Tabron Bringing Experience, Consistency To Top 10 Mustangs
Nov 22 | Volleyball
As the SMU volleyball team was making the move to the ACC, it brought in some power conference veterans to help with the transition, including Maya Tabron.
All Tabron has done this season is lead the No. 10 Mustangs in digs and sits second on the team in kills. She has also brought consistency and composure along with her.
"The mark of a great player, I think, is good players are good," SMU head coach Sam Erger said. "They've got the skills, but great players make people around them better. Maya is someone that, when she's having a bad game, you have to go look at the stats to figure that out because she's not going to give it away on her face. She's not going to give it away with the way that she's giving to her teammates. She's going to be engaged."
There were plenty of unknowns coming into this season. SMU was changing conferences and brought in four graduate transfers to round out the roster. Tabron was one of them and, along with Nnedi Okammor, brought power conference experience with her.
Tabron spent four seasons at Colorado, earning All-Pac 12 Honorable Mention recognition twice. She came to SMU knowing it was a veteran team with a lot of quality players, the unknown was how well they could come together and play on the court.
"It was really the hesitation of us being able to come together and actually execute together," Tabron said. "I think that we've actually exceeded that. I still do think that there are some things that we can grow on, and that does come with the fact that we are all so new this season, but I think that we have really pushed each other. We're really competitive in practices, we've had a lot of fun, and I see us growing even more, especially in the postseason tournament. But honestly, my expectations have definitely been met."
Much of that has been through the play of Tabron. She came to the Mustangs with 1,083 kills under her belt, including three seasons of at least 300 kills. She is just 10 kills from reaching that mark once again this season.
But as impressive as her offense is, that's not her only ability on the court.
"You don't necessarily have to set her if she's not being offensive," Erger said. "It's not, 'Hey, let's go find someone else that can be offensive,' because Maya's going to go block well, she's going to go pass and defend and serve. I thought Maya came up in Set 2 with some amazing serves and she did that against North Carolina too, in the red zone. Maya was just ice in her veins clutch serving."
In fact, this season Tabron recorded her 1,000th career dig. She joined Jamison Wheeler who hit both 1,000 kills and 1,000 digs this season, Celia Cullen who reached the 4,000-assist mark and Naya Shime who had her 1,000th career kill this season, too.
As much fun as it has been to reach those milestones, what matters more is that they have come in big wins and in big matches against other big programs.
"Milestones are fun and it's fun, obviously, for the individual side of it because yes, individual stats do matter," Tabron said. "However, I think just the accomplishments of this team this season have really overridden that. Just the fact that we all know that we are achieving things individually, but then we're able to come together as a team to compete in the NCAA at the top level. So, as fun as the individual has been, the team aspect of it has been what we're striving for."
It didn't take long for the Mustangs to prove to themselves that this season could be a special one. In just the third match of the season, SMU didn't just beat No. 2 and reigning national runner-up Nebraska, it swept the Huskers.
That was the first of six wins against ranked opponents this season, with another three against teams receiving votes. SMU earned its first-ever Top 25 ranking this season, moving all the way up to No. 10.
"Coming home to Nebraska and those first couple games, I think that really set the tone for us," Tabron said. "And not only set the tone in games, but in practices. I just think that that belief, as individualistic as it can be, it can also just be like a whole team environment. The fact that the coaches from Day 1 were saying that, we really caught on quickly and just built that up throughout the season."
Now the Mustangs hit the road for their final trip of the regular season, three matches at North Carolina State, Wake Forest and a rematch with Florida State. They then return home for the finale against NC State on Nov. 30.
They hope there will be more home matches after that, but the focus is on the task at hand.
"We're focusing on this big road trip that we have ahead," Tabron said. "... We're really just going to have to focus, that every ACC match is going to be a competitive one and everybody can get that win when once you start the game. So I think we've just got to take it one game, honestly even one set, one point at a time in order to finish all the way through strong."
