Ouch!

The Maverick Rambler has mentioned several times this year that it seemed the UT Arlington volleyball team was playing with fire, losing sets to teams they should not have. Though they won most of the matches prior to this weekend, it wasn't pretty. There has been one sweep this year and on paper, there should have been more if this is a conference championship contending team. All that came to a head this past weekend. I gave my fears more than fuel about how the next two months in conference play will shake out.

I don't say this lightly, but this may have been the worst weekend in program history from a performance standpoint. I mentioned in the last volleyball post that the team would travel to San Antonio to participate in UTSA's Roadrunner Classic. The participating teams weren't stacked but should have been on UTA's general level.

The tournament started out poorly as the Mavericks and the hosts squared off. As I said, these two squads should have been near parity, but the Roadrunners won the match in a sweep. Only the second set was close, if a four-point loss is considered close. At 15-25, 21-25 and 13-25, the Roadrunners dominated. 

While some content that UTSA elevation into the American Athletic Conference makes this less of competitive match, UTA volleyball is a premiere sport on campus. It is the only fall team sport. Top 50 if not 25 all-time winning percentage across the entirety of the NCAA, appeared in a national championship postseason tournament 17 times since its founding, another two Invitational postseason tournaments and has produced numerous All-Americans all mean a little more than just conference pecking order. Especially when one considers the success attained last year. UTA faithful would not be surprised with a win against any school. 

But, the weekend was still salvageable and UTA could ride into Western Athletic Conference play on a high note. But it went the exact opposite way.

I'll save the second match for now and proceed to the third game of the Roadrunner Classic. Just know for the setting that match two was a loss. 

More inconsistencies showed themselves in the tourney finale as UTA lost to the North Florida Ospreys. In one set they looked unstoppable. In another they look outmatched. UNF won in five, 25-22, 18-25. 25-15, 27-29 and 12-15. UTA actually scored more points in that match but lost 2-3. That is usually a sign for inconsistencies. Mav fans did not see that last year.

The weird thing about this match too is on the surface, it wasn't close. A UTA player led all players in the match in kills, assists, aces, tied in blocks and trailed in digs by one. None of that screams loss, quite the opposite. What does stand out is that outside of Senior outside hitter Jalie Tritt and Redshirt Junior outside hitter Sophie Ocampo, no other Maverick was in double digits in kills. That can't happen in five sets. There has to be an offensive balance. It becomes a lot easier to plan a defensive strategy when the defense knows there are limited options. I'll be looking at that a little closer as conference play starts.

But the match that really sealed it for me, that really caused concern was the nightcap after the UTSA match. Prairie View A&M came into the weekend tournament with a 2-8 record. The lone wins were against Northwestern State and Tarleton State. NSU lost to UTA earlier in the year and TSU will be a twice-conference opponent who isn't well regarded in the preseason WAC poll.

And UTA lost to them. In a reverse sweep.

I'm just at a loss.

Before I get into the why, let me get into the match. UTA cruised early, winning the first two 25-19 and 25-15. That was about as expected with this opponent and it looked like UTA was on its way to their second sweep of the year.  

Then the Mavericks found themselves in a dogfight in the third. It was a back and forth set throughout as no team built a lead larger than three. UTA found themselves tied 18 all when the Lady Panthers went on a 5-1 run for a 19-23 lead. The teams traded points the remainder for the Prairie View set win, 21-25.

In the fourth, the formula was the same as neither team could get a big lead. Like the third, the teams found themselves tied at 18. Again, Prairie View used a run, this one 5-0 to get a large lead. UTA had a smaller run to make the final set score respectable, but it was still a Lady Panther win at 22-25.

The fifth set was where, if UTA is truly the better or grittier team, the Mavericks should have just dominated. But they didn't. It looked like they would initially. UTA was up 4-1. After a brief Lady Panther run, the Mavs extended the lead to 11-7, then 12-8 after trading points. Prairie View rattled off five straight for a lead. The teams traded the lead. At one point, UTA had match point at 14-13, but couldn't get that last point. 

It was tied at 14, then Prairie View took a lead for match point at 14-15. The Mavericks would tie it, but that was their last point scored and the Lady Panthers took the last two points and the match. Like the UNF match, UTA scored more overall points in the loss.

Now why am I harping on this match? There are several reasons. The Southwestern Athletic Conference is the last-rated conference in virtually every sport every year. Football is an exception, but not by much. Their basketball teams, even the regular season champ who wins the conference tournament, tend to play in the play-in game for those NCAA tournaments that have that feature. UTA's total budget surpasses many SWAC schools, and they all have the most expensive sport in football and sponsor more sports than UTA.

It was the first loss to a SWAC school in program history. Prior to that match, they were 1-0 against Alcorn State and Mississippi Valley State, 2-0 versus Arkansas-Pine Bluff and Southern, 3-0 when playing Grambling State and Texas Southern, 4-0 when opposing Jackson State, and they had the first seven over Prairie View.

A further infuriating stat, for those mathematicians reading, that is 23 previous matches against the SWAC. That amounts to 69 set wins. Guess how many sets they lost in that time frame?

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In the previous 23 matches, only two matches were not sweeps. Of those two, none went to five. That amounts to two total set losses prior to this past weekend. Ironically, one was to the Lady Panthers in 2022. They more than doubled the set losses to that conference in the 24th match.

Prairie View last won a regular-season conference championship in 2006. They last appeared in the NCAA Tournament in 2019, the first time since 2000. They are competitive in the SWAC, don't mistake what I'm saying there. But they just do not dominate that conference. This in a watered-down Division I conference intent on playing body bag games for revenue and playing amongst themselves for championships. Their focus is HBCU football first and last. This should not be a team that is competitive with UTA. Prairie View lost the other two matches in sweeps in San Antonio and sit at 3-10 on the year. Six of the losses are three-set sweeps.

The last thing I'll say on it will be an analogy. It was a big upset almost two decades ago when Appalachian State beat Michigan at their place in football. The Mountaineers were in the midst of three straight FCS national championships and Michigan wasn't a top-25 team most of the year, though they started the year in the top five. The disparity in UTA and Prairie View should be much larger than that. App State was probably a top 100 team in Division I. 

UTA strives to be a top 100 out of 346 DI institutions. The SWAC has a good year if a couple of schools are not in the bottom 300. I have no memory of a SWAC school in the top 200, though I'm not saying it has never happened. This was a bad loss. Easily the worst I have ever seen.

Now, I'm not sure if there is something other than performance issues at play. I didn't see any notable players missing on a cursory glance of the box scores. Maybe there's some injury concerns. While I don't know if there are any rotational issues, that shouldn't matter if there's a big enough talent gap, which there should be between UTA and a SWAC school. That also wouldn't explain the other two sub-par performances of the weekend.

The good news is, UTA gets a full week of rest before WAC play starts. While the rest of UTA's conference rivals play today, UTA gets Southern Utah at College Park Center on Saturday to open WAC play. The Thunderbirds are 1-10 overall. If this match is close or takes five sets, this Mavericks squad may not finish in the top half of the conference, let alone contend for a title. Match time is set for 1 pm.