure the loser of the match between Korea vs DR will have hard time going to QF though they got japan over because of Serbia!

tiffany wrote:

hi-pass problem in match vs hyundai is moon jungwon receiving. Lots of points lost because of that. I agree with ian3373 that hyundai didn't even playing their best yet they won.

I'm actually impressed with Ha Heejin performance. I saw her play at World Cup with NT but she didn't stood out much. Last night, shes's pretty good.

Hi-pass MB was good too. The short-haired one, I dunno her name. I guess she's a rookie?

One thing though..I kinda don't like hi-pass coach. He kept yelling at his player or gave silent cold treatment without giving them useful advice how to overcome the crisis.

Seriously, some korean coaches really need to learn from Lavarini how he encouraged or giving one-on-one tutorial with his players, mostly setters when crisis happened.

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I cannot stand watching korean coaches after seeing what lavarini has made. He is 100000 times better than the korean coaches. Even if we can got all the good things from 6 coaches, that won't be better than lavarini.

I think Korean league should also hire foreign coaches. That would lead to huge succes. I cannot remember it well but I think it was 2011-2012 Heunguk hired vandaira mamoru who is japanese, and they placed runner up even though they were estimated as the worst team before the season. Their volleyball was beautiful as I remember, making me thinking of the japanese NT.

There's no good coaches in korean league, so plaease hire foreign coaches!

ian3373 wrote:

Wow, nother long grueling match it seems Hillstate vs KGC... haven't watched full, because the duration is 2hr47mnt...

I take a peek in end of the match, it's end wirh 22-20 in the set 5! WTH! It must be a heart pumping match for big fans of each team... i hope noone got heart attack....

It was an astonishing match again!

KGC was definitely disappointing in the beginning, but as diouf begins to wake up, the whole team got so much different.

However, only diouf attacking was not enough for KGC to win. She scored 45! and it was not enough...

They definitely need stronger OH. Choi eunji would be excellent as a 2nd option OH, but is not okay as a 1st option OH. We can see Kim miyoun suffering a lot as a 1st option OH as Lee jaeyeong got out of the team because of her injury. Kim miyoun showed good performance so far, but not as a 1st option.

Hyundai's middle blocker played excellent match today. Yang hyojin scored 29 points with 11 blocks, which is her personal best block points. Jung jiyoon scored 21 points, which is also her personal best.

They won the match with the strength of MBs, but Hayley spelman's underperforming is a very big problem. She scored only 13, with 30% of success rate. With Hayley playing like this, Hyundai would be in a hard time.

Plus, Lee dayeong seems to suffering from knee injury after OQ. So many players are suffering from OQ... too sad for it. Hope every player got over this injuries!

ian3373 wrote:

I just watched highlight of Hi-Pass v Altos... looks a long and very tiring match.. with tie breaks on tie break set...

I can say it was the best match of this season. Hi-pass seems to lose the match with losing 23-25 both in 1st and 2nd set, but they overcame it with enormous spirit. The rally in 10-11, 5th set was definitely the best rally of this season. It was epic!

IBK keeps losing to hi-pass, it's already 0-4. They have been very weak for hi-pass traditionally, but not in this way. If IBK wins this match, I think they could be really dangerous for all teams, but they would lose their spirit because of this game.

New foreigner in hi-pass, Sanchez, seems to be suffering from injury, or at least not in a good shape. I think she has some problems in hamstring. The tragedy of hi-pass's foreign players keep going. Etkinson-Simpson-Sanchez, what a trio.😅😅 It's really sad because with appropriate foreign players, they would be at the top of this league. However it's very good to see Yoo seoyeon-Jeon saeyan-Ha hyejin backup trio playing well in the game.

We can know how much the experience is important from this match.