There's talent, but it's a lot of young talent on the floor. At one point I know we had 3 freshmen out there, possibly 4 at another point. Like with all collegiate sports, relying on a lot of youth will typically produce a lot of ups and downs.

Could better coaching be a reason for the difference? Asking for a friend.

Not sure how many games you've been to or how close you're sitting to the bench, but one of the home tournament games before the MAC schedule started I witnessed/heard something important that I eluded to with my youth comment. As they came to the bench for a timeout, Caitlin O'Farrell loudly said (paraphrasing), "we have to communicate, there's a lot of new players on the floor but we HAVE to keep talking." In the struggle stretches I have seen in the Convo (and I am NOT a vball expert, just my observations), it seems like there are a lot of communication issues. A return will be coming towards a player and one of our ladies attempts to get to a ball that's coming to another player (basically going after a ball that isn't "theirs"). Players running into each other. These things look, to me, like communication issues. Hearing a veteran player bring it up on the bench made me believe what I thought I was seeing. Communication with sports teams usually is better when teams have more experience playing together. In the matches I have seen, 5 of our Freshmen are seeing time on the floor, with 3 of them seeing a lot of time on the floor. Add in that Winzeler has been playing a lot at setter and she's a Sophomore who sparingly played last year.

That's a lot of players seeing action that haven't played many matches together. Just my long-winded $.02 worth.