Wild Week in NCAA Men's Volleyball, PVF Omaha Supernovas Make a Statement Against Orlando

Hi volleyball fans and welcome back to Volley
Talk, the podcast created for volleyball lovers
who want to dig deep into what is going on in
NCAA and international volleyball. I'm your host
Sarah Pavan. I'm an Olympian, beach volleyball
world champion, former Nebraska Cornhusker, and
longtime pro, both indoor and on the beach. And
I'm Adam Schultz, former indoor player, international
volleyball coach, and the show's resident stat
guy. I was naive this week, everybody. Here I
was. Thinking that things would be straightforward.
And then the NCAA men had to go and prove me
completely wrong. The men's side is having its
own NCAA basketball March Madness bracket where
you never know what's going to happen. I could
not have predicted things that happened this
week. So things were wild over there. And unfortunately
for some of these teams, these matches had massive
implications into... Their conference tournaments
that are happening in a few weeks. So there's
that. We are also coming up on the end of Love's
inaugural season. And the matchups for next weekend's
final are set. And PVF has also been seeing some
big moves as players return from their contracts
overseas. Players are being waived, etc. So we
have got a lot to cover for you today. So let's
get started. All right, everybody, buckle up
because this weekly highlights and happenings
is about to rock your world and it might be very
long. So grab yourself a snack while we dive
in here, okay? We do have some news from the
NCAA women's side. They can't stay away for long.
So Grace Lopez, the transfer from Miami to Wisconsin,
has torn her ACL. Not sure what that is going
to mean for Wisconsin. Well, that's normally
a six to eight month recovery, if I'm not mistaken.
At least, yeah. She'll be lucky if she's able
to get into form for the tournament next year.
Yeah, so Wisconsin's either going to have to
pull from their bench or pull from their bench.
I don't know. But that is a really unfortunate
circumstance. Hopefully she's okay, but it's
very interesting to think about what Wisconsin
is going to have to do to adjust here. The Italian
League semifinals are happening. So in that league,
the semifinals are a best -of -five match series.
So Novara is playing Conigliano on the women's
side. Novara actually snapped Conigliano's 40
-match win streak. So they are currently tied
1 -1 in their series. Match 3 is happening as
we're recording. A lot of the matches in Italy
are happening as we're recording today. So if
you want to watch, you'll have to wait for the
next one. Milano is up 2 -0 on Scandici, so that
series could end today. I thought that the Milano
-Scandici series was going to be closer and that
the Cornigliano series was going to be more of
a blowout. So that kind of flip -flopped from
what I was expecting. To be honest, I thought
both Cornigliano and Milano were going to win
3 -0. So I'm shocked that Novara pulled off that
win, but I think ultimately it will end up being
Cornigliano and Milano. But it's good to come
back to earth every now and then. Well, you never
want to be unbeaten because then you lose at
the wrong time. So losing one game in the series
is probably not a bad thing for them. On the
men's side, Trentino is playing Piacenza. They're
starting their series now. And Perugia is currently
up one match to none on Civitanova. Lots happening
over there. The Italian League is my favorite
league, so I just wanted to... Let you guys know
what was up. And it's easy to access and watch.
So that's another reason I bring it up. You can
find those games on Volleyball TV. So if you
don't have a subscription to that, there's lots
of good stuff there if you're a volleyball fanatic.
We're just peddling volleyball subscription services
left and right on this show. Well, you know what?
Sometimes it's really hard to find where you
can watch the games. And so just throwing it
out there. So if anybody's interested, go for
it. Are you ready for this? NCAA men's volleyball.
We'll start with a straightforward one. BYU handled
Stanford in both of their matches in Provo. They
won in three and four. I thought this was going
to be one of the more competitive matchups of
the week. I was very wrong. I was disappointed
in Stanford's performance. I was expecting them
to put up more of a fight. I thought this could
be a statement match for them. But they have
not been good in the last few weeks. And it was
disappointing, quite frankly. I think they're
second last in the MPSF. My initial read on them
as a team was they were going to make you beat
them. That just hasn't been their identity. in
conference play. They have made errors. They
have not looked cohesive. Their best players
have not risen to the occasion. They've been
disappointing this season, in my opinion. And
I think for me, every match that I watch of Stanford,
it keeps coming up how, well, Stanford was gonna...
they banned their program or they canceled their
program and so they never recruited in 2021,
blah, blah, blah. It's like, okay, well, it's
2025 now. I understand you might not have a group
of seniors, but you have some juniors on the
team. You have some guys that do have experience
and granted, yeah, you don't have a core senior
group, but you're not a team. That's just playing
freshmen. Do you know what I mean? Oh, I know
what you mean. But also a lot of the top teams
are also very young. It's not going to get any
easier over the next three or four years. And
we saw Stanford have good matches early in the
season. They just didn't continue to develop
or play at the same rate, in my opinion. And
I think that's one of the disappointing things,
that there was potential there. Ohio State came
up with two big wins this week over Ball State
and Lewis. So that was big because those teams
were all like decently close in the rankings.
And Ball State also lost to IPFW though. So great
week for Ohio State, not so hot for Ball State.
Friday was a wild day. Nothing that I thought
was going to happen happened. It was opposite
day and my world was absolutely rocked. So starting
off, CSUN beat Hawaii in three. UC San Diego
beat UC Irvine in three. And then GCU beat UCLA
in three. It was not great. So I think CSUN probably
listened to the podcast last week. That's what
I get, you guys. Not super favorable to them
having lost to, we'll call them lower ranked
teams in their conference play, but then coming
out and beating Hawaii. I've been like. criticizing
their ranking for the last month, and then they're
like, you know what? We've had enough. Okay,
so we actually watched this game, and it's not
going to be our feature matchup, but... Here's
the thing, though, is we went through so many
potential feature matches that we thought were
going to be feature matches, and they all ended
up being so bad that we're like, we can't talk
about this game. This was one of them. High level.
CSUN played almost perfect. Everything went their
way. All of the bounces went their way. Every
single player on their team had what seemed like
a career night. And the crazy thing was, Hawaii
didn't play that poorly. They weren't great.
Their left sides were not good enough. Their
left sides weren't good enough, fair enough.
And Tread, his setting was... Pretty inconsistent,
especially in transition. But it wasn't... But
other than that... I mean, those are fair points,
but you didn't watch the game and go, man, Hawaii's
awful tonight. Well, it reminded me a lot of
the UC Irvine -Long Beach State game that we
watched last week, where UC Irvine put together
a flawless performance, and Long Beach State
wasn't necessarily bad. They just weren't...
The things that worked for Long Beach State just
weren't working as well. And I think that this
was the case here. Yeah, it had a very similar
feel. And this is the one thing that is interesting,
in my opinion, about men's volleyball specifically
is the athletes are so physical. And I would
say in general, a little more inconsistent than
the college women's game. But when you catch
a team on a good night where. Three of the six
players are just on fire. Those teams are really
hard to beat, regardless of where they are in
the rankings, because you have such physical
athletes. Yeah, you don't see that in the women's
game nearly as much. And so, yeah, it was interesting.
And you expect the top teams to be able to come
out. But we saw, you know, Hawaii just couldn't.
get it going. You could see Trisky and Tread
trying to push and will their team, but they
just couldn't snap out of it. And whether that's
travel or CSUN at home or, you know, pick one
of any number of things, they are also young,
not a lot of adversity, and they just couldn't
get it done. CSUN is very athletic. They are
like an, I would say overall an undersized team.
They don't have any... huge guys I would say
like the tallest starter is like 6 '5 for them
probably they are incredibly athletic some of
those guys are jumping out of the gym wild so
there was one thing that I noticed about the
Hawaii block which I think was really tough for
them to find so Jaden Phillips who's their opposite
jumps out of the gym but he hangs and waits when
he hits so the timing on the block was a little
tough to kind of find against him and then they
had uh 6 -1 left side his name was joao who's
brazilian and he came up and he jumped pretty
well but his arm was so fast but he was small
so it was everything was compact and so having
to wait and delay on Phillips and then come in,
and their block was never finished or pressed
on João, it was, from a blocking standpoint,
I think really hard to find their timing. And
João was matched up against Tread, so a 6 -11,
6 -1 matchup. Should not have been in João's
favor, but he did a great job. Yeah, he did a
good job. And their middle, Shane Nem, I think
it is, also jumped out of the gym. Yeah. I got
the impression watching that CSUN was instructed
to absolutely hammer the crap out of their serves,
who cares what happens, and just be fearless
on the attack because they were just going for
everything, and everything happened to be going
their way. Even they'd get hit by the ball on
defense, and it would be a perfect dig. It was
actually crazy to watch. I'm like, I cannot comprehend
this, and it's probably so frustrating for Hawaii.
While Friday was a bit of a mind meld, Saturday
things settled back to what we expected. So Hawaii
came back and beat CSUN in three. UC Irvine came
back and beat UC San Diego in three. And UCLA
beat GCU in five. The question is, though, is
the damage already done? So I think we're going
to talk about some of that later. And finally,
Pepperdine and USC split their matches this week
with both teams winning in four. So because of
all the ups and downs with so many teams in both
big conferences, will this affect rankings? Maybe
not so much, but it could affect the final outcome.
Well, there's a couple things at play here, and
we'll talk about this a little later. As we said,
there's generally three really strong teams in
each conference. So winning your conference makes
it much easier to get to the final, which is
how you qualify for nationals. So there were
some opportunities blown in that. And then with
two at -large bids, based on your overall ranking,
there were chances for some of these top teams
to pull ahead, but almost all of them... to lower
-ranked teams. So I'm very curious to see where
the overall rankings land next week and which
losses were considered quote -unquote worse in
the voters' eyes. So Love wrapped up their inaugural
regular season this past week, and in our head
-to -head, we saw Atlanta beating Omaha 3 -0.
Not shocking. As we headed into the weekend with
Love, Madison beat Salt Lake in four. So that
puts them in third overall. Yes, and it gave
them a chance to finish second. Correct. Except
that Houston went on and won 3 -0 in their match.
So it's going to be Atlanta and then Houston
in the 1 -2 spots, meaning that they get the
bye. Salt Lake held on to fourth place by beating
Austin in five. So with Atlanta and Houston getting
the first round byes, we have Madison playing
against Omaha. I think Madison's going to win
that one. I think both of those teams are just
trending in opposite directions. And the winner
of that will take on Houston. And then we have
Salt Lake versus Austin. My money's on Salt Lake.
And the winner will then play Atlanta. But my
kind of prediction is that we're cruising for
a Houston -Atlanta final. All signs would point
to yes. We've got a lot of news in the PVF this
week. More than results. Yeah, so let's get started
with this, and you can throw in your opinions
when you have them. So Eric Sullivan recently
attended the Omaha Supernova match against the
Vegas Thrill. Who is he looking at? Because he's
not there for fun. Great question. What's your
instinct? I have been thinking about this so
much. I have no idea. I don't know who he would
be there watching. Do you think maybe Brooke?
I feel like she's undersized for what they're
trying to accomplish internationally. That may
be true. Maybe as like a DS or something. Well,
I'm thinking, yeah. There's the potential, given
the outsides that are coming down the pipeline,
that ball control is going to be an issue. They
are losing Jordan Larson. I don't... think she's
going to play into the next cycle. She'll probably
surprise all of us. That's why I said I don't
think, but you never know what she's going to
do. But you need a player to come in and stabilize
the pass. And she's capable of that, and she's
a pretty smart attacker. So the U .S.'s team's
kind of, let's call it a persona, has been pass
well, good ball control, run the middle, have
a fast offense. we are potentially seeing a transition
of style of play with them given some of their
player turnover. And how much can you afford
to lose that ball control? And so I think Brooke
may be, I don't want to call her a safety blanket,
but an option there if you need it. That's what
comes to my mind. She's definitely not going
to be a point scorer internationally. So I can
see her fulfilling a similar role to Kelsey Robinson
couple years maybe but when I look at Omaha as
a whole like yeah they're a good PVF team but
I don't see any of those players really playing
at the international level and then for Vegas
same thing outsides undersized with Charity Looper
she's not an international caliber athlete Cameron
Hanna hasn't been playing also not what they
need on the right side like I honestly have no
idea who he was there to watch unless Omaha was
playing at home in Love the same weekend. And
he's like, why don't I make a stop in? Yeah,
we'll see. I mean, you have to give him credit
for doing his due diligence and watching as much
as he can to find players. I mean, yeah, he has
to. But my instinct, and I don't know this for
sure because I didn't check the schedule, but
I feel like Omaha might have been at home for
Love. So there could be that. All right. There
has been a lot of movement throughout the league
in the last couple of weeks, so here are some
of the highlights that we haven't talked about
yet. Tori Dilfer -Stringer moved to the practice
squad in Columbus and announced a pregnancy.
Congratulations. So that's probably why she got
moved to the practice squad, then the injured
reserve list. That would make sense to me, at
least. That's a happy entry, quote -unquote.
Yeah. Devin Robinson was waived by San Diego.
And then picked up by Grand Rapids. So we're
starting to see some player movement, some roster
construction. Well, they haven't used her at
all. I'm pretty sure she has not stepped on the
court once for San Diego. San Diego signed former
SMU setter Celia Cullen. And I will say this
is one thing that I really enjoy about the PVF
because I love the management team construction.
how you can move players from practice squads.
So seeing all this move and how people look at
their teams, I find an interesting part of the
PVF. Orlando brought in Melanie Schaffmaster
to their active roster and waived Adora Anne,
who was picked up by Vegas. We're going to talk,
but do you want to talk about this now or we
did Orlando and Omaha as our feature match? Should
we leave it until then? I mean, we can leave
it till then. I am very curious about what happened
with Adora Anae because she, for half the season,
was killing it for them. Was their second highest
point score behind Abercrombie. She was doing
great and then just disappeared. And so I have
a lot of questions about what went on there,
but I don't know. Yeah, it would be interesting
to be a fly on the wall there. And I'm not sure
this helps Vegas. This is now just another. question
mark as who to play and I know that they're looking
for something and they are sliding in the wrong
direction but you somehow you would just have
to solidify a roster not add more volatility
into it in my opinion Vegas sent Lane Van Buskirk
and Grace Loberg to their practice squad so I
mean obviously they had to move some players
out when they brought in some new ones yeah but
Van Buskirk's a middle and she was starting like
on and off Like, they were kind of rotating through
three middles. Well, they've been rotating through
a whole roster. Well, Van Buskirk was starting
for, like, maybe half the match. Like, and she's
not even the same position. It's confusing. Grace
Loberg, I understand, replaced her with an A,
whatever. But, yeah. I'm curious if there are,
and I don't know this, rules around how many
players you can have on your roster. Like, if
it was a roster spot or why they would move her
down. I'm talking about Lane, but it's an interesting...
More roster shakeup in Vegas. And we have Grand
Rapids sent Erica Pritchard to their practice
squad, exchanging her for Eleanor Holtos. Erica
Pritchard was a starter for Grand Rapids. Do
you think we're seeing a tank mode here, going
for a draft pick or lottery? I mean, that's a
legitimate strategy at this point if you're not
going to make the playoffs. I just feel like
this is insanity. I understand teams trying to,
like, make a push and try to get in the top four
or the top four trying to stay in the top four
and this and that. Like, I get it. But, like,
these – and, like, this list is minute compared
to the number of changes that have happened.
And it just seems, like, overkill considering
how few matches are left in the season. Like,
how much are you paying these people? Like, what
about, you're introducing new players to a roster
that has been playing and practicing together
for months at this point. Like, there are bigger
implications than just, like, how do we pay this
person? It's like team dynamics, on -court dynamics,
like, so much stuff, and it just seems unnecessary
to me. Like, it's crazy. Well, it'll be interesting
to see in the future if these moves pay off in
a positive or negative way for these teams. Speaking
of salary, rumor has it that the PVS salary pool
is going up significantly. So currently one player
at $175 ,000, two at $120 ,000, and four at $75
,000, and the rest at $60 ,000 to $65 ,000. So
with those numbers, we're not entirely sure if
this is going to be a tiered structure moving
forward or just a general salary cap, but to
see the salaries going up is a positive thing
for the league and attracting more talent. Which
is also interesting because we came across some
numbers this week that highlighted the attendance
this season compared to last season. And aside
from Omaha that has seen a 15 to 16 % increase
in their attendance from season one, every other
team, their attendance has gone down significantly.
In particular, Orlando. And San Diego, whose
attendance has dropped close to 50 % from last
season. So I'm curious how these teams are making
it. Obviously, they always talk about how well
the PVF is doing. And again, am I positive that
this information I stumbled across is accurate?
No, I'm not sure about that. But based on the
data I saw, the attendance has just plummeted
everywhere except in Omaha. I'm scratching my
head here. It'll be interesting to see if they
actually release those numbers and what that
looks like. But again, these leagues generally
require a lot of investment up front to get it
going, so hopefully they can learn and get people
back in the seats. Finally, wrapping up the week,
a few more results. We saw Columbus take down
Indy 3 -1. We saw Omaha beat Orlando 3 -1, and
we'll talk about that game. And Grand Rapids
beat the struggling Vegas 3 -0. There's the clear
top four, bottom four. They have definitely separated
themselves at this point. Playoffs and tank teams.
And that's how the rest of the season is going
to go. Our first feature match of the week is
NCAA Men's Volleyball USC versus Pepperdine.
There was a lot of rough volleyball being played
on the men's side, but this match in particular
was a good one. Well, we stumbled onto this game
almost by accident. We thought the BYU -Stanford
game was going to be better, so we watched that.
It was not. And then this game was on afterwards,
so we just flipped to it, and it was thoroughly
entertaining. I had a ton of fun just as a fan
watching this match. It was pretty good volleyball.
I expected USC to just roll through Pepperdine.
Disclaimer, Dylan Klein, something's up with
him. He was not getting set. He wasn't spin serving.
I feel like he is injured in some capacity. So
do I think that that may be evened the playing
field? Quite possibly, yes. But regardless, it
was still a good match. I mean, you have to play
the team in front of you, and I thought that
was one of the better games that I've seen Pepperdine
play. They had a couple players who stood out
to me. I thought Ryan Barnett had a really good
game. He had 41 attempts and hit 341 on the night.
And just his overall game was really good. He
had two aces. He had a couple block assists,
eight digs. Overall, really solid performance
from him. And this is the first match. We're
talking about the Friday night match that USC
won. Pepperdine won the next night. But the one
we watched was Friday. Yeah. I thought the most
impressive player on the floor for me was Parker
Tomkinson. So if you're not familiar, he's a
seven -foot middle. Freshman. Freshman. And he
was unstoppable. He hit 579 on 19 swings. He
just looked like he was playing in his own league.
He was higher than everybody else. He was moving
well. He was a factor on the floor. Every time
he was out there, I thought he served really
well. The serve, the angle that that thing is
coming, it's like a float serve, but it's like
coming down at you so fast. And he had a bunch
of digs. He had a bunch of digs. It was awesome
to see. I was thoroughly entertained watching
him. Right away thought, this guy's going to
get looks for national team. Everything about
his game looked pretty polished, quite frankly.
And I thought that USC did a really good job
getting him the ball. In fact, overall, I was
really impressed with how USC ran the middle
of the court. in general. Both teams, I thought,
really pushed the middle, which was really good
to see. Pepperdine did it too. Yeah, it was a
good middle battle. I thought USC had the edge
in that regard. But yeah, he was a lot of fun
to watch. I was really impressed by him. He's
literally unstoppable. He had great vision of
what was in front of him. He was able to swing
both ways. Like you said, the serve picked up
balls on deep. Yeah, he was really solid. And
I love how Caleb Blanchett runs his offense.
Yeah, he was very good. And the interesting thing
is Pepperdine is also a big team. So while he
may be 7 foot, I think Cole Hartke is 6 '10".
Yeah, close to that. So, you know, we're not
talking about a 7 -footer against. 6 -5 guys.
Pepperdine is a big team, and they're a pretty
good blocking team, so he was still able to kind
of be in a league of his own, which was pretty
impressive. Well, we've seen Cole Hartke just
dominate. I think he's a freshman as well, so
he started on the bench for most of the season.
We saw him kind of make his breakout performance
against Grand Canyon. We were watching that game,
I don't know, like a month ago or whatever. And
he's had a starting spot since and has been dominant.
And he dominated set one against USC, but USC
found a way to really hone in their block defense,
in particular their blocking, and they caused
him a lot of trouble. Yeah, I like the adjustments
by USC on Hartke. Again, this is going to be
Pepperdine's recipe for success, in my opinion.
Ryan Barnett played really well. We already talked
about that. Cole Harkey hit 220 on 41 sets, so
he got a ton of balls. And he's going to have
to find a little more range to his attack when
teams kind of settle in to what normally works
for him. He likes to hit over the block to the
deep corner. And that's a great shot. And that
pretty much sums it up. And it's been successful
because he can go over most blocks. He hits so
high. But USC ended up lining up Tompkinson with
him as the match progressed. I don't think they
were lined up initially, but USC moved Tompkinson
to block him. And then once that happened, you're
not going over top of him. And that's when he
started to struggle. So he's going to have to
develop some more range and some more angles,
I think, if he wants to progress to the next
level. Overall, very good. Yeah, and again, as
a freshman, as somebody who's that big, that's
part of your development, and hopefully they
focus on that. But I think he's going to be a
really key player for them moving forward. As
we said, Dylan Klein was not getting set. Only
21 sets. And it was literally when they had no
other choice. Yeah. It was obvious, like, something's
up. You knew he wasn't getting the ball. Yeah,
they were forcing balls to Duker, who was steady,
but I think he really trailed off as the match
progressed, and they ended up taking him out.
Yeah, so, I mean, his numbers are okay, but again,
over four sets, you can kind of pad and minus
those stats. So he had 36 swings overall, and
he hit 278, which... Well, he was getting all
the balls that... Klein usually gets in addition
to his own. So, you know, like you said, he tailed
off towards the end of the match. I think he
started well. But I mean, as Pepperdine, if you
identify that one of the players on the team
is probably not going to get set, like that makes
your block defense so much easier when you can
take away one of those options. So I don't want
to say they were kind of playing shorthanded.
Once the team figures out you're not going to
set that guy. What did you think of the serving
battle? Who did you think put more pressure on
which team? I actually, watching the match, said
a couple times, like, this feels, like, very
even. I thought both teams served pretty well,
but I think Pepperdine put more on it. Am I completely
off? No, you're not. The serving stats were very
even. So Pepperdine had four aces and 14 errors.
And USC had five aces to 12 errors. So they had
a slight edge on that. I thought that USC, I
mean, both teams ran the middle pretty well.
So the ball control was decent. But I thought
USC had a little bit of edge on their serve and
pass. They were in system, it seemed, just a
little bit more. Maybe that's because the setter
for USC I thought was a little bit better, was
able to force the middle a little bit more. So
they kind of look in system that way, but I thought
there was an edge there. Where I did notice the
biggest difference in this was I thought USC
blocked better than Pepperdine did. They had
no solo blocks, which is somewhat of a misleading
stat because it generally means... you have two
blocks everywhere you go. So they had 23 kind
of team total block assists, which is impressive.
So like 11 and a half blocks. Yeah. Pepperdine
had one solo block and 15 block assists. 11 and
a half to 8 and a half. The difference to me,
though, was that USC's blocks... came at critical
times in the match, and they had several after
20 in multiple sets. And that to me is just high
volleyball IQ in terms of knowing where you're
going, being prepared, and kind of dialing in
to who's going to get the ball. And they got
Cole Hartke a few times in those situations late
in sets. Well, I mean, Ryan Barnett had a really,
really good match, but like George Dyer for me
is... so -so like he's undersized you're he's
not the guy that I want to be setting out of
system when everybody knows where the ball is
going so it makes sense that they are like forcing
balls to heartkey because for me George Dyer
just isn't it well he hit 095 on 21 attempts
like he's your p2 if you're relying on him to
score you're probably gonna be in trouble if
you're a whatever top 10 team but I think Ryan
Barnett as you were saying earlier like he stepped
up and he was better than I've seen him play
like granted we don't watch every match that
Pepperdine plays but of the ones we have seen
I feel like that was his best performance offensively
yeah I would agree on that and you had again
you had two threats at the pin and both of those
guys playing relatively well that's a recipe
for success for Pepperdine because they don't
run a super fast offense but you have to be able
to score from both pins Johnny Dykstra I am usually
a huge fan. I feel like he kind of struggled
a little bit this match. He was really having
trouble finding a defensive rhythm. Granted,
you're saying they were running the middle a
lot, but his passing wasn't as good as I'm used
to seeing. It's good to see that USC was still
able to manage when Dykstra wasn't at his best,
when Klein was almost unserviceable. And, yeah,
like, they managed to find a way. Well, and I
think that speaks to them as a team. I, you know,
they don't have any quote -unquote standouts
when you watch them as a team. Well, climbed
usually is. Fair. And the middle obviously played
really well, and he stands out because he's seven
feet tall. But they seem very well -rounded,
which I appreciate. You know, you have, let's
take Hawaii, for example. You know, you have...
Tread and Tatriski on kind of the right side
of the court. They stand out. Their left sides
are good, but they're not standouts. But you
have all of USC, like all of those guys seem
like they can score. And they've got threats
everywhere. And just the way they run their offense
is it's pretty balanced and engaged. And that
was, I think, super important for them. And I
think they're going to cause trouble at Nationals.
assuming they qualify just because they can run
the middle of the court and they have good options
all the way around outside like there's no there's
no undersized player there's nobody who can't
score on their roster I really like their team
construction well I'm excited for them because
they're young true like of the players like their
middle guy Guinness is a senior Jack Duker is
a senior but other than that like all of them
are coming back And all of them are underclassmen
except Klein. He's currently a junior. They are
going to be good, and they have a solid foundation
to get them through the next few seasons. And
I think that the way that they've structured
their roster is very balanced. And, yeah, they're
solid. Watching and getting into the men's NCAA
this season, I think it sets up to be really
exciting for the next couple of years. There
are some very good top -tier teams that have
a lot of young players. We're going to see some
great battles for the next few years, for sure.
Overall, I really like this game. I thought Pepperdine
stepped up and had one of their better games
that they've had, and obviously they won the
next night playing against USC. I like USC as
a team. I really hope that Klein gets healthy.
and they're ready to go in the next few weeks.
But this was a really good game, and I'm really
excited to see where USC goes for the rest of
the season. Our second feature match of the week
is on the PVF side, Omaha Supernovas versus the
Orlando Valkyries. There were not a lot of matches
to choose from this week, everybody. And given
how we haven't talked about PVF in a few weeks,
we definitely wanted to touch on them for sure.
Wouldn't have been shocked if this was a barn
burner or if this was a blowout. It was the latter.
Well, you got a little bit of everything. Kind
of. So, I mean, to start, it was a tale of two
cities. We had Orlando come out, tied 5 -5. in
the first set, back and forth, settling into
a great match. And all of a sudden, it was 19
-9 for Orlando. And Omaha just couldn't get it
together. They couldn't pass. They couldn't hit.
Nothing was going their way. It was wild. And
we had some crazy stats overall in the first
set. Omaha hit negative 0 -26 as a team. In the
first set. It was an absolute disaster. And meanwhile,
Orlando was all world in that set. I don't know
what I watched. You had Schwan hit 400. Abercrombie
hit 333. Brown hit 800. Foster hit 333. Everything
they touched was gold. And at the end of the
first set, you were watching it going, they're
going to roll them 3 -0. Well, I was just happy
because I was like, okay, Brittany Abercrombie
has refound her rhythm. She struggled for a stretch
there, and we were wondering how she was going
to do. And she's been climbing her way back.
But in that set one, I'm like, okay, here she
is. She's back. They were running the middle.
New setter in the lineup. Your favorite. He's
being sarcastic. Yeah. Brought Melanie Schaffmaster
back or in from her Greek contract she finished
up. Shampoo on the bench. And I will say, Schaffmaster
is not my style of setter. She's not my favorite.
But in set one, she looked great. One of the
things. that I thought Orlando needed to do was
run the middle more. They have two players who
I think can be effective there, and I'm guessing
the thought process was we bring in a bigger
setter, maybe we have a better connection with
our middle, and we can make that a priority.
And for the first set, she did a really good
job of that. Okay, I'm going to argue because
I don't know. Granted, I think most teams need
to run the middle more. We know this. I say it
all the time. I think the only thing that Shaftmaster
brings to the floor over Shampoo is her size.
Honestly, I think the only thing that she potentially
could do better is block. I'm not going to necessarily
argue with you, but you have somebody who's bigger.
I mean, Shaftmaster in her last year for her
NCAA -wise was rough, but that team she played
for... She's still that first team, all big 10.
Okay, I can't dive into this because I'm going
to go crazy, but... There is potential there
for her to be a good player in the PVF. And so
I'm okay with them exploring that and seeing
what happens. It's a good waiver wire pickup.
And it really worked for them in the first set.
She played well in the first set. And then we
kind of saw her revert to what we saw consistently
during the NCAA season. Yes. And my question
in set one was... Did you guys, Omaha, did you
not watch NCAA season? Rule number one, just
tip the ball to Shaftmaster and you're going
to get a point. Like, hello? Yeah. So Omaha came
out and made a few changes to begin the second
set. So they had, they did a double sub at the
end of the first set and then kept Pedroza in.
And I thought she set a good game for them moving
forward. And they also brought in Batenhorst.
to play left side while she stayed in for the
remainder of the game and did a pretty good job.
So that was the switch that they made. And then
they proceeded to kick the snot out of Orlando
in the second set. They went up 7 -2, they never
looked back, and it was 25 -17 at the end of
that set. So we kind of had blowouts back and
forth. Well, I think the rest of the match was
a blowout. Set three, the final score was way
closer than it should have been because what
did Omaha give up? Like six set points in a row
or something. Six set points, yeah. So it ended
up so much closer than it actually was. So one
of the things that I noticed, and I'm curious
if they can fix this, and we were talking about
the setting for Orlando. I thought the setting
for both sides was questionable, to be honest.
I was not loving. Pedraza's offense either. I
thought she ran the middle well. She got Kayla
Caffey going. She even got Horde going. Caffey
was almost unstoppable. So the thing I did like
about Pedraza was how she was running the middle,
but I did not love her location to the pins or
to the back row at all. And then Schaffmaster,
all of her sets were trailing off the net. And
she stopped setting the middle. Yeah, it was
interesting. Watching Shaftmaster, she, when
the ball gets tight to the net, her pin sets
flare off. I think she's most effective when
the passes are in between the net and the attack
line and maybe a little closer to the attack
line. High enough that she can get her feet there.
That's how Minnesota was passing all season.
Well, but those were the best trajectory balls
for her that were going onto the net for the
outside hitter. So she needs to find a way. to
do one of two things. She either needs to be
able to run the middle when the passes are a
little closer to the attack line, which she doesn't
do super well. She ran the middle well when the
passes were tight, or when the passes are tightened
on the net, she needs to keep those sets to the
outside from flaring off the net, and she wasn't
really able to run both positions off both types
of passes very well. I also don't think she blocked
particularly well. It was... you know from a
defense and block standpoint you put her in there
to block and she was kind of a liability in my
opinion from there chef master only had one block
in the match and omaha ran a bunch of balls out
to the pin against her and i thought that that
was going to be the part of the game that she
was going to be more effective at and the reason
they would bring her in over porn pun I did think
that Nora Sisk came in for Orlando and did a
good job. Agreed. I'm kind of curious why she
doesn't play more often. Me too. Me too. I mean,
they're winning, so it's hard to criticize how
they run their roster. Are they winning, though?
They were, like, up at the top, and they've taken
a dive. Like, they're holding on to fourth place
at this point. Like, they had Adora Anae. Then
something went down with that. Vander Weider
came in, has been playing since. with Schwan.
Vanderwyde had a really tough time against Omaha,
so they brought Norris Siss in. I want to say,
was it set two or did they wait to set three?
I think it was set three. But she came in and
she did really well. Well, so here's my take
on that. Both Schwan and Vanderwyde have smaller
hitting windows. And when that ball gets off
the net and they lose their vision, it's really
hard for them to score because they're not in
the air as long as some of the other outside
hitters. Yeah, they're not playing that high
above the net. Nora Siss, however, is a little
bit bigger, a little bit more physical. She's
in the air a little longer, and I think that
we're going to see her connect with Melanie better
than those other two outsides. And so this might
be part of their transition if they're going
to play Melanie kind of from now until the end
of the playoffs. And I thought she played well.
I thought she passed well. She hit .412, like
did a really good job. I was impressed. So in
my opinion, I think she's going to earn a starting
spot in their next game. For Omaha, they, as
we said, started off just on a different planet,
and then things started rolling, and they were
virtually unstoppable. I think the fact that
they ran their middle so much more than we have
seen definitely contributed to that. So they
had 24 total sets to the middle between both
players with Caffey hitting 286 and Horde hitting
300. Okay, so not as good as I thought. I thought
Caffey was unstoppable. Shows what I know. Well,
she was 5 for 14 with one error. Okay, so not
good. But she got set more. Well, and that's
all you have to do, right, to run the middle.
You had your outside hitters played decent, really.
Like, numbers -wise, Baten Horse hit 190. Payne
hit 147. How the heck did they crush this game
then? Brooke hit 304. That's still not astronomical.
She got 46 sets and they... What did Abercrombie
hit? Abercrombie hit 234. Well, and the thing
you have to remember is that all of these numbers
are slightly skewed. What were the serving numbers
like? Serving wise, we had six errors for Omaha
and five aces. And for Orlando, we had 14 errors
and four aces. So they missed a ton of serves.
Again, this is the part where stats can be a
little deceiving, right? Orlando's numbers are
inflated because they were all world in the first
set, and Omaha's numbers are brought down by
how bad they were in the first set. So if you
were to cut those off and look at them, like,
again, you have two kind of different matches
from set one and then through from two to four.
But let's be honest. Brooke Nunneville runs that
team. She finds ways to score. She passes. She
plays defense. And she's playing very well right
now. Lastly, and I think it's worth mentioning,
I thought Lydia Grote came in and did a really
good job for Orlando. She did. They were struggling.
They couldn't find anything. And she came in.
She had some big kills. She hit .267 coming off
the bench, having not played. Got 15 sets. I
thought she gave them a spark. I thought she
came in and she pushed for that third set. They
had fought off six set points, and I thought
they were going to leave her in and maybe have
some momentum going into the fourth set, but
that didn't happen. Omaha just kind of rolled
them again. But I thought she did a good job
coming off the bench, and I'm curious if we're
going to see a Nora Siss, Lydia Grote kind of
emergence over the next little while. With Abercrombie,
absolutely not. Orlando is like, we don't care
how you play. You're staying in forever. So I
think Lydia Grote, maybe not. But I would like
to see Nora Siss play more because I think she
does a good job for them when she comes in. Do
you think either Abercrombie or Grote could pass?
No. That's my instinct. Maybe Lydia Grote can.
I don't know. But my instinct is no. That would
be an interesting trio of outside hitters to
see what happens there. But, yeah, I mean, Omaha
keeps winning. They're more consistent than the
other PDF teams. That's kind of what I'm getting.
They've got, when things go wrong, they do have
people who can come in and do a good job. Like,
their roster is deep enough that they're not
reliant on their starting six. Yeah, and this
was a prime example of that. Pedroza came in
and she was able to get it done. Allie Batenhorst
came off the bench, did a good job. They have
serviceable players, but more importantly, they
know when to use them. Because I think there
are other rosters that have serviceable players,
but they don't necessarily have either the confidence
or the cohesiveness to come off and kind of slide
into that team. I think overall this was an interesting
game just because this might be a playoff matchup.
This might be the 1 -4 if things hold true. And
if you're Orlando, how do you feel about this?
Do you take away that first set win and go, okay,
we have something here. We can play with them.
Or do you go, man, we just don't. We can't fight
with this team for a full match. I sure hope
that's not their attitude. I mean, maybe not
publicly, but looking at it, what is your takeaway?
Well, they had a great start to the season. They
beat them both matches early. And then I think
given some roster changes, some players taking
dips in performance, that's an issue. But I think
they need to set their middle more. They need
to get more production from their left sides.
And then we might see a closer match. Well, we'll
keep our eye on this one because this is potentially
the semi. going into the end of the season. So
we'll see if some of the new players for Orlando
can gel. All right, so it's time for our weekly
game. And I couldn't pass up the fact that we
had so many upsets, specifically in the NCAA
men's world this week. So for our game today,
we're going to rank the upsets in terms of the
most detrimental to the seasons of the teams
that lost, okay? So we have a bunch here, and
I've included one PVF because there was a relatively
large upset in the PVF this week. But I'm going
to list the upsets. I'm going to pick five that,
and there were a few more that happened, but
five that I think are kind of the most or the
biggest. And you tell me, and maybe we'll start
with the least disruptive to the season. Okay.
And we'll go from there, okay? Hopefully I can
keep track of them all. Yeah, and I can give
you a heads up if you can. So the first one is
the Indy Ignite from the PVF, who were ranked
third, lost to the Columbus Fury in four, and
Columbus is eight. Okay. Okay? So that's the
first one. The second one is we had Ohio State,
who's ranked 18th, beat Ball State, who's ranked
15th. So not a huge upset. But I think given
where we were in the standings in the season,
that would be considered an upset. CSUN, who
is 9, beating Hawaii 3 -0. Grand Canyon at 13,
beating UCLA at 2 -3 -0. We're actually going
to do 6. Oh, great. UC San Diego. who's ranked
10, beating UC Irvine, who's ranked 4, 3 -0.
And the last one is Pepperdine, who is 8, beating
USC, who is 3 and 4. Now one other game of note,
which we're not going to add into this, but Ohio
State also upset Lewis 3 -1, and Lewis was 14,
Ohio State was 18. So quick recap, we have the
Indy Ignite game, we have Ohio State versus Ball
State. Hawaii losing to CSUN, Grand Canyon beating
UCLA, UC Irvine losing to UC San Diego, and Pepperdine
beating USC. Which of those is the least detrimental
to the season or least surprising? I'm going
to say the Indy Ignite game. Okay. I think the
top four in the PVF have separated themselves
so much. And Indy was able to maintain their
third position anyway. So I think Indy's not
going to lose their playoff spot or get close
to losing their playoff spot because of that.
Okay, fair. So we'll set that at six. Five, I'm
probably going to put USC Pepperdine. Ooh, interesting.
Okay, because you have to think about how the
rest of the stuff plays out. UCLA was two, USC
was three. They were at the top of the NPSF,
obviously. UCLA had a worse loss. So if these
teams are battling for first in the NPSF and
their opponent's loss is worse than theirs, as
far as a ranking perspective and a perception
perspective for potential votes for the ranking
and stuff. USC losing to a higher -ranked opponent.
They're still going to be top two in the NPSF
regardless and probably number one because, yeah.
I don't think it affects them that much. Four,
I'm going to say UCLA Grand Canyon. Similar situation.
They are battling with USC for the top spot in
the NPSF. It might drop them in the AVCA rankings,
but it's not going to drop them too far in the
MPSF rankings. So basically you're asking yourself,
if you're number one, you're probably going to
play like a BYU. And if you're number two, you're
probably going to play a Pepperdine. If you're
going to win the MPSF tournament. either one
of those matches as a semifinal is not, it should
not be super threatening to either of those teams
if their aspirations are to win an NCAA championship.
So while it's unfortunate that they lost to Grand
Canyon, I don't think it's as detrimental as
some of the others. Okay. Three, I'm going to
say Ohio State, Ball State. I thought that one
was going to be lower on the list. Well, here's
the thing is like the MIVA is kind of messy right
now. Because you saw McKendree lose a couple
matches last week. So then Loyola Chicago gets
bumped up. Ohio State's been kind of like drifting
around like the five spot. Any match that you
can win against those, like that higher ranked
group. So we've got McKendree, Loyola Chicago,
Lewis, Ball State, Ohio State. Like that group
of five is like, they're going back and forth
every week. And there's no consistency of who
is beating who. So the fact that Ohio State can
snag that win is, I think, huge because things
are pretty close in that conference. Well, and
not only that one, but they snagged two against
Lewis. Exactly, but it wasn't in the... But I'm
saying your logic there makes a ton of sense.
Two, I'm going to say UC Irvine, UC San Diego.
So UC Irvine's currently in second last in the
Big West. I'm not 100 % sure how they structure
their tournament. I'm assuming the top two get
a bye. If that is the case and UC Irvine stays,
here's the thing. UC Irvine had to play Long
Beach and Hawaii early. So after that, the expectation
is that you need to win the rest of your matches
to finish. Third, at least. At the minimum, finished
third. Plus, winning that match over Long Beach
State was huge because it put them in contention
to potentially fight for second, depending on
what else happened in the league. But instead,
losing a match that they, by all intents and
purposes, should have won, potentially gives
them a Long Beach State semifinal matchup. In
the Big West tournament, which that should not
happen. Like it should be a tooth. They should
be in the two three matchup. So I think that
was a huge miss by them. Which leaves us with
CSUN and Hawaii. This was such a major screw
up by Hawaii. I can't even talk about this enough.
Because Long Beach State lost a match to UC Irvine.
If Hawaii had managed to have a clean Big West
season and steal one match at home from Long
Beach State, they would go into the MPSF tournament
ranked number one. Which is huge. Which is huge.
Plus they're playing at home. So even bigger.
This was in their hands. They just had to take
care of the matches that they needed to take
care of. And this was one of them against CSUN.
So now, even if they beat Long Beach State in
a match, it's probably not going to be enough.
So this was a massive, massive mess up by them.
So there you have it. Upsets by Sarah. CSUN Hawaii
taking the top and the PDF upset being at the
bottom. But it was a very interesting week in
NCAA men's volleyball, and I'm so curious to
see how the last few weeks shape up leading into
the conference tournaments. It's that time, everybody.
Listener questions. We've got some tricky ones
today, so hopefully we're capable of answering
them. But our first question is, will Myles Partain
play for UCLA this season? I think that's a great
question. He's coming back from an injury. So
we will see how that works. I think he's probably
going to get cleared and be able to play. I didn't
think it was injury related at all. It's injury
related. I thought he had to get cleared by the
NCAA because he was playing as a professional.
So I believe it's twofold on the beach side.
I think my understanding was that the NCAA compliance
was going to be resolved and he was waiting for
clearance from the doctor. To be able to play.
So both things. Correct. And I believe that if
he was cleared by the NCAA, he would have to
pay back a lot of his AVP earnings. I don't know
what the stipulations around him coming back
were. I'm pretty sure that is part of it. Like
if you earn money as a professional, he has to
pay back some of his money in order to be cleared.
So I thought he was waiting for that. I didn't
know about the injury part. But... I mean, they
could use a libero. Rumor has it that they were
putting him on the roster to take the libero
spot. Because I would say that has been a weakness
for them. They're at the bottom of the MPSF in
digs per set. Their passing libero gets targeted
a lot. So even though he was an outstanding setter
for UCLA when he played there the first time.
So the word is that if he does get cleared by
the NCAA and the doctor, it will be in the libero
role. But time is running out. So I feel like
he might as well just wait at this point. Well,
I think he's doing a master's program, if I'm
not mistaken. So I'm not sure he's going to be
around next year. What is it, a one -year program?
I think so. Again, don't quote me on that. We'll
see. Dang. Part of me is like, okay, if you're
going to go back and do your second year of your
grad program, just like hold off and save it
for next season. Like you've got a couple of
weeks left of the season. Yeah. And that'll be
the decision, right? If he's only here for one
more semester, then you might as well hop on
and see if you can help your team to a national
championship. But if not, then maybe we'll see
him next year. All right. So somebody asked,
do you know where the love athletes are playing
next year in terms of different clubs? There
is one that we are sure of. And then we did some
digging. We found some names of people who are
leaving love, but we don't know where they're
going yet. So the one we know for sure, Chiaka
Okbalgu, is leaving Austin to go play for Vakafbank
in Turkey. Huge loss for Austin. Huge loss for
love. But potentially an opportunity for Aja
O 'Neill to step in, who has been sitting on
the bench the whole season. We already know what
we think about some of the roster decisions that
Love has made. The other players that have been
rumored to leave are Drevniok, the opposite for
Omaha. Janari, outside hitter for... Austin.
Raphael Foley, the middle for Houston. Those
are the ones that we know for sure. Oh, Marta
Beckis, who she was supposed to be a setter for
Atlanta, but she was injured. Don't know if she
ever recovered. That's why Rachel Fairbanks initially
came in. And then it's being tossed around that
perhaps the players that didn't sign two -year
contracts are going to leave. Are we sure about
that? We don't know because on some of the broadcasts,
they're talking about how they're signing amazing
new players. So maybe the players that only signed
a one -year deal are out. So those players that
were late signings are Jennifer Janiska for Madison,
Bia, who stepped in into the middle role due
to injury for Madison. Rachel Fairbanks, as we
said, she stepped in when Marta Bekis was injured.
Vicky Savard, who plays for Omaha. And Nwokolo.
So those are the players that are being tossed
around. Chiaka's the only one that we know has
officially signed anywhere. We've been looking.
Well, it's still really early for contracts to
go out. You're seeing the top athletes having
decided because the... The clubs want to know
where the majority of their budgets are going.
So you've seen some movement from the very high
-paid players. The Love athletes are not that.
Chiaka signed early because she's a hot commodity
in the middle market. But the other players from
Love are not filling that super high -salary
role anywhere. We probably won't see them sign
until May, June. I'm thinking May. Yeah. They
will probably sign. And I'm guessing that we're
going to get some announcements soon after the
finals from Love in terms of who they're targeting.
I bet they've already signed a couple players
that they wanted to. But it's not surprising
to see a lot of athletes from Omaha and Austin
going elsewhere. Those were not great seasons.
No. Love is probably looking at those teams like,
okay, how do we make these rosters more competitive?
And interestingly, we're seeing a lot of the
Italians go back. Once you're used to a certain
level and standard, it's probably hard to switch
it up. And those women have been playing in the
A1 Italian League for a long time. Well, and
it's something new, right? You go, you try it,
you see what the opportunity is. They would have
known a bunch of the American players that played
and away you go. Part two of that question was,
do you think the players that choose to stay
with love will ultimately hurt themselves for
upcoming Olympics or VNL tournaments? Oh, it's
a really interesting question. It depends on
where else they can get contracts. So if you
are in the mix for the U .S. national team and
you have a chance to play in A1 Italy, in Turkey,
on a Champions League team for Germany or France,
like one of those teams that is competing against
the best athletes in the world, then... Yes,
you always want to be training and playing against
the highest competition possible. So I think
you'll see, like Obagu, for example, that's a
good move for her on a personal level. She needs
to keep that level. Yeah, and so I think that
this probably would affect five or six players
who could really benefit from going and moving
up the ranks. even from an experience standpoint
of traveling somewhere other than the U .S. to
play and understanding how other countries do
things, how other teams operate. All of those
are valuable experiences when you're looking
at the international game. So I think it applies
to a select few athletes. And, you know, it was
Love's first year. We saw what we saw, and we've
talked about that at length. It'll be interesting
to see what other athletes they're able to attract.
Well, and Chiaka's still in the prime of her
career. True. She is one of the few national
team athletes that we have seen in the recent
quads who decided to play for love while still
in the prime of their career. So I found the
decision by her to even go to love to be very
interesting. You know, the Kelsey Cooks, the
Jordan Larsons, some of the setters, even you
could argue Haley Washington to an extent, like
they are kind of past it. So yeah, I could understand
that. But Chiaka, like she's still in her prime.
She still has like a quad or at least left in
her, if not more. She needs to be playing against
that high level. And I think if the young grads
want a chance. and have aspirations to play national
team like Merzik, like Skinner, like Franklin,
for example, they need to leave too. Well, I'm
curious if it's going to be one of them goes
and then they all go, right? So if one of them
sees, like if Merzik decides, and this is, I'm
just using this as an example, decides to go
overseas and gets a good contract, are the others
going to look and go, hey, does that put her
ahead of me on the depth chart? So it'll be interesting
to see in the next one or two years what decisions
are made. This is a very challenging question.
It's a great question. And I don't know if I
have an answer. But if you were king and queen
of the NCAA Volleyball Committee, how would you
fix the problems that the portal and NIL money
have created, especially for the mid -major conferences?
The NCAA created a monster, and it's going to
be real tough for them to reel it back in. I
think what they did with NIL was a good idea
in theory, but the way that it has gotten out
of control, it'll be so hard for these young
athletes to have existed in that reality and
then have it taken away or pulled back. But I
agree that it only benefits. the really big schools
and conferences, which it's like the rich get
richer, the poor get poorer. I actually think
the portal is more detrimental than the NIL money.
I think... Well, we know how we feel about the
portal. Well, but okay, if we're looking at it
from a parity standpoint, like the colleges make
a ton of money. They benefit off the athletes
and the athletes are getting... Their education
paid for, I understand that. But the sports grow
and the TV contracts and whatever else, I don't
have any problem with those athletes making some
money while they go to school. It is what it
is. The ability to just switch schools and to
poach athletes from other schools and just mix
up the rosters year over year, I think that's
where it's really tough for coaches to develop.
culture and to hold athletes and so if you're
a mid -major and you know you have an athlete
who comes in and you know that you're going to
have that athlete for maybe two years for sure
or they have to sit out a year before they go
somewhere else I think you have the ability to
hang on to those athletes a little bit more and
to put some effort into developing those I think
and again How you police this, I'm not sure.
If you're in a bad situation or you need to change,
you should have the ability to do that. You shouldn't
be stuck in a bad situation. But the ability
to just move every year to a different school
with no consequences, it makes it really tough.
But I would argue for some of the top schools,
like NIL does tie into the portal. Because you
can't tell me that Tori Stafford left for...
Because she was in a bad situation or whatever.
She left because the NIL allowed her to get paid
a lot of money to leave. Yeah, so those are the
situations that I think handling in the portal
would make, would go away and leave athletes
where they are. So you want to go make half a
million wherever you want to go, you have to
sit out a year. Well, that's how it used to be.
Like if you transferred back in the day, if you
transferred within your conference. you had to
sit out a year. Yeah. I mean, the top four conferences
are kind of doing whatever they want. Yeah. I
don't know. Again, I think... But how... It's
hard to police it. Like, how do you differentiate
between the NIL situation, just like, I'm going
to pay you to transfer and leave your school
to come to mine, versus... I'm a local business
that really supports the athletic department
and wants to give back to the athletes. How can
you tell the difference? No, you can't. And that's
why the solution I'm proposing is not perfect
anyway. But I'm saying if you could understand
the situation, if you were omniscient and looking
at the motivation for moving, I think monitoring
how athletes change once they get to university
could... help keep some of those mid -major conferences
holding onto their athletes and not just losing
them to big paydays. I feel like there needs
to be a limit as well. Like a salary cap. Like
a salary, like an athlete cannot make more than
X. And I think it needs to be like somewhat modest
to be able to bring the mid -majors back into
the conversation because like The mid -majors
aren't going to pay millions of dollars to athletes
the way that the major conferences do. Because
at the end of the day, like, you are supposed
to be a student athlete. If you want to be a
professional athlete, don't go to college. Like,
that's why I think that it needs to be a modest
amount to potentially help offset costs for schools
who maybe don't have the budget to fully fund
a program or XYZ, you know? Because the top schools,
they are getting fully funded. They have a full
ride. They're getting an education. But if they're
given a modest budget for sponsorship on the
side, that helps supplement what they're doing.
The mid -majors, they could probably afford something
like that. And it would help keep students there.
I just don't like how they've completely gotten
away from the essence of what it means to be
a student athlete. It's just not. Our last question
of the week is, of the players reaching the end
of a stagnant point in their international indoor
careers or the girls fresh out of college, do
you see any of them with skill sets that could
transition well in the beach? And would any actually
make the switch? Oh, you're putting me on the
spot here. Well, we've talked about her already.
I think the first one that comes to mind is I
actually think Brooke Nonoviller would be a pretty
good beach player. She's got a complete skill
set, yeah. It's just crazy. So many players that
I think would be good beach players aren't. Like,
I look at a player and I'm like, yeah, you have
the tools. But for whatever reason, I've seen
it so often, the transition just doesn't work.
I think you need a very specific coach. to help
you transition from indoor to the beach so that
you can highlight the differences and what you
need to change and be very focused on taking
what you're good at that is applicable to the
beach game and kind of working through some of
the technical changes that way. I think if you
had to figure it out on your own, it takes much
longer and it's much more difficult. The coach
definitely is crucial. to helping translate the
difference. But, okay, if we're just looking
at skill set, okay, Brooke Nunneville, I think
Anna DeBeer has a decent skill set to make the
transition. I think Jordan Larson would have
been a good option. She's not going to switch
now. I think a couple of the setters. I think
Kelsey Cook could have been. Lauren Carlini jumps
to mind for me. Yeah, she's good defensively.
Her all -around game is pretty good. It is actually
really hard to think about this. I don't know.
I mean, you don't see anybody doing this, but
I think Fairbanks, she's a relatively physical
setter. I don't know how she would attack, but
I like her overall game as well. I don't see
her running around defensively, though. Yeah,
fair. Potentially Charity Looper, maybe. Yeah.
The transition to beach is so nuanced and so
strange that this is actually a really hard question.
Do I see any of those players that we named making
the switch? No. Yeah. I don't. Well, I mean,
you're going to make way more money playing indoor,
like even playing PDF and not going overseas
than you would making money on the beach currently.
I feel like it takes a very specific type of
person to even pursue international beach volleyball.
I feel like so many, especially on the American
side, they either have a tie to California already
or they have a history in the sport. You don't
just see indoor players be like, yeah, let's
do this. Most of the ones, especially on the
American side, that have made... that have played
both are based in California. So it's like an
easy, comfortable situation because they're already
in California. International indoor players who
move to the beach generally do so because their
national team isn't very good. Yeah, they're
looking for a reason to, a way to get to the
Olympics. You saw that with Maggie Kozuk with
Germany, Louisa Lippmann with Germany. You saw
Helena Havelkova. for a second, from the Czech
Republic. Netherlands. Oh, Manon Fleer. The teams
or the women whose national team hasn't made
an Olympics and they don't see themselves having
the opportunity, those are the ones that you
see go to the beach. Which is how I ended up
there. Great question. These were tough questions
this week. When I was looking at the ones I picked,
I was like, what was I thinking? Because these
are so hard. But keep them coming. We love a
good debate. All right. Looking forward to this
week, we have a few things you should pay attention
to. So one, back to the Italian League semifinals.
So match four between Navarra and Canigliano
will be Wednesday at 2 .30 p .m. Eastern. And
that's again on Volleyball TV. And the men's
second matches are happening on Sunday on Volleyball
TV. So tune into those if you can. The Love Finals
are happening Thursday, Friday, and Sunday in
Louisville. The finals are Sunday at 3 p .m.
Eastern on ESPN2 and ESPN+. The first round matches
start early on Thursday at 3 .30 p .m. Eastern,
and the semifinals are on Friday starting at
5 .30 p .m. Eastern. So that will be the season
wrapping up. Those games will be worthwhile.
I'm sure we'll see some intensity and a lot of
good action there, so tune into those. In the
NCAA men's action, Loyola Chicago plays Lewis
on Thursday at 8 p .m. Eastern. That's on ESPN+.
And that is that whole mishmash conference of
teams fighting for playoff spots. So those will
all be entertaining games. UCLA plays BYU on
Friday at 9 p .m. Eastern and Saturday at 7 p
.m. Eastern. Those are both on Big Ten+. And
the match we've all been waiting for. Long Beach
State plays Hawaii Friday and Saturday. Again,
they're super late at night if you're on the
East Coast. 1 a .m. on ESPN+. But it'll be there
the next day if you want to give it a watch.
We'll watch the replay. I hope it's worth it.
All the games that I've thought have been worth
it, I've been wrong. And all the ones that I
thought would be straightforward have not been.
But I've been excited for this one. Yeah, I'm
looking forward to it. And Hawaii's going to
have a fire, hopefully, given what happened this
week with them. And finally, in the PVF, Grand
Rapids play Orlando at 7 p .m. Eastern on Thursday.
That's on Roku. And they also play Indy at 7
p .m. on Saturday, and that's on the PVF YouTube
channel. That concludes this week's episode of
Volley Talk. There's always something shaking
in the volleyball world, and we hope you enjoyed
this little fix. Be sure to follow the show so
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