The Dig - Brennan Hagar

0:00this is the dig on the Huskers Radio Network podcast powered by Emeritus featuring Nebraska volleyball assistant coach Brennan Hagar. Now here's your host Jessica Coody and welcome back into the dig powered by Emeritus. I'm Jessica Coody joined by assistant coach Brennan Hagar. Welcome back and I'm sure you guys have been glad to be back and linking for a little bit. Yes, yeah, for sure. Well overall, I guess how did you guys reflect on the weekend picking up a few more wins at home? Yeah, I thought it was great. I guess it was I found it really glad or I was really glad that kind of our B side, you know, go to have a really good experience, kind of experience, you know, what that pressure is like when you're in front of 10,000 people and you know that teams aren't just going to roll over like they're going to give you your they're going to give us their best shot and you know I

1:01thought how we responded in the fourth set against Florida Gulf Coast was awesome. I mean they were a great team. They're used to winning so that was not something unusual for them for them to take a set and so I thought yeah our younger players did a really good job and we're composed and responded well so it was really good. How about the atmosphere on Wednesday inside Finnical Bank Arena? Oh, it's awesome. Yeah, you know, Nebraska Creighton, like Jalen said, I mean it's one of the best parts about this job is just the rivalry and how much love both programs have from both fan bases and just what that sport means to both teams. We talked about this a little bit last week and Danny's talked about it but in the grand scheme of things dropping a set, it probably not that big of a deal right? I mean Danny is talking about as long as you guys are getting better and so how's the team handling, you know, dropping the sets? I mean I hope they have the same mindset I don't care. Yeah, it really, I mean last year we finally dropped a set against

2:03UCLA once we got to conference and I think you just there's so much benefit to how a team's going to respond when things don't go your way and maybe you have ebbs and flows and you are able to feel the momentum shift on both sides. So I think any time that we lose a set, it's great. I mean when Georgia Tech took a set from us, I think this is the best case scenario. I think it's awesome. Same thing with North Carolina. I mean we come out, punch them in the mouth and then they punched us, you know, it's like slugfest. So I think it's a really good preparation going into the big 10 and we know that I mean I don't think any of us are going into the conference season thinking that we're going to just roll through it again. And so I think it's a really, really good test for us as both coaches and players. Yeah, good learning experience. I think it's great. You know, like you got filmed to point to it's probably easier as a coach just when when you drop the set as opposed to win it for, yeah, players to kind of take that in. Yeah. Okay, well, lots to get

3:04into with you. Your medals are playing unbelievable. Just a great couple of weeks for your group. But let's go back because we didn't have you on last week, but last week, Benio Bay, Jay, the big 10 player of the week. What a weekend she had a couple of weekends ago. But man, how what was working with with her? How how incredible has she been over the last few weeks? She is, I think we're starting to tap into something special with her. I think she just does such a good job about coming in every day and knowing what she wants to work on knowing her strengths, but also maybe some weaknesses in her game. And I felt like leading up to, you know, her performance a couple weeks ago, she was really, really intentional about getting better at those little things. And we saw a lot of that come out with in front of everybody. And so I wasn't shocked that she was big 10 player. Like, I'm like, honestly, well, what'd you give it to after her performance, which is pretty great. And yeah, kind of a bummer for her that kind of coming off of those accolades

4:08that she was feeling a little bit under the weather against Craton, but, you know, can a stepped up and was not worried whatsoever. I mean, Ken has earned the right to be on that stage. And I mean, kind of insane that, you know, in front of 15,000 people that she goes out and does that without even missing a beat. So was super happy for her. And honestly, I was stoked for Maniah that she was able to have that honor. Do you want to talk more about Kenna, but going back to Maniah and one of the TV broadcasts that Coach Cook was on, he said, Maniah has the potential to be one of the best blockers in program history, which he would know, right? That's that's big words. What is it about her blocking that sets her apart? I heard ability to be comfortable with being late. I feel like that's something that you have to kind of like get out of middles or just once they get to us, I mean, I feel like a very standard concept in the high school game or maybe the club

5:10level is everybody wants to have to close the scene. They have to be on time. You have to get there. That's really not realistic, especially with some of the offenses that we get to play or have to play against where it's so fast. And there's physical players all over her calm demeanor and ability to react laterally. And she's just really, really good at putting her body in the right spot. And then her just like natural touch blocking. It's pretty incredible. Is it, you know, they they talk about sometimes with athletes in any sport, just some people have that kind of IQ and that knowledge. Like it's just like that special ability is, is would you say she has that? She definitely does. Yeah. Like how she can read it. How do you get better at blocking? I can't even practice it. Oh gosh. Like if you're not in a team setting. Yeah. If you're just like going one on one, you're not can't go to the gym and shoot like that. You know how do you how do you do that? Yeah. You know, it's a lot of there's a lot of benefit to just having to fail blocking. And so I feel like we've seen that the most with Andy's growth from a blocking standpoint. I feel like she's a great example where we can do all of this technical training

6:14in a blocked setting where there's no stress. There's no outside stimulus. There's no center who might set the ball tight might set it off a player that's taller than Andy, smaller than her. So it's a lot of okay, we can do all this technique training where we're making moves outside of our body jumping up and down knowing where the ball is going. But it really is knowing your surroundings, making sure that your eyes are looking at the right thing at the right time. And then just making sure that all of that is clicking with the technical stuff. So it's finding the balance for each person and kind of like what they need. And we've done a lot more live stuff in terms of from a training standpoint. And so I think we're really good at the technical training. And so going into this season, I know that listening to what the middle is like from last year's training to this year, they wanted longer periods of live training. And so that's kind of what we've done. And so we're fortunate that the size of our roster

7:19allows for us to do that, which is great. And when you talk about getting points from blocks as opposed to block touches, what goes into that and being able to score from the block? Yeah, so in systems a little bit tougher, I would say, just speed of offense and the unpredictability based off of who's setting. From a middle standpoint, in that aspect, we would love positive touches. If we stuff the ball for a point, that's great. But that's really not the number one priority. It's just slow down the offense. And then from an out of system standpoint, that's what we're looking to know. Block balls for points because we should know where the ball is going. Okay, so this is one thing that they talked about in the post game against FGC on Sunday. John Baylor, Lorne Cook was they were loving Monaya attacking off two feet on the right side. Tell us about that. Why is she so confident in that role? You know, she just is really, really dynamic as an athlete. And so if there's a way where

8:23I mean, she's great off of one foot, but this is something that Danny and I've been talking about. Like if you're out there in transition, let's just run you off of two feet because that way, I mean, if we're in a medium pass situation where Campbell or Bergen's often at, she's still an option and it's easier to attack off of two feet as opposed to one and so she's great off of two in front. So we thought, well, as like a middle group, we're actually working on all four of them, going off of two feet a little bit more in those types of situations. But Monaya is just great athlete. So it's not something that, you know, we're like really leaning into. It's just something that she's just capable of doing. And gives you another option, I'm sure. And another layer to trying to defend Nebraska. Yeah. Okay, so going back to Kenna's performance. Monaya is under the weather coming off the big 10 player of the week performance. What was that conversation like? How ready was she to, I guess, embrace the moment? Obviously, very ready. She's very ready. I mean, Kenna, that's why I wasn't shocked. Like in practice, her

9:26mindset last year is wanting to be a red shirt and then just her mindset to not even like second guess her ability almost. She's just like, she's somebody who just trusts her training fully. And I mean, she got the call. Daniel's like, Kenna, you're in. It was really like, okay, that's there really wasn't that much of a conversation of we just went through our normal game. Viru team, all positional film was like, hey, nice. I mean, they obviously knew that when I was under the weather and somebody was going to step in and I was like, key Kenna, like there's just some things we want to look for. And Danny called Kenna's name and Kenna was un- like unfazed. And so I think just the way that she's approached practice each and every day really reflects her performance in that. What does that do for coaching staff? It's one thing to see it in practice. But when you see it on stage like that, knowing that she can step in and not batting eye. Yeah, I think it just further gives us more confidence in being able to like

10:28switch things up. I felt like I saw a video, I think from Halevarsity talking just about like the strength of our bench is what has led to so much success for us this year. And just each time somebody's coming off the bench, whether it's Skylar, Ryan, Gabby, Kerry, but key Kenna, they've just all proven that they deserve to be on the floor, have a shot to be. And so if you know what, somebody's having an off night, which that's going to happen, they're all human. I mean, no one's going to play perfect the whole time. There's somebody willing to step up and Ken step up in those moments. And so it's just really cool that we might be able to do that. And you know what, okay, give this person a break. We might put them back in, see how it's going. That doesn't fluctuate someone's confidence or lead to a bad performance or something like that if that makes sense. Yeah, for sure. I loved after the match, people were obviously saying, whoa, Nebraska's got a third middle. And then Danny quote tweeted,

11:33he said, actually, we've got a fourth and she's great too. And Keanu Williams showed it on Sunday. She did. Yeah, I thought Keanu was great. It was awesome. You know, same thing after the I think was the second set. Yeah, we're like, all right, let's need to get Keanu. I mean, we're going to meet her. And you know, she's pretty good off of one foot too. And so kind of like put her in that or wanted to put my eye in the M1 spot just to get another look at something. And yeah, Keanu went in was great. I think got two kills right off the bat. And she's just been working really, really hard on her spacing, timing, her arm swaying. And so it was really cool to now have game footage for her as well rather than just, you know, practice footage. Do you guys feel confident in all four playing M1 M2 no matter what what the role might be or need might be? Yeah, I think, you know, we train everybody to go off of one foot as much as possible. And now off of two, you know, just to be able to give an option if, you know, if something were to happen,

12:33that that wouldn't change our offense whatsoever. That, you know, there'd be a time where maybe a matchup, we like somebody else, but based off of, we don't want to fully just make rotation, we can just flip two people in that spot. And I think it's just another strength for us. What is that like for you guys? I mean, you've got four players that certainly could be all stars everywhere they anywhere in the country, but you just, there's only, there's just a limited opportunity, but you've got all this talent over there that you're like, we got to figure out a use them. I know. Yeah, it's, I think it's great because each one of them is better than another one at something. And so when you're able to look like within your position group and you're like, hey, he's really, really good at this. Like, let's watch like what makes her successful in that. And maybe that might be a weakness for, I don't know, like Andy, maybe. And it's we're able to have that example from a younger player where an old, but like a veteran can take something from them

13:38and then vice versa. So it's really cool that we're able to do that. And I feel like that just strengthens the team and like the unity within our position group, but it's also like from a team standpoint. I think we're 15 minutes into this thing. And I have not even asked you a question about Andy Jackson. I think that that speaks, that doesn't speak volumes to the depth that you have in your room. Yeah, I don't know what does. It's, but Andy certainly still maintains to being incredible. And I was going to ask you about this. Do how do you feel about the nickname launch laser for her serve? Well, I just found out about it. It's pretty great. Yeah, I think Andy's made huge strides from just a volleyball player standpoint. And so I feel like her serve is an example of that where she's just able to go like in and out between like the launch laser or a hybrid and then go into like her normal float serve. I think I said last year or I think she's a perfect example of what a great float serve looks like. And you can't hybrid or you

14:42shouldn't hybrid if you don't have great hand contact like she does. And so I think it's a weapon where now we can kind of fluctuate between a float serve and a hybrid mid match or you know, mid serves. If you know what we just scored on the hybrid, maybe you offset them, hit the float serve, be able to drop it short, like get them on their toes and then be able to hit the hybrid again. And it's just it adds to kind of her volleyball knowledge and I would love for her to get to the point where it's not Danny, myself or whoever giving that sign cue signals whatever, but it's just kind of a feeling within herself. And so I think we're we're scratching the surface on that where I she just went I think it was against Florida Gulf Coast. Her first serve, she's like, I'm gonna float. I was like, okay, that's fine. Perfect. Like we trust her to do whatever and I mean, she's proven that's why I mean, she's serving for us. Is it hard to go in and out of that when you have the different kinds of serves? I would yes and no. If you have a great toss, that's the

15:43main thing. If you're able to for the hybrid, you might need just a little bit higher just to give your arms some time to get be able to get back in that position where you can't hit the hybrid. And so I think it's very person dependent and how much trust you have within it. It's definitely a struggle if you're very if you're learning that. Yes. So if people are wondering why doesn't Danny just get back there and fire away all the time? It's a chess match, right? I mean, it's it's kind of part of scouting and the competition and keeping teams off their toes. Yeah, like we realized the rotations that Andy was going to serve in that matched up with against certain teams. If that's their weakest rotation, we would rather point score and just trust our blocking defense rather than, you know, maybe it's one of their better rotations. Let's just bomb away and see what happens. It also is just like passing numbers if they're statistically wherever Andy's serving, if it's not great from there, just nice to put her like really tough float serve in on their to costume chaos and I think she's like her mindset is ground from a serving standpoint for her to

16:49be able to do that. Not just Andy. It's been a big storyline for this entire team. How much improved this team has been from behind the service. I mean, Laney Chowboy has been unbelievable. You've worked with her a lot. What was that conversation process like of going into it with her wanting to establish her in that role to be a weapon back there? Yeah, I think it's just a lot of the drills that Danny does in practice. I mean, we do call it noodle serve every day to start practice and she wants to be the best serving team in the world is what she says, which I think is great. And we've seen I think it's this is the most aces that we've had in this up to now since to is it 2005 maybe something like that, which is insane. I think we're above 70 or something like that. And so I think Laney has really leaned into her role in that position and just like really take an advantage of being a point score. And it's like not a hindrance based off of her

17:56height, you know, everybody wants to talk about like all the tall players have great float serves and should be able to have an easier time when it's just great hand contact. And Laney's done a really, really good job of making sure that the ball is now out in front of her. And so that's why she's had so much success because we would see in streaks last year where when the ball was in front of her, it was a great start when it wasn't it was bad for lack of a better term. So she's really leaned in and is like taken pride in the fact that she's going to go back there and she's looking to score. She's not looking to just put the ball in which I think is great from a server's mentality. When I talked to her at the beginning of the season, she said there were days that her arm she's like, my arm might fall off like so she put in the work for that for sure to be confident back there. Yeah, I would say serving and free throws are very similar where it's just you and the ball. It's the only part of the game where you have total control in what is going on. And so the biggest thing for her was just making sure that her toss was consistent

18:58each and every time. And yeah, I think she's really, really good. And for her to be able to change depths in the way that she has where she's able to serve short yo, yo, drive it deep, serve it over somebody, serve it in the seam. It looks the same each and every time. And so that's the big key is that she's able to sell that she's going to hit the same serve each and every time. And then based off of her hand contact, the ball is able to move and cause stress. And then the more it works, the more you believe in it, right? For sure. The more confidence you are right there. Okay, I wanted to go back to one thing that you had talked about earlier with Minaya and her being comfortable being late on the fast offenses. We saw that from North Carolina, right? What are the challenges with that? And how do you, how do you match up against an offense that moves so fast like that? Yeah, it's just it truly is getting them to be comfortable when things are stressful. And just know that this is very, this is why teams try to go faster. And so there's ways that based off of where the center location is, who's hitting what players are in the front row,

20:02we're able to have adjustments for blocking and what they should be looking at. And maybe a block move to go and again, we're looking to touch the ball in system. And so fast offenses, you know, tend to only get hit one way just because they have the hitters getting on the ball. And so the ground that we have to cover isn't as far. But the speed coming out of the setter's hands is the thing that is hard to like react to. And so it's just making sure that we're getting our eyes on the setter as long as possible and taking in as much information and practically like a little bit over a second, which is really, really hard in terms of like from a vision standpoint. And so I thought that she's just really, really good at getting her eyes on the right thing at the right time. And that's why she's such a great blocker. How do you simulate that? I mean, you just have your scout team pay go fast. Kelly's pretty good. Yeah, she's not bad. So she can kind of give us a good look. I feel like you guys have played more matches than you've had

21:05practiced. It does seem that way. There's a lot of matches in these last few weeks. Oh, yeah. When we were on the road for the 10 days, I mean, it felt like we hadn't practiced at all, honestly. And so it's been really, really nice to be at home and actually see some of the training stuff that we're trying to do show up in the matches. So how do you guys, because I know a lot of times you like to have a routine in a schedule, but when you don't kind of have that because you're playing on different nights of the week, how do you guys balance that and getting the work in that needs to be get in? Yeah. So our strength coach Sean does a really good job of kind of helping us manage. When we should go harder on some days as opposed to others. And you know, we have a really great support staff where we're kind of able to get a gauge, get a feel for what the girls need. If we think we can go hard on these back-to-back days or we have a game on Wednesday and then games on the weekend, they help a lot with kind of like input to what our practice looks like.

22:09So it's really great. How important does film study become when you can't go as hard in practice? Like do you guys do a lot of that? We do. Yeah. You know, it's it's a lot of, okay, we're going to go hard for the prep, but then we're also going to give like a lot of visual post-practice and then within our position as well. And so that really hasn't changed much from last year. And I think that the way that we do it and the efficiency that we do it with where we're not overloading, especially when we have to play like three different teams in a week where if there's too much information, I mean, no one's going to remember that. I'm not going to remember that. So just making sure that we're hitting kind of like the main points of what makes each team special or unique or whoever like the best players are, some tendency things that it makes it easier when we are going the Wednesday and then the weekend games. You're a film junkie though, right? Try to be. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, because I feel like I remember from just the start when you got here, Coach Cocoa always talked that you watched so much film. Yeah, it seems that in like the last, I don't know

23:12why it's such a movie because we're doing all of these games that it hasn't been as much as it used to be. So I got to figure I get it back on that actually. Have you found who would I guess maybe would you categorize as a film junkie in your room? Do you have players that like to watch film? I think they all key is one where I think how it was maybe within an hour after I had gotten home from the game on Sunday and she was already setting up a film time. And so key is one where in the spring she had we did like text back and forth and she has made it a point that she wants to be the best. And so I think when I guess like categorically, you're fourth middle, you know, and that's not saying anything, but is has that mindset? It just is setting yourself up and for success. And so I think that by her having that mindset at this point in her career.

24:14True freshmen. Yeah, I mean, it's incredible that even from like a weight room standpoint, Sean has talked to me where he's like the first one to I spent like what does she need to do to get better? And yeah, she's really, really good at kind of like taking in that information when we have our film sessions. We talked about this the last time we heard, but you just got to love coming to the gym every day and working with that group. It's again, it doesn't feel like a job. It's yeah, it's awesome. And as talented as they are, they are just some of the sweetest people to. That's yeah, I think that's just speaks to how awesome each like all of them are that, you know, great people who are great athletes. It just makes for a great environment. And so I think we're doing a pretty good job recruiting standpoint from that like where we want to be around all of them all at the time. Well, great stuff as always. Congratulations, your bunch plan really, really well. And best of luck coming up this week. Awesome. Thank you.

25:16Brandon Hagar, we're here with us on the Dig Emeritus is proud to power the Dig in all of Husker Women's Sports. Thanks for listening and watching.