Long Beach State Dominates UCLA to Win 4th NCAA Men's Volleyball Championship

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. We are popping into your feed a little bit
earlier than usual. Because we wanted to highlight
the NCAA Men's Championship that happened. So,
a little back -to -back action this week with
the PVF episode and then the NCAA Men's Championship
episode. That being said, there will not be an
episode this coming Monday. This is replacing
that. But we wanted to get it in, you know, while
the memories are still fresh. Okay? So... That
is what we are up to today. We are breaking down
the NCAA Men's Volleyball Championship that ended
on Monday. So buckle up because we are excited
to chat about it with you. Let's get started.
So before we get into the games, I have a couple
questions for you. We'll call it maybe a mini
game. I don't have a name for it. Oh, dear. Okay,
so give me your top three performances from an
individual player over all the rounds. You couldn't
prepare me for this? No, see, this is the fun
part. I never give Sarah any heads up, and I
just ask her questions and see what her answer
is. Okay, I'm going to say, you guys, I haven't
had time to think about this, so lay off me.
Okay, this is literally off the cuff. I'm going
to say Kondev in the final. Okay. I'm going to
say Cooper Robinson in UCLA semi. Okay. This
is tough, Adam. This is tough stuff. So far,
we have the same two. I have one other one in
mind. Who's your other one? I thought Cole Hartke
had an impressive weekend. I know his team didn't
necessarily go on, but I thought him as an individual,
his progression through the tournament, I thought
was really good. And I liked, given that he's
a freshman, how he came in, handled the pressure,
how he played down the stretch. I was impressed
by him. I think the thing that impressed me about
Cole Hartke is that he started real slow in that
quarter against Loyola Chicago. I didn't think
they were coming out of that match. He didn't
score a point. He was struggling. And he somehow
managed to flip a switch, find his rhythm, find
some confidence, and then carry that into the
semifinal against Long Beach, which... As a freshman,
to be able to dig yourself out of a hole like
that says a lot. So I did really appreciate that
about him. Best libero performance. Where are
you coming up with this stuff? These are like
the NCAA national like MVPs or awards. I think
we watched a lot of volleyball. I was just curious
if anything resonated with you or stuck out.
Honestly, I'll probably say Pepperdine's libero
impressed me the most in the tournament. Like,
obviously, like, the Long Beach Libero did his
job, blah, blah, blah. But, like, I don't think
he stood out particularly. He was who I was going
to pick. The Long Beach Libero? Fair. I mean,
I can't argue with that. They played well. He
played well as well. Yeah, I think that's tough.
That's a tough question. And then last one, top
middle performance. I'll probably give it to
Sean McQuiggan in UCLA's semifinal victory over
Hawaii. He is not the most offensive middle.
He's primarily there for blocking, but Rowan
was able to find him. He was able to score some
points, and his blocking in that match I thought
was outstanding. Yeah, I had the same in mind.
I thought he was really, really good. Okay. That
was just a little taster, okay? That was a warm
-up. To start and see what your highlights were,
what your takeaways were. What's your biggest
surprise of the weekend? My biggest surprise
of the weekend was that Hawaii got demolished
by UCLA. Yeah. You guys, I was so heartbroken.
Okay, let's break this down bit by bit here.
The quarterfinals, not a lot to talk about. Can
we just talk about the Loyola Pepperdine match
real quick? I guess. No, I'm just kidding. Well,
we talked about Cole Harkey, and he... I can't
say it any other way. He was atrocious in the
first set. And I thought they were going to lose
to Loyola Chicago because Loyola Chicago was
on point. They were playing really well. Really
well. It was... And I kind of had predicted that
they were going to win. I thought the ball control
might win out over that. And I was like, okay,
here we go. This is going to be where we are.
And Cole struggled. And I was like, it's his
first tournament. He's a freshman. It happens.
And Parker Van Buren played unbelievable in the
first set. I thought it was going to be a battle
of the right sides. And Van Buren was going to
win that battle. Oh, at the start, I was like,
I agree. Going into the match, I was like, this
is going to... Barnett has been carrying the
load and playing very well lately. And so I was
curious how they were going to match Barnett
up with Van Buren. But I was like, is Hartke
going to step up? Who's going to step up in more
of the secondary role? Is it going to be Hartke
or is it going to be Fabikovic? I think that's
how you say his name. And Hartke was leaving
a lot to be desired early. Well, I think Loyola
Chicago is kicking themselves on that one. Because
in my estimate, they gave that match away. They
should have won the second set. And then at that
point, you need one of three. They're having
nightmares about this match. And it's crazy because
Pepperdine only set two guys in that match. Cole
Harkey got 39 sets and hit 077. But that's not...
Really representative. Because he was hitting
negative 1 ,000. So he progressively got better
as the set went on, and I thought he did a really
good job. And then Ryan Barnett also played well,
37 sets, hit 297. And the next closest guy was
13. Like, they didn't have any rhythm. They looked
nervous. It wasn't good. But winning that second
set, and it was fun to watch. Loyal Chicago had
a set point. They sure did. So I thought that
game was interesting. I thought Loyola was going
to win. It flipped. Cole kind of found his rhythm
and took off from there. And then it was a beatdown.
And then it was a beatdown. And then they kind
of rolled. So that one wasn't the most interesting
quarterfinal to me, and I just wanted to highlight
that because I thought Cole Harkey, he kind of
came into his own this tournament, in my opinion.
Okay, semifinal number one, we had Long Beach
State against Pepperdine. Let's continue. The
Pepperdine train here. Sure. I thought that Long
Beach State, going in, I thought Long Beach State
was going to, you know. Roll? I thought four
sets max. I just, Pepperdine, they played well
in the NPSF tournament. They, you know, found
some really good rhythm against Loyola Chicago,
but I just didn't think they had enough pieces
to compete with Long Beach State. And I think
they surprised Long Beach State, kind of woke
them up a little bit after winning that first
set. It was much closer than I thought it was
going to be. And quite frankly, Pepperdine played
a great match. They should be very proud of themselves
for that performance. Yeah. The reality of it
is they're not quite there compared to those
other teams. But when you can go out and play
a good game of volleyball, they just got beat
by a better team. And I thought, You know, statistically,
other than blocking, that was kind of the biggest
factor. Long Beach had seven blocks to their
three. But if you look at their hitting numbers,
like on the match, they hit 421. Like if you
manage to do that in most games, you're going
to win. A lot of their star players, like Ryan
Barnett, 357. Ethan Watson, 15 sets, 600. Eli
Haver hit... 545, Cole Harkey hit 333. Like those
numbers are really good. If you took the score
away and looked at the game sheet, I'm not sure
you could distinguish who won on that one. So
I was impressed by that. No, but even watching
it, we were watching the match in real time being
like Pepperdine is playing really, really well.
Like they're laying it out there. Like they are
maximizing what they can do. They've shown up.
They're making a push. They're doing their job.
They just aren't quite at the level of Long Beach
State, which is why Long Beach won. They need
to be proud of that performance because I think
that they definitely just laid it out there and
have nothing to be ashamed of. I totally agree.
Their coach has to be happy with that performance.
And it was a really entertaining match to watch.
And I thought... I mean, I thought the Hawaii
-UCLA game was going to be the semifinal to watch,
but this one was thoroughly entertaining, and
they played very well. Very well. What did you
think of Long Beach State's performance? If I
had to sum it up, I would say they played well
enough to win. Like, they weren't bad. Nikolov
had that player of the year swagger. He's like,
I just collected several awards. Welcome to my
gym. He was just like... Strutting around the
court. He had a good weekend. I mean, as a team,
they hit .482. Their big players showed up. Like,
Kondev had a great weekend. He was probably tournament
MVP for me. And you would think, like, he stepped
up big time. And he is a solid player. But, like,
Skylar Varga you typically think of as being
the go -to left side for Long Beach State. But...
And, you know, teams were prepared for him. He
still found ways to score. He still did his job
from the service line, defensively, ball control,
whatever. Like, he played well, but I was very,
very impressed with how Kondav stepped up the
whole weekend. I think those were his best two
matches of volleyball that I've seen him play.
He was unbelievable. He hit 533 in that semi
on 30 balls. It's silly. And then when they were
finding their middle, which they don't set the
middle. But when they were finding the middle,
it was aggressively being scored. Nobody was
touching the ball. I think Nato Dickinson, you
know, after, you know, he's been playing a few
matches. Teams have some video on him now. Like,
he slowed down a little bit for me in this tournament.
He kind of, he's, Adam's laughing because he's
like, his numbers, he hit 880. I don't know what
his numbers were, but like he did, he wasn't
standing out to me like he did when he first,
I think I was just surprised when he first got
a starting spot and I was like, oh, this guy's
been on the bench. Yeah. I mean, he played well.
He had 33 sets. He hit 485. Wow. Forget everything
I say. But he's not, the thing I like about.
nato dickinson is that he's not flashy he jumps
really well he hits the ball well but you know
he doesn't make a ton of errors he only had three
errors he's relatively terminal like 33 swings
and 19 kills like he's just he's not flashy but
he's efficient no it's this is one of those cases
varga had 21 sets he hit 381 you guys these numbers
are outrageous i mean long beach came into this
tournament And they knew they were going to win
the quarterfinal, and then they were ready to
go, and they came out firing on all cylinders.
For all you people who wanted to, like, throw
hands about Long Beach State being ranked number
one, they won the tournament, fine. I will die
on the mountain that they did not deserve to
get the number one seed. I stick by it, okay?
Yeah, you got to win the matches that count and,
you know, whatever. It didn't really matter in
the end because they were just so good. Well,
we had like some defense happening too, shockingly.
That might actually be the surprise of the tournament.
This is the shocker, okay? All these hitters
are hitting like 400 plus, but there were some
digs. So 34 digs for Long Beach in this match,
31 for Pepperdine. Do you know who led Long Beach
in digs? And this is really impressive to me.
Was it Nikolov? Yes. Like, absolutely incredible.
So his stat line for this match was kind of silly.
He had 10 digs. He had one block assist. He had
five aces and five errors. And he hit .357 on
14 swings. He's just better than everybody else.
We got a question relating to this that we're
going to touch on later. I have some theories.
He passed 100 aces on the season in that match,
too. The next closest guy is not even in the
ballpark. No. It's wild. Absolutely wild. That
was a much more entertaining semifinal than I
expected. Agreed. I thought... I didn't think
Pepperdine was going to have the horses to keep
up with them. And in the end, they didn't. But
all of their players played well. Everybody had
a good match, and it made it entertaining. So,
I mean, it was great. Both semifinals were great.
Okay, semifinal number two, and probably the
shock of the tournament for me, was UCLA absolutely
dismantling Hawaii. My pick. To win it all. The
team that I was standing behind, obsessed with
all season, got absolutely shellacked by UCLA.
I don't know what happened to UCLA, but I have
not seen that much emotion from them collectively
as a team all season. And don't get me wrong,
UCLA has... the horses on the outside to be incredibly
good. And I would say for most of the season,
they were flatline. Like they didn't really look
like they were super engaged or cared about winning
that much. They were very up and down. Yeah,
very inconsistent, kind of laissez -faire on
the court, not a ton of fight or pushback. And
it just... You know, they're so skilled and talented.
They jump so well. They're big. They're physical.
But they're, I mean, I don't know how to say
it other than California cool. Yeah, yeah. And
they showed up ready to punch Hawaii in the face.
And they were incredible. Flawless. Absolutely
incredible. We were watching this one. I was
upset, obviously, because Hawaii was getting
dismantled. We were saying to each other in the
moment, when a team is playing like this, there's
nothing you can do. Hawaii would have needed
to play just as well. All of their players would
have needed to be on, and that so rarely happens.
I mean, they only set their pin hitters. I didn't
think Hawaii played at the level that they needed
to. Like, Nusser. looked out to lunch on the
block he looked so overwhelmed which yeah sure
ucla was in system the whole night and every
single guy was scoring so yeah nuster just he
looked oh in like he was in over his head eventually
gets taken out sakunoko same story what did you
think of that sub I think I was a little more
put off by it all because the sub is the coach's
son. And he had been like a serving sub the whole
season. Obviously, I didn't watch every match
Hawaii played, but the matches we did, he just
came in as a serving sub. But like Sakonoko,
I don't think he was given enough of a chance
to find his rhythm. He got taken out like so
fast. and then kept out for a really long period
of time. I think he needed to be given more of
a chance to work through his stuff. Unless he
was hurt, that sub happened too fast. Which we
don't know if he got injured or not. But that's
the only reason you don't let a guy like that
work into being your best player. But then even
Finn Carney, like... Finn Carney was just not
good enough. He has been doing a great job filling
in for Tetriski when Tetriski got injured. This
match, though, where were you, my man? He did
nothing for me. Like, Adrian Rohr was... And
Tread Rosenthal were the two bright spots for
me. But, like, everybody else seemed to be a
little step down from what we're used to seeing.
Well... There were two things that were glaring
to me. One, UCLA handled Hawaii serving. They
were in system all night and they run a pretty
quick offense and their hitters are big and they
jump well and physical. So here's, I mean, they
just went pin to pin to pin on Hawaii and they
didn't have an answer for them. So Kuba Robinson,
23 sets, hit 304. Zach Rama, 24 sets, 250. Sean
Kelly, 23 sets, 435. This kid is going to be
really good. He's going to be very good. And
then they only set Cameron Thorne five times.
That's it. He hit 1 ,000. And they set Sean McQuiggan
three times. So eight balls to the middle in
total. I do not think that these numbers tell
the story. Like watching the match, it was so
dominant. And it wasn't so much me feeling like
Hawaii sucks right now. It was like UCLA just
keeps coming. Their ability to run their pipe
over top of the middle was scary. I will say
the top three teams in the country, when they
run their pipe, they do it beautifully. Long
Beach, Hawaii, UCLA. UCLA was exploiting that.
So much in this match. Yeah, the Hawaii middles
just didn't know where to go. I mean, UCLA, all
of the pieces fell for them. They passed really
well, so they were in system. But the numbers
kind of suck compared to how much we're talking
them up. I mean, 435 is pretty good for Sean
Kelly. Yeah, but Cooper Robinson, I picked him
as my top three performances in the first part.
Yeah, I mean, three. I'm just saying, compared
to the stats from the previous semifinal, these
numbers are not nearly that. But they were dominant.
So they were in system the whole night. I thought
they applied better service pressure than I've
seen them apply all year. How many errors did
they make? 16 over three sets. I've seen them
miss that many in one set. Correct. And they
had six aces. But their blocking and defense
was so good. They had 11 blocks to Hawaii's four.
Well, that's UCLA's bread and butter. Yeah. Hit
the crap out of the serve. Feast or famine. Just
go for it to bring everything into your block.
But they outdug them 34 to 22. Like, the Hawaii
hitters just couldn't find a rhythm. Like, Finn
Kearney. 23 sets hit 087. That's just not going
to cut it. And Adrian Roarkley, you said he had
a good night, 24 sets, 333. But he was the only
guy who was giving them any kind of production.
My heart was so broken. I mean, Hawaii just needs
to always host the national championship. I like
UCLA too, but I was like, you want to see teams
playing at their best on that stage. You know
what I mean? UCLA played to their potential.
This was the best game of the season. It was
incredible to watch. They were so good. So good.
It was wild. So before we get in and talk about
the final, let me ask you this. So UCLA plays
the game of their year in the semifinal against
Hawaii. Do you think that Hawaii would have given
Long Beach a better game in the final than UCLA
did? Or did it not matter? I don't think it mattered.
Seeing how prepared Long Beach State was for
that match, I think regardless of who they were
going to face, they would have had that same
level of preparation. I just think that Long
Beach State, they were going to win this weekend,
given how they were playing. Yeah, they were.
They were on a mission. The final, I expected
it to be a lot closer than it was. Going into
that final, I thought it was going to be a knock
down, drag out battle. With UCLA passing that
well and all of their weapons firing, I was so
excited to see the showdown. And Long Beach just
asserted their will on that match. Yeah. I mean,
the match started with a nickel of ace and finished
with a nickel of kill. Yeah. The thing, okay,
watching the match, the commentators kept, which,
can I just, as an aside, let's just take a sharp
right here for a second. I saw one of our listeners
sent me this video of this girl who was sitting
there being like, why is it? That of all the
sports I watch, men's volleyball is the only
one where the commentators need to know absolutely
nothing about the sport. And I was like, amen.
Because in the quarters and semis, those commentators
did not know anything about the sport. And I'm
like, this one girl is so obsessed with the amount
of timeouts. Oh, it was. I wanted to pull my
hair out. They knew nothing. So all that to say.
Thank you so much, NCAA, for investing in some
commentators who actually are familiar with men's
volleyball or just the sport in general. They
did a really good job. They did a good job. Let's
circle back here. Okay, we're back. In the first
set, they were saying that Andrew Rowan was setting
the ball too low. I thought his back set was
way too high and slow in the first set. I didn't
think they utilized... Sean Kelly enough. They
needed to set him more. But I was like, am I
missing something here? Because I thought they
needed to speed up the back set. I think the
way that they were running the offense in front
of the setter was great. But I think the way
that they were running the back ball, it just
allowed Long Beach State to put a double or triple
block up on the right side early. Well, I think.
I think that comment came because there was one
or two balls that I think were a little inside,
and there was a little bit of a lack of rhythm
there, and then they kind of cued in on that
because Zach didn't look like he ever really
found his rhythm. I think the ball needed to
be a little further out for him and a little
flatter so that he could find hands. I thought
the tempo against Hawaii was really good, and
it was definitely different to the right side
against Long Beach. I mean, I think they found
their tempo and stuff in sets two and three.
But I was like, okay, I don't agree. But you
can just tell. Like, UCLA didn't pass poorly.
And Long Beach is a very strong serving team.
I don't think they passed poorly. But Long Beach
State just knew who was getting the ball in certain
situations, where the pass is, how the play is
developing. They knew. where andrew rowan wanted
to set the ball and they put on a blocking clinic
so again this is it's really interesting i thought
the same thing like i thought the stats don't
tell the whole story no stats don't they don't
they don't tell i i totally agree with you i
thought it was gonna be 16 blocks to four just
off how many how disciplined the long beach block
was and how many touches they got so it ended
up being nine and a half to eight for kill blocks.
But the thing about it was Long Beach got so
many touches and slowdowns, and their blockers
were always forcing their hitters into uncomfortable
situations. And for me, I thought that was the
story of the night, was just how often both Cooper
Robinson and Zach Rama were facing. solid blocks
and going back to your point sean kelly is in
the front row with cameron thorn i hate to say
it they needed they set thorn too much yeah they
needed to use kelly more because i think he was
their i watching he was their most effective
attacker and he was underutilized yeah he got
five sets in the hawaii match and sean kelly
no thorn and he got nine In this one, which it's
not a big difference, but they run that tempo
over top of the middle to the left side so well,
they needed to spread it a little bit more. What
were Kelly's numbers in this match? Kelly hit
zero. Oh, gosh. Forget everything I say. He had
12 sets, three kills, three errors. I said what
I said. I still think they needed to get him
going. They needed to use him more. But we actually,
I want to talk about Cameron Thorne because we
have gotten a question. We talked about this
question like a while ago in that is Cameron
Thorne an international caliber middle? And I
think this match kind of highlighted for me why
he's not. It's because internationally, the teams
are also very prepared. The blockers are very
smart. And you could see how the Long Beach State
block was able to dismantle him. The international
blocks are even better. And so you just saw the
struggle. And I just, yes, he jumps well. But
at the end of the day, international middles
are like 6 '10 plus. And he has to full commit
to block the middles. And then at that point.
No, but they were blocking him like crazy. Yeah,
true. It's just. This match highlighted to me
or put a magnifying glass on why I personally
don't think that he's an international middle.
I also thought that the UCLA defensive libero,
Aziz, struggled. Thank you for saying it because
I feel like I'm always the one calling out everybody.
I know there aren't a ton of digs in men's volleyball,
but when you get opportunities, you have to capitalize
them. there were at least four or five opportunities
where I thought not only could Aziz have made
a dig, but it should have been a controlled play
where you were able to turn points. And specifically
in the second set, I think there were two after
20, if I'm remembering correctly, where I was
like, oh man, that ball needed to come up. You
had a great serve. Your block was in place. Like
they hit around it. He was either slightly out
of position. Or they got a slowdown and he was
tentative. There was like either, I think one
of the free ball passes was over the net or,
you know, I honestly thought that was the difference
in the second set when you're battling it out,
trying to go one for one. Well, UCLA was up.
They had no, they were up like 12 -6 in the second.
They had no business losing that set. I did think,
however, and we've been critical of both UCLA
Liberos, but I thought Kirchie had a good tournament.
He did. He passed very well this tournament.
Yeah, and I might have thought about leaving
him in because I just did not think Aziz did.
He cost them a few points. Your Libero has to
be so confident, has to take control of the backcourt,
and it seemed like he was always looking to other
people to take the ball because even there was
this ball that, like, Rowan called for help and
he hesitated to set it. I'm like, dude, you're
the libero. You need to step in. Like, why are
you looking for your middle to set this ball?
I 100 % agree. I was really disappointed. Like,
yeah, if Long Beach State is coming at you and
is just like detonating balls, sure, that's one
thing. But when your block is getting a slowdown
or they funnel a ball to you, like very controlled,
you need to do something. I don't think that
that changes the outcome of the match necessarily,
but I think it makes it closer and you potentially
win that second set. Okay, let's talk about Long
Beach State. I actually thought that Nikolov
ran a really good offense in this match. I thought
he distributed the ball incredibly well. I thought
he got all of his hitters involved in the match.
I thought he was making good decisions. overloading
when he needed to, taking the ball when he needed
to. I thought his decision -making was good,
except for the one ball that he tried to absolutely
murder at the zero -foot line. Thinking that?
That was maybe not a good decision. And then
fell. He ran from the scorer's table, jumped
across the court, and then slid to the other
side. I'm like, okay. Not the best choice. That
was maybe his one bad decision of the game. But
it was just a really good... team effort. Like
if I look at the distribution, Kondev got 20
sets, Dickinson 12, Varga 11, Nikolov took 10
swings, Pruitt took 10 swings. It was - I thought
Pruitt came in and did a good job. Yeah. It was
just, it was a full team victory. Yeah. They,
they were on a mission. They were prepared. Their
athletes showed up like they - They were winning
that match. They were in control. Even though
they were down in the second set, they were in
control of that match the whole time. That's
how it felt watching the game. I think the best
team won. They 100 % outperformed everybody this
weekend. And yeah, they definitely deserve to
win. I just want to talk about, I loved Nikolov's
little interview at the end. A, giving a shout
out to his parents for, you know. instilling
that competitiveness and desire to win and then
like being asked you have one more national championship
than your brother he's like sucks to be my brother
like at the end of the day this kid is 18 years
old and also dropped an f -bomb which i thought
was funny and then he was so embarrassed but
i know that we can be critical things like that
but yeah i understand he's 18. But he is very
good. I'm curious to see, because on the broadcast
they were talking about how his brother kind
of questioned his decision to go pro because
he didn't, like, all of the men are, like, men
and have families and, you know, are not hanging
out. So it just kind of, like. I'm curious if
he will stick around after hearing about the
experience that his brother had, or if he's like,
you know what, forget it. I'm going to go make
some money. I bet he plays at least one more
year. I mean, I would like to see that. What
were your overall thoughts on the season? That
was the first, this is the first year I've paid
attention to NCAA men's volleyball, like pretty
religiously. You know, I think three of the top
four teams in the country were in the final four.
I think the only team that was missing, you know,
whether it be USC or UC Irvine, I think an argument
could be made for either one. Pepperdine did
what they needed to do to make it there. They
played well while they were there. It's not like
they were out of place by any means, but I think
when you look at the body of work that these
teams put together throughout the season, three
of the top four teams that were the most consistent
and most deserving, in my opinion, to be there
in the final four were there. Yeah, and I enjoyed
the volleyball for the most part. I think there
were some games where you had a ton of errors,
but the game has... There's blocking, there's
defense. It's not all just terminal and power.
I mean, that does happen, but there were some
great rallies. It was exciting. The game is evolving
for sure. Yeah, I definitely enjoyed it, and
I will definitely follow along again next year.
We did get one question about NCAA men's volleyball
that I wanted to touch on. I think this is perfect
for... this episode. So it says, why is it that
on the men's side players at this age level are
more developed overseas than in the U S and basically
referring to the like high amount of international
athletes that we see on the NCAA men's side,
a lot of Bulgarians, a lot of Israeli athletes,
French athletes. So this person is asking. These
foreign athletes seem to be more developed than
the American boys. Does it have to do with them
starting volleyball early or are there more club
opportunities or why do you see that? I think
there's two things. One is if you are good enough,
you play with the men from a younger age. So
they don't do. club sports in europe the same
way we do here in north america so here you know
you play with your age group you play with the
high school kids you know if you're really good
maybe you play up one age level so you're 16
playing with 17 year olds before you go to college
That's not how it works overseas. You have pro
clubs and they'll have an A team and a B team
and then maybe like a C youth team. And it doesn't
matter how old you are. If you have the skill
to play on the B team, you play on the B team.
You could be 14 and playing with 23 -year -olds.
Like when I played in Italy, we had... 16 year
olds that came to practice every single day.
They didn't dress for games, but they practiced
every day. They traveled with us. They learned
what it meant to be a pro. And now like, well,
how old was Gabby when you played with her? Gabby
was 18. She was in like her first couple of years
of pro when I played with her in Brazil. Yeah.
And you know, when you're around. professionals
from that young of an age and you're playing
with older people who are stronger they jump
higher you learn to adapt to be able to hang
and that's I don't think it necessarily is that
the coaching is better or that you know any of
that it's just you play against men more often
and you have to figure it out and I mean I totally
believe that's what it comes down to I agree
I think that that's the difference So we have
one kind of group of games for you guys to check
out this week if you're interested. The Men's
Champions League Final Four is happening. It
is being held in Poland. You can watch the matches.
It happens from Friday to Sunday on the CEV Eurovolley
website. They do a fantastic job. So if you want
to kind of wrap up, the men's professional season
check that out it should be really good before
we head into VNL and don't worry next episode
we are covering VNL rosters what to expect who
do we agree with the picks do we think people
were snubbed we're gonna focus primarily on the
U .S. We'll also add in Canada, but I think the
snub potential is much higher on the American
side. So we have already gotten a lot of questions
about the VNL rosters. So if you have something
you want to discuss, be sure to send in your
question. We are not going to do the episode,
like I said, this coming Monday, but next Monday.
So you've got like a week to think up some questions.
And so, yeah, that is what we are going to be
covering. next episode is all things VNL rosters.
But yeah, I can't believe the NCAA men's tournament
is over. I can't either. It seems like just yesterday
we were watching Penn State go 0 -8 and here
we are at the national championships. Well, I
mean, huge congrats to Long Beach State. Well
deserved. Their fourth national title. There's
a big tradition in the last decade and a bit
of winning two in a row. So is somebody going
to break that trend next year or is Long Beach
just going to take another one and make it two
in a row, continue the pattern? I think that
totally depends on who comes back for Long Beach.
We will find out. They definitely have potential,
though. They're not losing many players. But,
yeah. That was so much fun. I'm really glad.
It was a great weekend of volleyball. Oh, fantastic.
Sat on the couch and watched PVF, watched NCAA.
It was amazing. And again, huge congrats to Long
Beach State. The team that deserved to win definitely
did. And we'll see what happens next season.
That concludes this episode of Volley Talk. There's
always something shaking in the volleyball world,
and we hope you enjoyed this little fix. Be sure
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