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Consider me surprised that Nebraska swept Oregon. I still hold that thought a couple days later, or at least that’s my excuse for publishing a gallery two days after the fact.
I’m no volleyball expert by any means, but I believe what you saw against Oregon was a masterful job of coaching by John Cook. I haven’t attended tons of matches over his career, but without reservation I can say that he was more animated during this match than 99% of the others.
He was up off he bench at the beginning of the match. He was animated. He was after the officials. Perhaps that’s because the first point of the entire match was a challenge that went Oregon’s way. Perhaps it was his way of countering Oregon head coach Matt Ulmer, who was off the bench and animated during the Ducks’ entire match against Minnesota.
It was a good turn out for Nebraska fans. Cook mentioned fans in his postgame presser - wondering whether his team would have a good crowd. It was a home game for the Huskers. The crowd was into it.
Cook was very complimentary of Oregon in his presser. He mentioned playing them in 2015 and how he’d told someone that their program was going to take off - he even made the “straight up” hand motion - because of Ulmer.
Ulmer returned the compliments during his time at the podium. He praised Nebraska’s program and mentioned Foecke, stating “there aren’t a lot of Mikaela Foecke’s in the world”.
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Just when you think that no one could be a greater player than Sarah Pavan, along comes Foecke. I could probably post about 200 photos of her alone, but she has a helluva lot of talent surrounding her.
Her story as a Nebraska player isn’t quite over. There’s this Final Four thing to contend with.
I’m hoping there are tons of Husker fans in Minneapolis Thursday evening. I’m sure the NCAA and Minnesota have the same hope.
It’s going to be a blast!