A lot of coaches have short-sighted mentalities. They only want to focus on the game ahead of them, take the result and make changes. They don’t want to think about next week’s opponent or their game plan for big matchups throughout the season. They want to win the game ahead of them and focus on the rest later.

Not Matt Ulmer.

The head coach of the UO volleyball team doesn’t talk about winning at all. During practice, they talk about the process and the things that they need to do.

“If we do that, wins will take care of themselves,” Ulmer said.

It’s always the big picture mindset with Ulmer. There’s no tunnel vision. The team is always thinking about where they need to be at the end of the season so they can achieve their goal — a Pac-12 and National Championship.

As the head coach of one of the top teams in one of the hardest volleyball conferences in the nation, you can take each game, no matter the result, and learn from it.
“This conference does a really good job of showing you what you need to work on,” Ulmer said after beating California in three straight sets at home.

Oregon volleyball turns the entire season into a ladder. After each game, they find takeaways and work on it. Those improvements show in the following matches, and then they switch their focus onto something else. Each step of the ladder is one step closer to the top. While perfection is impossible, it takes that type of mindset to perform well in December when all eyes are on you.

“If you show up everyday in practice, you’re going to show up everyday in games,” Ulmer said.

The Washington home weekend was a perfect example.

In the 3-1 win against the Huskies, Oregon lacked competitive energy. The Ducks lacked their typical spirit that shows on the court. Even though it was another game added to the win column, the style of play was not shown. That same style of play makes them hard to beat.

Two days later in their first home loss against Washington State, that energy came back. Each team battled for every point. Yes, the stat sheet speaks differently, especially when the Cougars opened the match with a 10-0 run, but Ulmer was happier with the performance in the loss than he was with the win.

“We were doing everything we needed to do, we just didn’t execute correctly,” Ulmer said. “As a coach, I was much more pleased with Sunday’s [Washington State] loss than I was with Friday’s [Washington] win.”
It was the same thing in the sweep against Cal during Homecoming weekend. On the scoreboard, the game was a lot closer than it felt because the only time the Golden Bears would score is when the Ducks made mistakes.

During that match, the Ducks had 11 service errors, one of their worst performances behind the line this season. But Ulmer was happy with it. He loved the aggressiveness and the confidence behind the swings.

“We’ve been playing too cautious and too safe,” Ulmer said. “With the way we’ve been serving, teams are able to get in a rhythm. I feel like we missed the most serves in the first set and that was also the set where we held them to a 0.000 hitting percentage. They couldn’t establish a good offense because we didn’t give them an opportunity to.”

Since playing Marquette on Sept. 17, Ulmer has felt like they haven’t had a strong offense. While they were high in errors against Cal, he felt like his aggressive team is starting to show at the right time and that’s the type of mindset that will take them far in the tournament.

It’s that type of unique coaching mindset that makes Ulmer stand out. His players love him and it shows. Ulmer has brought in top recruiting and transfer classes the past few years and once they settle in Eugene, the results are clear.
Under Ulmer, the Ducks have qualified for the NCAA tournament every year except for 2019. For the first time in over 10 years, Oregon made it all the way to the Regional Final last season and continues to see top rankings nationally. For a program that had players who were verbally abused and placed in an environment of fear before Ulmer took over, the change has been positive.
Change can be scary, but the focus on growth over immediate results has created a new standard of Oregon volleyball.