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April 14, 2008

Champaign, Ill. - Illinois volleyball accomplished a lot during the approximately two-month spring team practice session, which ended Saturday with a scrimmage against Arizona State University. The Illini have individual sessions for another two weeks. The team will take a few weeks off to focus on studies and finals then will reconvene to prepare for a 14-day trip to Italy.

"We've won most of our games, even though we've been working on specific offensive plays and defensive positioning and have been creative with the line-ups," said Illinois head coach Don Hardin. "As everyone knows, we were very close in a lot of matches last year and we put in a lot of hard work to get over the hump this season."

Illinois begins practice following the end of finals and will leave May 18 for Italy and Slovenia. The Illini will travel to Venice, Maribor, Ravenna and Rome before returning to Champaign May 31. Besides a great international experience, the Illini will play a competitive schedule, including the Italian Junior National Team.

"What's nice about this summer is we are taking a European trip, so the spring has been all in preparation for the trip," assistant coach Kevin Hambly said. "That trip will be really competitive as we are going to be playing against national teams. The Italian Youth National Team is going to have 16 and 17 year olds, but they are going to be unbelievable."

Details of the trip will be discussed in an upcoming notebook.

Major Rules Changes for 2008
The NCAA has passed a number of rules changes, the most significant of which will be the length of games. Teams will play the first four sets to 25 instead of 30 to conform to most international and junior competition. Substitutions will be reduced from 15 to 12. The fifth and final set will be to 15. The names of each group of points will change from games to sets, again to conform to international language. Illinois has been playing to 25 all spring to prepare of the change.

The rationale, according to the NCAA, states "There seems to be a reduction in the intensity of many contests in the middle of a set that is played to 30 points. The intention of this rule change is to increase fan and player focus and fan excitement. Additionally, the Division I Championship committee recommended this change."

"Playing to 25 is a much shorter race so the start is more important and recovery from any setbacks along the way will be much more challenging," Hardin said. "We have to be great out of the blocks."

The other point of influence of note approved by the NCAA Rules Committee concerns the second contact. According to the NCAA: "The rules committee recognized that ball handling judgment was, at times, inconsistent both within a match and from contest to contest. Not only were those inconsistencies frustrating for players and coaches, whistles for subtle infractions discernable only by the referees are confusing to fans. With increased television exposure, it is important to attempt to develop ball handling guidelines that are understandable by typical sports fans, not just the volleyball community. The basic tenet is that the excitement of the sport of volleyball can be increased with fewer whistles for minor ball handling infractions and increased leniency on particularly athletic plays that may not result in a perfectly executed set by traditional standards, but provides a continuation of play."