The Arizona State Sun Devils are going coming off of a season that saw time spent in the national rankings, an entire month spent in the losing column, and ultimately a first-round exit in the NCAA tournament.
All that being accounted for, what should Sun Devil nation expect from head coach Jason Watson’s squad next season?
More Balance
Anybody who watched an Arizona State volleyball match knew the ball was going to sophomore outside hitter Macey Gardner the majority of the time. Gardner accounted for 29.4 percent of the team’s attack attempts.
To put this in perspective, national champion Penn State senior outside hitter Deja McClendon accounted for 22.4 percent of the Nittany Lion’s attack attempts, significantly less than Gardner.
Any team the Sun Devils faced knew that they could park multiple blockers in front of Gardner and have success halting the ASU attack.
However, after a full season of Watson’s offense under her belt, sophomore setter Bianca Arellano should be more comfortable spreading the ball around. A big part of that should be a continuously improving connection with middle blockers Whitney Follette and Mercedes Binns.
It was apparent that Follette and Arellano were getting quite comfortable with each other as Follette put down twelve or more kills in three of ASU’s final five matches, including seventeen against BYU in the last match of the season.
If Arellano can continue to improve the connection with Follette and find that same chemistry with Binns, there will be very few teams in the Pac-12 with the blocking ability to stop Gardner while staying true and respecting the middle attack. In other words, Pac-12 defensive players should be wary.
Sustained Consistency
Arizona State was 15-5 in three-set matches this season. However, they were a combined 4-9 in four- and five-set matches as well. In short, the longer the match went, the less likely it seemed that the Sun Devils would come away with a victory.
For much of the season, Watson would attribute that statistic to youth. All but one Sun Devil starter was either a freshman or sophomore (senior libero Stephanie Preach), and the team showed their youth most when matches went into deeper sets.
Now that all but one of the starters are returning, the familiarization process will be in the past for the Sun Devils, and one would expect a calmer, steadier team than what was put on the court this past season.
Macey Being (a better) Macey
Gardner is a beast when attacking the ball. She showed in the BYU match that she had all the shots that any elite hitter has in their arsenal. However, what the entire country should be afraid of next season is Gardner’s passing and digging abilities improving.
As the season wore on, the All-Pac-12 player looked increasingly comfortable in serve receive and on defense. Naturally, being ASU’s most respected attacker, opposing teams would focus their serving on Gardner in hopes of taking her out of the play and unable to put an effective swing on the ball.
Early in the season, teams were able to do just that, but Gardner seemed to look calmer passing match by match. It was eventually the norm late in the season to see her pass a solid ball with a calm platform and transition to make an effective attack.
If she is able to continue to improve that aspect of her game, ASU might have a player named to the 2014 All-American team for just the sixth time in program history.
You can reach Zac Pacleb on Twitter @ZacPacleb or via email at zacpacleb@gmail.com
