There are a couple of things that contributed to the blowout. First and foremost, Marquette was just better than us. I won't touch on that as much, but they were just a better, more experienced team.

First thing is that I'm pretty impressed with Bower. For a true freshman, she's a really solid setter. For a true freshman that skipped her senior year of high school, she's phenomenal. She'll be really, really good for us for the next few years. That being said, a big part of our success this year will be based on how she develops. For BYU to be a legit title contender this year, she needs to hit her windows more consistently. For a high school setter, her ball placement is really good, but for a starting setter at a top 10 team, it's not where it needs to be yet. It's similar to throwing windows shrinking as you go from high school to college, and college to the NFL. You just have to be more accurate as you get higher, and she's not quite there yet. It's really good that Olmstead schedules so tough, because she'll figure out pretty quickly what works against good teams and what doesn't. Overall though, considering she's a freshman, I was really impressed with Bower.

Second is that our hitters need to learn how to kill the ball with a block. RJP was amazing at using and manipulating the block, and we really missed that against Marquette. It'll be interesting to see who Olmstead ends up starting on the pins, but I think that she'll start the ones that are good at killing with the block. As the setting gets more consistent, I think we'll see a lot more consistent production from our hitters. It's tough for a freshman setter to come in and do well, and it's also tough for hitters to hit off of a senior all American.

As far as defense goes, I think we'll see a lot of improvement over the year. As far as individual defense goes, there's kind of a progression. First, you want to consistently see touches on the ball. If you're touching a lot of volleyballs, you're in the right place. After that, you start looking for digs, where your team can get a second contact on the ball. Then the last step in your progression is getting quality digs, where your setter can get the second ball with some options. BYU had a lot of touches and digs, but Marquette had a lot of quality digs. There were lots of plays that would last for awhile, where Marquette would get a quality swing, BYU would keep it alive, Marquette would get a quality swing, BYU would keep it alive, then Marquette would kill the ball. Mary Lake was really the only defensive player that was getting quality digs consistently. As the season goes on, we'll see a lot of growth.

As others have said, our passing wasn't great. I think it's more because Marquette could smell blood and got hot, and we just got cold. Our passing will get better as Olmstead figures out her rotation and players can get into a groove.

Despite the Marquette game, I'm pretty high on this team. I would guess that our ceiling is the Sweet 16, unless everything lines up and we get to the Elite 8. Realistically I think that we'll drop a couple games in the WCC, win the WCC, and then lose in the second round of the NCAA's. But we'll see. I think this will be a fun year. Last year, we pretty much knew who we were from game one. After the Stanford game last year, their coach said something along the lines of "BYU beat us, but [Stanford] isn't a finished product, but I think BYU is." The opposite is true this year. I think we'll see a huge jump from now until the end of the season, so we could surprise some people.