The Dani Busboom Kelly Era Begins With a 4-0 Win Over Kansas

The official start of the Dani Busboom Kelly era won’t come for four more months, but there was plenty to take in on Saturday when Nebraska welcomed Kansas to the Bob Devaney Sports Center. In their first ever Volleyball Late, a new postgame show, Jeff Sheldon and Lincoln Arneal of the Volleyball State podcast gave their thoughts on Nebraska’s 4-0 win, talking about the players, stylistic changes, and more.

Below is an lightly-edited transcript of their postgame podcast.

Overall impressions from the first match under DBK

Jeff: Overall impressions right now? It seems like the freshmen were kind of the big story tonight.

Lincoln: I think the big story was this is Dani Busboom Kelly’s first match and talking to Rebecca Allick and Andi Jackson; both said this was the first match for them too. A lot of the same players, a lot of the same assistant coaches too, but they had nerves coming out there too. And maybe you saw it with a bunch of missed serves and a shank serve received to start the match. Not a strength early in game one.

But I think they settled in and Nebraska looked dominant. They beat Kansas 4-0. They played four sets. You can do that in an exhibition and made the stats a little bit messy, but I thought Nebraska looked good. Besides a few nerves early, Nebraska looked good. They looked like they weren’t in mid-season form, but they looked like they really had the signs of success.

Jeff: Yeah, absolutely. And the players that really stole the show, I thought, were Nebraska’s freshmen. Ryan Hunter was maybe the least heralded member of this recruiting class coming in, really through no fault of her own. She came in with that injury she suffered in high school. And you know, I always saw the stats through the first three sets, but I see she ended up with 11 kills. Nine on her first 11 swings through the first three sets. Ryan Hunter, welcome to Nebraska.

Lincoln: She didn’t have an error hitting error until the fourth set. She also didn’t play beach season too. So, she was with the team, traveled when they went to Hawaii and California, but really was only physically cleared to play in December and really kind of started her road to recovery from that knee injury over the last couple of months. I don’t know if it was just a left-hander at opposite, but she looked good. Like she had one kill. I think it was in the third or fourth set too, where she kind of sliced between a triple block that just looked veteran savvy and looked really good.

Were there any noticeable differences under DBK?

Jeff: Matt in the I-80 Club Discord asked if we saw a noticeable style difference because he said they look like they’re willing to try to set up some big swings. I noticed some different routes. I’m sure you did too. You know, they’re running Harper Murray inside instead of just setting her on the pin; some combo routes. This is kind of some stuff I thought that they might see judging on what Louisville looked like last year. What did you see kind of from the offensive scheme standpoint?

Lincoln: Well, I don’t know if it’s a schematic to me, but it’s more intention. They went to the middle blockers a lot more. The match was close. I think it was 19-18 in the first set and Nebraska went to the middle blockers. They went to Allick twice, and they finally got her a kill. And next three kills were all quick sets to middle block. And that’s what they think about speeding up that offense to run a little bit faster and I think the middle’s really benefited from that.

Jeff: I want to spend some time talking about the middles in a little bit and certainly give Andi Jackson her flowers, because oh my god did she bruise the floor a few times, and did something I don’t know I’ve ever seen a college middle blocker do, but we’re talking about the freshmen right now.

Let’s talk about Campbell Flynn for just a little bit. She set the final two sets of the match; set them to .395 hitting in game three. I was really impressed by her. Very smooth, good hands. The tempo was good. I think she missed on a couple locations, right? She’s a freshman and the passing wasn’t always great. But Campbell Flynn showed she’s ready to play at this level.

Lincoln: Yeah, I thought that was maybe one of more surprising things and maybe attribute that to nerves is Bergen Reilly struggled with her set location. But Flynn really came in and she didn’t get a kill on either of her attacks, but you get a lefty up there. These aren’t these gentle dump attacks for the middle; they’re power swings.

Harrper Murray

Jeff: Another returning player I want to keep my eye on tonight; Harper Murray. Started a little bit slower offensively, just had one kill in game one, picked it up as the match went along. But how about that jump serve, huh? We haven’t seen that yet!

Lincoln: No, I think that was really exciting too. They talked about the potential that she has to do that too. And she also mixed it up because she did the jump float, which she did last year too, she switched to that in the second set. She can really kind of yo-yo the defense and mix in that float serve with the jump top spin serve. It’s really going to give defense a headache too. She went back, first one she ripped off for an ace too. Nebraska hasn’t had a jump server in the number of years. I think John Cook’s talked about wanting to save legs.

Jeff: Yeah, it’s another kind of full swing. So if you get late in a match and Harper’s taken 45 swings in the flow of play, and then she’s going to go back there and try to rip eight jump serves, you can save your body a little bit. But it can be such a weapon, right? Maybe this is what we’re seeing a little bit of the philosophy change between Dani Busbom Kelly and John Cook is like, let’s just let it rip, right? Let’s use every tool we have at our disposal and it’ll get us another point or two. 

Watch the entire postgame show below!

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