BATON ROUGE — Head coach Fran Flory met with the media Tuesday to preview the upcoming week for LSU volleyball.
The Tigers (20-5, 14-2 SEC) open the second leg of a four-match road swing Friday at No. 10 Florida before traveling to South Carolina on Sunday. LSU and Florida enter the match tied for second place and a half-match behind Kentucky in the overall SEC standings.
The Tigers have won 13 of their last 14 matches and secured the program’s fifth straight SEC Western Division crown last weekend. LSU also checked in at No. 11 in the latest edition of the RPI that was released Monday.
The Tigers are prominent in the national stats and rank inside the NCAA Top 50 in four different categories highlighted by 2.79 blocks per set [No. 10], a .261 team hitting percentage [No. 23] and 12.93 assists per frame [No. 27].
Brittnee Cooper has racked up 1.39 blocks per set and a .381 hitting percentage. She paces the SEC in both categories, while ranking No. 14 and No. 17 nationally, respectively. Sam Dabbs‘ 11.01 assists per set are No. 28 among the nation’s setters.
First serve against the Gators is scheduled for 6 p.m. and live stats will be available on LSUsports.net. The match will be televised by Fox Sports Net Florida but is unavailable in the Baton Rouge area. Fans also can follow in-match updates of the five-time SEC Western Division champions via www.twitter.com/lsuvolleyball.
VOLLEYBALL PRESS CONFERENCE AT WALK ON’S
NOVEMBER 10, 2009
HEAD COACH FRAN FLORY
Opening statement …
“I want to open by wishing soccer great luck. We’re really proud of them and certainly wish them the best in the NCAA Tournament. Women’s and men’s basketball opens this week and it’s a very exciting time for a lot of sports at LSU. We also have a huge match this weekend. We play at Florida and this match will have a pretty large implication in terms of who is going to win the SEC. I know they will be ready for us. They’re really going to be prepared since we got them on our home court. They’ve been running a little different lineup so we’re going to have to really prepare on our side. Then we play South Carolina on Sunday, a match that is notoriously difficult. We’re going to have to really prepare and bounce back from Friday.”
“We only have one home weekend left and I would encourage everyone to try and come out on Sunday Nov. 22, it is our senior night. These four seniors [Brittnee Cooper, Sam Dabbs, Lauren DeGirolamo and Marina Skender] have meant the world to our program and have taken us to the next level. We take on Alabama and we’re hopeful that we will have a great crowd to send them off into our last [home] match before we advance into the NCAA [Tournament]. We’re hoping that we can follow in soccer’s footsteps and be able to play at home again after that weekend but there is still a lot of volleyball left to play.
“We have had some individual awards since the last time we talked. Brittnee Cooper was named the CVU National Player of the Week a couple weeks ago. Another great honor for our kids, and we look forward to ending our season in a special way.”
On the opportunity to win the overall SEC title …
“We’re going to have to have some help. Kentucky only has one loss. They took care of us twice. It’s really unfortunate because we played them really close at their place. We would like to have that match back, but you know you don’t get them back. Kentucky has Florida and Tennessee [left] to play and we only have Florida to play. Florida has Kentucky and Tennessee after playing us on Friday. In terms of tough matches, we only have one and everyone else that is in the race has two or three. It could break our way but certainly we will need a little help. All we can do is take care of our opportunities, and we know that is big task in the O’Connell Center against Florida on Friday night. We’ll have to be really good this weekend. The bottom line is how well we execute. We feel like we’ve a very talented team that can stay on the court with them. The difference will be how well we play and do we allow a home court advantage to affect us. We’ve actually honestly fared better on the road so far this year. Our seniors [Cooper, Dabbs, DeGirolamo and Skender] take great leadership and do a really good job of keeping everyone focused. I’m not saying we will play better than we did the first time we played Florida but if we can execute to that level this is going to be a tremendous volleyball match.”
On Brittnee Cooper‘s impact on the team …
“Brittnee Cooper is a huge success story in our program. She started as a real project. She was a great athlete that didn’t know much about volleyball when we first chose to sign her four years ago. She has worked amazingly hard in the classroom, on the court and has developed not only into a great volleyball player but also a tremendous spokesperson for our program and a tremendous person. She has been really fun to coach and certainly we will miss her. Her stats speak for themselves. She’s absolutely the key. Many coaches in their pre-match interviews say she’s one of the best if not the best middle blocker in the country and I would think she is pretty close.”
On the first time she saw Brittnee Cooper play …
“The first time I saw her play she wouldn’t hit a ball hard. She jumped real high but she was kind of arms and legs everywhere. She wasn’t really sure what to do when they would set her the ball. The coaches controlled her, told her she could hit it hard and she would have to be a high efficiency type player to get a chance in college. I didn’t think it was a risk but many programs thought she was a big risk. Fortunately for us, she chose LSU. Four years later, she is matured into a tremendous player with a chance to take the next step and go to the next level.”
On when Brittnee Cooper matured into the player she is today …
“In between her sophomore and junior years she really made a step. She made the USA A2 National Team that summer, and she’s honestly a pretty shy kid. She had to go out on her own, play with different people and got a glimpse that she was playing with the best collegiate players in the country. The big thing was that she was holding her own. She tried out this past summer and ended up making the team again. She even became one of the leaders of that group. That certainly was a huge key in her maturation process. Between her sophomore and junior years is when the light bulb went on and she took off for us.
On how Brittnee Cooper has progressed over her career …
“She was painfully shy when she first came here to the point where she would not stand in front of a person or answer a direct question. Now, she will stand in front of a camera. It makes me a little emotional to see how far she has come, and I’m certainly very proud how far she has come as a person besides the volleyball. She has become a wonderful young lady, and I know she will be very successful.”
On why the Arkansas match was such a struggle …
“We knew that Arkansas was playing for a chance to get a look in the NCAA Tournament. They felt that if they won out and knocked someone off that was ranked that they were going to get a strong look as the fifth or sixth best team [from the SEC]. I knew our rhythm wasn’t very good and our ball control wasn’t good. I felt that we didn’t prepare very well for the match. A team is able to gain momentum and jump on us when we do that. We get ourselves in trouble. You have to credit them. We’ve not been able to balance all year so you have to credit them because they played their hearts out. If you look at the effort plays you would have thought Arkansas would have won the match but we have some great leadership in the fifth set thankfully for our team. We’re very fortunate to win that match.”