I hesitated posting after the opening week to the 2017 volleyball season in an effort to temper the homer effect. After all UT Arlington opened the season 3-0 and won the opening tournament for the first time since 2013. Prior to that, you'd have to go back to 2004. In essence, it was a rare moment in the Diane Seymour era.
But under new coach J.T. Wenger, it is now an every-year phenomenon. I kid, I kid, but you see why I wanted to temper expectation. They beat Southern, a member of the Southwestern Athletic Conference. The Mavericks have never lost to a SWAC school in the previous 16 matches, so no big win. UTA swept McNeese in three sets. That match is also not a big upset as McNeese is picked ninth out of 13 Southland schools in the preseason poll.
The match that did give me cause for concern was a five-set win against Houston. If you glanced on the surface, that might seem like a tough opponent. After all, Houston came in with a 27-21 series advantage, and UTA owns series wins over two-thirds of its opponents, so that is saying something.
But, the Cougars were unanimous choices for last place in the American Athletic Conference. That means every coach, including the Houston coach, thinks that team is the worst in its conference. Yes, the AAC is a good volleyball conference, but it isn't elite and the worst team there is still not a good team. Add in the fact it took five for UTA to get the win and you can see the concern.
There was no mid-week match, so the following tournament in Nashville would tell a lot more. There were a lot of teams that UTA should be similar to or above.
The Mavs started against the host team, Belmont Bruins. After falling in two close sets, the Mavs rallied in the next two before falling in the fifth and final. I was impressed since Belmont was the pre-season Ohio Valley Conference favorites and the first two set losses were very close, with UTA losing by two and three points. The fifth set was bad, and looked like the team had run out of gas after a furious rally. But I can be okay with that as they looked really competitive in the first four, didn't let adversity get them down and since the Bruins should be a quality team.
After that came Middle Tennessee, a normally competitive team UTA had not beaten in its two previous attempts. They are rated ninth in their preseason poll, and didn't win a match in the Nashville-based tournament, so I may be overrating them based on their history. UTA swept the Blue Raiders, though the last two sets were just by two points. It's also a win versus a Conference USA team, which is the Sun Belt's Group of Five peer. While the main focus is in football and the College Football Playoff payout, it does help establish the SBC and by proxy UTA in a better overall position in the conference pecking order.
UTA ended the tournament against Idaho State. The Bengals had just beaten Belmont in five sets. The Mavs ended up winning by a three-set sweep. ISU had twice built a seven-point lead in the second set, but the Mavericks claimed a 25-23 win en route to the sweep. UTA, Belmont and Idaho State finished the tournament 2-1. I'm not sure if they would break it down via tiebreaker, but UTA and Idaho State had a better set winning percentage and UTA scored more total points over ISU.
So in my book, they have won the first two tournaments of the year.
More importantly, at this point of the season, UTA is 5-1. UTA started 2014 5-1 en route to a 25-9 season. Like the previous look at past seasons, 2004 was the next previous time that UTA started at least 5-1, though they were 6-0 that year. They finished that year 24-7. Astounding to me, the next previous 5-1 start was 1988, that resulted in a 30-4 year with several wins in the NCAA tournament. In short, the start for UTA is very rare.
That in and of itself is very encouraging. The other thing I've really noticed is the lack of quit or inconsistent play. One of my biggest problems with the volleyball team in the past has been the lack of consistency. One set they look unbeatable, the next they look out-matched. That even existed several times within a set. But this year, even in set losses, and in the case of the Belmont match loss, they look like they can win. I don't know why the difference is there, but six matches is enough for me to say that there is one.
Next up is a tournament hosted by the University of New Mexico. The Mavericks will play the Lobos, picked ninth out of 11 Mountain West Conference teams and 4-2 on the year, to open. Next up will be two-highly favored teams in their conference, Northern Colorado (picked 2nd in Big Sky, and 2-4 on the year) and Portland (3rd in the West Coast Conference, 5-1).
Say what you will, cliche or not, but this is a new era. First-year coach J.T. Wenger has made a team that is competitive and seems to make an effort or play at a consistent level not seen in quite some time. Regardless of what happens from here, UTA volleyball seems to have made a quality hire.
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