If you put together a word chart of Kelly Sheffield's post-game press conference after beating Milwaukee 3-1, "effort" would be the king word. But it would be surrounded by negative adjectives, like "lacking effort" or "lost the effort." Even though Wisconsin won and it was pretty convincing, mostly with backups in, Sheffield wasn't pleased.
His mood was mostly frustrated and already focused on "cleaning things up" and having to "fix" other things. The performance tonight was lacking, and Sheffield wants more, especially as Big Ten play looms next for the Badgers.
Where was the effort lacking? Well, a few major spots that Sheffield either pointed out on his own or was asked about by the reporters in the room. The first spot that came up was when he was asked about Milwaukee's hitting percentage of .345 in the third set, giving them the only set win. "It was too high of a number, and effort probably contributed to that."
Then he said he played the bench more tonight for more opportunities for them and because "I was hoping their effort would be better." Not as in better than the starters, but better given the opportunity to play serious minutes. He said, "Some we brought in had greater effort than others." Sheffield played a total of 16 players in this one.
Wisconsin is now headed to Big Ten play and they need to fix their effort
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Yet, his big takeaway after playing all of those players: "This group needs to learn what it takes every single night. The effort, the concentration, the study, and the preparation." And then the tables turned, when John Steppe asked the question, "You've talked about effort a handful of times here tonight. Why do you feel like effort maybe wasn't up to your usual standard?"
This is when Sheffield really showed his frustration with how the match went. He said that in the first set Milwaukee hit .286, and then again in the third set, it was worse at .345. "I would say that has something to do with the effort." The team coming into the match and an important set, simply flat. He said, yesterday the same thing happened, "We sleepwalked, and then we got ourselves out of it...I was less patient today."
For Sheffield, he says that he has to work on preparing his team more and that his leaders need to push and ask more of their teammates. This can't be the norm, and it's something that has to be corrected now, because the Big Ten schedule starts immediately. It won't be a schedule you can sleepwalk through.
It's four ranked matchups in a row, but really five of the next six are against the top volleyball programs in the Big Ten. At the end of the day, for both yesterday and today, the team was able to win with talent, but that's not making Sheffield happy. "Talent won the match, but I felt like we lost the effort."
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