Consistency a struggle for reigning Final Four Most Outstanding Player (2024)

Anna Smrek earned a permanent place in University of Wisconsin volleyball lore with two magical performances on the biggest stage last December.

The only question was whether her overpowering matches in the NCAA Final Four against Louisville and Nebraska were just a sign of coming attractions or whether it would be an early pinnacle that she might never reach again.

The answer to that question stillis to be determined.

That player who burst on the national scene, earning Most Outstanding Player honors for the Final Four, has reappeared from time to time during her sophom*ore season. But at other times she’s either been invisible or noticeable mostly for her errors.

UW coach Kelly Sheffield has no doubt that dominating presence will become the standard for Smrek, but he also realizes that it remains a work in progress.

“She’s a confident player and it doesn’t matter how well she plays, she always knows she’s capable of being a lot better,” Sheffield said. "It’s why she will, one of these days, be a great unstoppable player. Right now she has glimpses of that. There are inconsistencies, and that’s just part of the growing process. There are no shortcuts to greatness. There just isn’t.”

An encouraging sign is that those glimpses of the unstoppable Smrek have come more frequently of late.She is averaging 1.72 kills per set over the last five matches, hitting .481 with just six total hitting errors. She also has recorded four blocks in each match.

That’s in contrast with the inconsistencies of the first half of the season as she struggled to develop connections with new setters Izzy Ashburn and MJ Hammill, resulting in a distressing number of errors in some matches. There were times she was pulled from matches and her starting spot appeared in jeopardy.

“I wavered a bit at the beginning,” Smrek said. “I wasn’t finding my connections and I wasn’t finding my rhythm. Honestly, I will say that hit a bit of my confidence. I did a lot of reflection and kind of stepped back and I just relaxed.

“I know that in sports you have one really good game, that’s great and stuff. But sports is a rollercoaster and there are going to be those ups and downs where one aspect of your game maybe isn’t so good, but you focus on something else. You find another way to contribute and be good in that area.”

Smrek said she doesn’t feel weighed down by the lofty expectations that may have sprung from her Final Four performances. She’s just trying to use that experience as a reminder of her capabilities.

“It’s not really an expectation for me,” she said. “It’s more so just knowing not to hold myself back because of the possibilities that could happen. When that did happen in the Final Four and the national championship, I was just letting myself play.”

Sheffield said Smrek’s ups and downs perhapswere inevitable as she adjusted to the two new setters after being helped along by Sydney Hilley last season. Even that took awhile to smooth because the 6-foot-9 Smrek has a higher contact point than any other hitter.

“She had a setter who really helped her out a lot last year and put her in good positions,” Sheffield said. “That’s not to take away anything from her talent, but there were certain scenarios where she was able to get the ball and she was able to deliver.

“Right now we have two different setters and she’s just a very different type of player to set to, than like Danielle (Hart) or CC (Caroline Crawford). It’s a totally different ball on their quicks. They’ve had some trouble out of the gate connecting.

“She was doing enough with her blocking, teams were having a tough enough time scoring on her that she was still able to be in the lineup. But we were giving up a lot of points on her swings.”

He attributed some of those problems to lingering injuries that cut short her work in the spring and limited her activity in the summer.

“I’m sure it’s frustrating for people to watch and you see somebody that big and you see glimpses,” Sheffield said. “But it’s a hard sport, and when you’re not able to practice and train, you’re not going to move forward. She just needed to get healthy and string some training together. She’s been able to do that now.”

When things are coming together for Smrek, that’s bad news for opposing defenders, as a couple of Michigan players learned when they were knocked on their keisters by cross-court Smrek smashes.

“She wasn’t hitting those shots earlier in the year,” Sheffield said. “She wasn’t hitting into that area of the court.”

The No. 5 Badgers (15-3, 9-1 Big Ten) certainly could use a peak performance from Smrek when they open the second half of the conference season Wednesday against No. 1 Nebraska (18-1, 10-0) at the UW Field House.

The Cornhuskers have tended to bring out the best in Smrek. She had something of a breakout match last season at Nebraska when she had 12 kills to lead a UW sweep— her only match with double-figure kills before the Final Four matches.

“At that point in the season is when I started to become more comfortable on the right side,” said Smrek, who had been a middle blocker until last season. “I found my connection with Syd and the flow of the game. I felt very comfortable and I was confident up in the front row when it came to my role with the team. I was mentally very calm. I knew what we studied for the game, so I just let everything go.”

Of course, that was just a warm up for her championship match performance, with 14 kills against the Cornhuskers, two days after putting down 20 kills against Louisville. She doesn’t try to pretend that there’s nothing special about playing against an elite program like Nebraska.

“Whenever we do play Nebraska we all just get so energized and hungry to compete,” she said. “We want to give our best on the floor, knowing they’re going to give us the exact same thing. We’re not just competing for that one game, we’re competing for that history behind us of Badgers and alumni that worked just as hard. I don’t know what it is, but everybody always is just so ready to go. The competition is always so strong, so I think it’s wanting to get after it. As Kelly always says, we just want to let it rip.”