The Viral Volley Podcast

The Collegiate Beach Volleyball season just surpassed the midway point and we're seeing shifts from 2-5 without a lot of big changes in the rest of the AVCA top 20. A lot of the top teams were idle in week 5, but the ones that weren't saw solid action at the Big West Challenge in San Luis Obispo, CA and East Meets West in Austin,TX. Although teams may have split their duals this last weekend, without a doubt the teams are developing in a beneficial way as we move closer to conference tournaments. The athlete panel chats about then No. 10 Texas' upset of then-No. 2 LMU, and the quality of each their flights. In addition, we discuss the dynamism of Cal Poly and how interchangeable their entire lineup is. From there we discuss the top teams we've seen this last weekend and even drop the names of top performers!

🚨 EPISODE DROP 🚨 College Volleyball Weekly Men's Top 20, Week 12 Recap, 3/24/25 This week our coaching panel (except Brad) were really "salty," so we start off on a grumpy note. Week 12 saw MANY 5-set battles-- particularly involving many MIVA teams honing their skills and talents to mount a surge as they continue MIVA conference play. With that we saw Theo's Matadors ride into Chicago splitting their top-20 matches with Dan's Flyers and Shane's Ramblers. As expected, we tangent away from volleyball and into Chicago Cuisine-- and the tangent only got worse. We jump into our discussions about top 20 teams in NOVA/DC, Long Beach St. and what we could be seeing as teams are gearing up for the remainder of conference play. As always, the guys pick their Players of the Week, and share what they'll be watching in Week 13. For the "Hot Mic" moment Brad starts us off on a light note, then the "salty guys" take over! Thanks for listening/watching! #ncaamvb #ncaavolleyball #ncaamvolleyball

SHE'S BACK! Kelly Belardi of No. 7 Stanford rejoins CVW Beach for a very detailed analysis of the top 20 this week. From looking at the duals and invitationals there was nothing but hot action no matter where you were watching from! From there we discuss some of the top performers last week and in 2025 so far. We end the episode discussing what duals we'll be watching for this weekend (or for Kelly, how she's going to enjoy life after her Finals are done)! #NCAABEACH

This show is dedicated to Cindy Luis, pioneering Hawaiian journalist and passionate writer/follower/fan of volleyball who passed unexpectedly this last weekend. If you would like to send notes to her son, Tiff Wells, who is a UH Broadcaster, please feel free to email Rob at [email protected]. Rob will forward Tiff's contact info to you. Week 11 of the NCAA Men's Volleyball season did not disappoint! Upsets happened, athletes rose to the occasion and teams tightened up races and rattled the At-Large discussion in their battles across the nation! Also, the Outrigger Invitational went OFF in Manoa, Hawaii this last weekend and it did not disappoint! The CVW Coaching Panel discusses the results that caught their eyes and pick their Players/Personalities of the Week, pick their players of the week, share what they're watching in Week 12 and drop a couple "Hot Mic" topics. Thanks for listening! #ncaamvb

The CVW BEACH T20 crew discusses the action at the TCU Invitational and MPSF Rumble with a few other big tournaments thrown in. Along with the results (with some upsets), they pick out their top athletes/teams during the week 3 action. On this episode Kylie & Sydney pick topics to discuss: internationals in Beach VB and the NCAA Collegiate Beach Championship format! #NCAABEACH #NCAAVOLLEYBALL #NCAABEACHVB

This week, it was confirmed that there were no upsets to be had in D1-2 play, but some pretty significant statements about teams who are heating up during conference play. CSUN Head Coach Theo Edwards starts off with Rob discussing some of the top matches of the week, while Jay Hosack of George Mason drops in HOT, with Dan Friend of Lewis just minutes later. The guys make it in time to pick their "Ballers of the Week." From there we talk about the top matches to look for in Week 11 and the popular "Hot Mic" segment. We close out the episode finishing up the leftover fan questions from Episode 258 that we did not get to! Thanks for listening! Be sure to spread the word and follow your favorite teams, programs and resources in D1-2 Men's Volleyball!

This week our athlete panel of Kylie Wickley (Texas) and Sydney Miller (Hawaii) with Rob discuss what was a week with only a couple upsets, but interesting movement in the AVCA Top 20. The panel discusses eye-catching results, top teams/pairs/athletes during the week! New this week, Cal's French Net Force Marilu Pally joins in her own segment, "Marilu's MPSF Memo" discussing the climate of the MPSF as one of the top conferences in the nation (since there is no longer a Pac-12)!

It's a "Coaches' Takeover" at College Volleyball Weekly as we recap most of the action of Week 9 in Division 1-2 Men's Volleyball. No. 4 Hawaii flexed their muscle all-around on then No, 2 UCI-- and made a STRONG case as to why they should be in the discussion for the post-season. In Week 9, the Battle for Chicago and Battle for Jersey all occurred to name a few. From there, they guys pick their players of the week and matches to watch in Week 10. As promised, we run into our "Fan Questions" segment of the show-- one that can always go long. Tap in to see what was asked! We'll most likely cover the remainder in a later episode! Thanks for listening and watching!

After one week of play the action did not disappoint! Kylie and Sydney give an update of what their teams (Texas & Hawaii) did this last weekend competitively. From there we get into the nitty-gritty! Taking center stage was the Outrigger/Duke Kahanamoku Tournament that featured nothing but top 12 teams-- which brewed a handful of upsets! We then take a peak at other eye-catching results, top teams and top pairs for the week. As always, we pick a few tourneys and/or duals you fans may want to pay attention to in Week 2!

Week 8 of the NCAA Men’s D1-2 season brought about the emergence of the Bearcats of McKendree, the rejuvenated Bruins, and streaking Matadors! In addition to the teams that are grabbing the headlines, there is MIVA madness as the teams tussle in the first half of conference play. Then there is the EIVA– where teams are flipping the script on historic powerhouses while others are waiting to see how teams find their rhythm. From there the guys pick their “Ballers of the Week” and matches to look out for in Week 9. The HOT MIC moment brought a great amount of discussion topics– that we ran out of time for. For the next episode, the panel wanted to entertain questions from Volleytalk and/or through Social Media! Send your thoughts/questions via DM if you want to drop a few! Tap on the link in the profile for podcast and/or YouTube video, or type one of the URLs below! Thanks for listening in and/or viewing!

And the 2025 NCAA Collegiate Beach season less than a few days away and the chatter and buzz are running HOT! College Volleyball Weekly Beach Top 20 brings some of the top athletes in the game to "talk shop" on their "Sandy Colleagues" across beach courts throughout the nation! One returner is back-- Kylie Wickley of Texas, whos program is starting out in the top 15, and newcomer Sydney Miller of No. 12 Hawaii. The CVWBT20 crew discuss the Preseason AVCA Poll, and touch on the TruVolley Poll. From there Kylie, Syd and Rob discuss the top 15-ish players on rosters to start 2025, along with some top athletes to watch. As always, we end on "Whatcha Watching" in Week 1!

Week 7 has been one of the most intense weeks of the the 2025 season with 8 upsets and boatload of 5-setters. With those results we witnessed some teams levelling up while others stumbled. With that, the CVW panel discusses some of the top 20 results, teams and performers of Week 7! The panel picks some matches to watch out for in Week 8 and only Jay decides to drop a "Hot Mic" thought! Thanks for viewing/listening to College Volleyball Weekly!

As the season gears up in the next few days Rob chats with some of the players to watch during the 2025 season. Sydney Miller of Hawaii chats about her beginnings in volleyball through her decision to play Collegiate Beach at Hawaii. We then discuss her first two seasons with Chandler Cowell and Anna Maidment through her two seasons so far. Sydney An All-Big West honoree and 2024 AVCA Top Flight recipient Sydney is looking to help the Sand Bows get to another post-season appearance! Be sure to watch until the end for an announcement regarding College Volleyball Weekly, Beach Top 20!

The CVW Coaches' Panel recaps the play from Week 6 of the NCAA Men's Volleyball season that included SIX upsets, the start of some conferences' play and a lot of GREAT ACTION. The guys pick their players of the week as well as p Week 7 matches to be on the lookout for! Our shortage of time had us do a "shorter" "Hot Mic" segment, but we still "kinda" jump into the ESPN+ vs. B1G+ discussion. I'm sure there will be more in upcoming weeks! As always, thanks for listening and watching!

Only the 2nd Commissioner ever to lead the MPSF, Foti Mellis joins CVW to discuss the status of the MPSF Conference in Men’s Volleyball. Episode 248 & 249 brought multiple questions from the Coaches’ panel and listeners/viewers regarding the competition format of MPSF conference play, the addition of DII teams in the conference and the utilization of the B1G for promotion, marketing, broadcast and streaming of Men’s Volleyball. Foti addresses each of these in detail in this episode of CVW!

In 2025 a new Collegiate Beach conference takes the sand-- and it's the MPSF. With 4-Peat Champions USC (6-time winner), 2-time winner UCLA, along with Cal, Stanford, Oregon, and GCU we're talking about a GAUNTLET of a conference! Foti shares how the MPSF Beach Conference formed, its upcoming 1st-ever MPSF Beach Championship, the potential of adding more hardware and news that broke just hours before the posting of this episode! The addition of 4 more POWERHOUSE teams in the MPSF for 2026!

Week 5 of the NCAA Men's D1-2 season was a DOOZY! Great matchups in abundance and phenomenal battles occurred across different platforms and live in-arenas! This week we recap the 5 remaining undefeated teams and discuss where the top 20 teams are at as far as 2025 competition so far. Conference play is beginning in the Conference Carolinas, MIVA, and EIVA so the heat will be turned up! As always, our CVW panel selects their eye-catching performers of the week, pick their "Whatcha Watchin'" matches in Week 6. Of course we close out with our "Hot Mic" Moment!

Second Men's Volleyball Episode in 3 days! It was a great opportunity to catch up with USC Head Coach Jeff Nygaard whose No. 6 USC Trojans are off to a fantastic start in 2025! The Men of Troy stand at 6-0 and have "bought in" to the team philosophy and mission! Jeff shares about the Trojan's start and why they've clicked. As the Trojans await their first match in the Big 10 Challenge in Columbus, OH, Jeff talks about the remaining non-conference schedule and what we could expect to see in the MPSF. From there, we chat about USC's and other MPSF teams' partnership with the Big 10 Conference and Network and how that could encourage growth in men's game. Additionally, we talk about the format for MPSF competition between the D1 and D2 teams and why the schedule worked out the way that it has for 2025.

To kick of the 2025 NCAA Beach season Rob brings in one of the top athletes in the last 7 seasons in Collegiate Beach Volleyball, Lindsey Sparks of Cal Poly. Lindsey has garnered Regional and State Championships indoor, but has also been an outstanding Beach player wherever and whomever she competes with! From committing indoors, decommitting, then committing on the beach fulltime we discuss where her collegiate career has taken her. From the lows of battling an eating disorder to the highs of a National Championship at UCLA, then suffering a career-threatening injury, then finding physical and emotional healing with a PT who helped bring her body back to compete again. In a new role and school as the team “Grandma,” Lindsey is looking forward to what 2025 has in store—along with her freshman sister, Dani, who is also on the Todd Rogers coached Cal Poly Beach team!

Four weeks in and there are 6 remaining teams with unblemished records in D1-2 competition! The CVW Coaches' panel discusses what is making these teams successful early on in 2025. Prior to that discussion they discuss teams without conferences and why certain MPSF teams are not playing against other teams within their own conference. From there, we go through our normal discussion of the week's results, players of the week and matches to watch in Week 5. Taking a risk on a new segment-- "The Hot Mic Moment" where our coaching panel sounds off on whatever they want to. We'll see how that goes-- all on this week's CVW Men's Top 20!

NOTE: For some reason this episode was "doubled-up" in length. Need to contact tech support. Will upload a "singled" episode in a few hours, and will keep this one up. Sorry for the inconvenience. The CVW Coaches' Panel dives into Week 3 with another FULL week of Men's D1-2 Volleyball news from the Hawaiian Islands to ATX to the East Coast. We are in full effect! Many great non-conference matches on tap with teams rising up early-- like the Cougars of BYU, while others are holding their own like Long Beach St.. While in the MIVA we are seeing a very competitive climate as they grind through early play with certain teams taking down top teams in ATX. With that, we go into our normal recap, banter, players of the week and Week 4 matchups to watch! Somehow, we also dabble in the amount of foreign players on rosters-- which was totally impromptu and could be an entire episode of it's own!

In this "Big West Takeover" Episode the Big West Panel discusses the devastation and tragic results of the recent fires that plagued the Pacific Palisades, Eaton and Hurst communities in Southern California. 150,000+ people, with many in our volleyball community have been directly effected by total property loss and irreparable damage. As promised, here is a starting point for resources. I will update as needed: https://lafd.org/news/palisades-fire-0 As we headed into the 2nd week of the young NCAA D1-2 Men's Volleyball season there were 65+ matches to track with great battles and results to discuss. It's hard to say, "There were upsets" especially when the season is only 2 weeks old so let's just say it was an exciting week of competition, first wins for programs and A LOT of matches! As always, the guys pick there top performers of the week and reveal matches they'll be keeping an eye on in Week 3! Note: Hoping for a Part II of Week 2 with Dan & Jay later!

The CVW crew is back for 2025 and are ready to ROCK for the NCAA Men’s Volleyball season! This week we discuss all the transitions and changes throughout USA Volleyball and Collegiate Men’s Volleyball— for which there were A LOT (you have to listen to find out)! We’ll touch on format of the NCAA Championship and its new format with the NEC now receiving the 7th automatic berth. From there we go into the opening weekend of competition discussing the Top 20 teams in action across the nation with a good portion of matches occurring against our Canadian neighbors to the north. As always, we’ll discuss top performers and matches to watch out for in what will be a very HEAVY week of matches in Week 2! #NCAAMVB

Izzy Starck, freshman setter of Penn St. has had a remarkable rookie campaign in 2024. Izzy and her Nittany Lions went through a gamut of emotions to start off the season but found their inspiration in their mission: "Bigger than us." In it they were inspired by Coach Katie Schumacher-Cawley's perseverance in "the fight," and the legacy of the Penn St. Women's Volleyball program. In this special Christmas/New Year's episode we chat about the regular season, the journey to the NCAA title match, the numerous individual recognitions she received as freshman, having her big sister alongside her on the team, the remarkable in-house crowd and viewership, ALL of the history that was made from the NCAA Championship, and other tidbits along the way!

Special guests Mark Pavlik of Penn St. and John Hawks of UCLA jump on this special, pre-2025 season episode as we gear up for the 2025 NCAA Men's Volleyball season after a historic, record-breaking 2024 NCAA Women's Volleyball Championship. In this episode we'll discuss various topics and potential impacts of the women's championship and how it could potentially benefit all aspects of volleyball-- including encouraging youth, high school competition and growth of NCAA Men's Indoor Volleyball. From there we discuss all the movement on the men's side from the USAV level and through all the conferences.

In only the 3rd time in program history the UCLA Men’s Volleyball team named their Head Coach—and they didn’t have to go far from the Bruin family. On October 9th, 2024, the former Loyola Head Coach and former UCLA Assistant Coach under John Speraw, John Hawks steps into the role to continue the Bruin Men’s Volleyball legacy. In his first interview since the announcement last week John sat down with Rob to chat about going through the news of Speraw’s new position at USAV, what that meant for UCLA, the interview/hiring process, and having to say “Goodbye” to the excellent team Hawks assembled n Chicago. In the episode, John talks about a recent run in he had with a State Trooper driving the Midwest while potentially being interviewed!

The CVW crew jumps back into the bandwidth to discuss some of the news that has dropped since the last NCAA MVB Championship ball dropped in May with coaching changes, hirings and other MVB related news. From there, Brad, Dan, Jay & Theo discuss all things Pairs Olympics style! We'll recognize some former D1-2 athletes representing other countries. The guys then jump into the nitty-gritty breaking down the pools, athletes and medal contenders. Spread the word because we're diving into USA Volleyball!

The USA is heading back to the Olympics as reigning Gold Medalists in Women's Indoor Volleyball. Part of that history-making team in the Tokyo 2020 (2021) Olympics was former Penn St. standout and current Paris 2024 Olympian Haleigh Washington! In this Paris Olympics Episode Haleigh comes back onto the Viral Volley Podcast for a second time to talk about her collegiate and professional volleyball journeys through Tokyo, VNL 2024, the upcoming USAV Cup series vs. world No. 8 Netherlands, and the upcoming League One Volleyball movement kicking off in November 2024. Haleigh recently announced on social that she signed with LOVB Salt Lake City! In a very high-energy and informative conversation, Haleigh tells it like it is in her own special way-- with just a little humor sprinkled in!

TCU has become a national powerhouse in Collegiate Beach Volleyball in large part due to Spanish sensations Tania Moreno and Dani Alvarez. This same pair has now become TCU Beach's program-first-ever Olympians representing Spain! Dani joins Rob to discuss her beginnings in Beach Volleyball (from Tennis), trying indoor for 9 days, connecting with Tania and WINNING in Europe. Dani shares about how she found herself going to the USA to play Beach Volleyball and how she, Coaches Hector Guitierrez and Majo Orellana convinced Tania to follow her to Ft. Worth, TX. From there we discuss her 3 years at TCU, and the path to the Paris 2024 Olympics.

(College Volleyball Weekly/Viral Volley Podcast Crossover) We are just mere weeks away from the 2024 Paris Olympics-- and with that there are a handful of former College Volleyball Weekly, both Beach and Indoor who will be representing their native countries. One of those atletes is first-ever Viral Volley Podcast guest (December 2019), Tina Graudina of Latvia and USC! Tina and Rob discuss her beginnings in volleyball in Latvi playing indoor, then transitioning out on the beach. Afterwards, we discuss Tina's Collegiate Beach Volleyall career at USC (by the way, she only has 7 career loses!), her pride in representing Latvia and her loyal fans all over the country for the first-time ever at Tokyo 2020. We then discuss her experience so far now that Tina is heading to the Paris 2024 Olympics. Tina concludes the episode by sharing 2 pieces of wisdom she has learned from her experience in volleyball.

In this special post-season episode of CVW Beach T20, Rob connects with a first-time National Champion, Ashley Pater, who was one of only two freshman starting for Head Coach Dain Blanton's 4x National Champions USC Beach Volleyball. During Ashley's pre-collegiate career she had an enormous amount of success on the beach with multiple first place/gold medal finishes, with maybe 2 or 3 2nd/silver place finishes-- LITERALLY. Ashley was privileged to receive the offer letter and risked jumping from the East Coast to head West and continue the Trojan legacy of "Natties." Ashley shares about her first year experience at school, training, playing with different partners, through a battle-filled season and her first-ever National Championship.

As we enter the summer Viral Volley Media will be doing episodes for relevant news for athletes, teams, coaches and/or other volleyball personalities from the National Teams (the "Road to Paris 2024"), Pro Volleyball Federation, Athletes Unlimited, NCAA Men's/Women's/Beach, and/or etc. Who knows, we may even throw in a couple AVP/FIVB athletes, top recruits and more! Episode 233 will feature a member of the first-ever Pro Volleyball Federation Championship team, the Omaha Supernovas' BROOKE NUNEVILLER! Rob has interviewed her a few times during her indoor and beach careers at Oregon. She was named to the All-PVF First Team and now has a championship trophy, but before all that she had an illustrious career with the Ducks (indoors & beach), USAWNT, and Nilufer (Turkiye) and now Omaha! Hear what Brooke had to say about the last few years of her year finishing up with the 2024 PVF season and what comes next! #ncaamvolleyball #ncaavolleyball

The CVW Coaching Panel wanted to get this Q&A Episode together because it's what our listeners wanted! Today we explore the expansion of the MIVA, formation of the GLVC, new teams and Division 1 & 2 expansion. Naturally, we flow into the rise of the portal and how coaches/teams view some of the different perspectives of it's availability to the athletes. Sprinkled in there are questions about ball pressure, "poachable players," favorite venues to play in and some friendly banter. Keep in mind we tangent every once in a while!

In this 2024 season finale, Kelly Belardi of Stanford Beach Volleyball and Kylie Wickley of Texas Beach Volleyball with Rob Espero discuss the AVCA All-America team honorees, along with the AVCA Top Flight recipients. In addition, the CVW crew discusses the happenings at the 2024 NCAA Beach Volleyball Championship in Gulf Shores (that moves to Huntington Beach, CA in 2025). Special thanks to the ladies mentioned above along with Jaden Whitmarsh of UCLA and Alli Hansen of Florida St. for their contributions during the 2024 CVW season! Without their efforts the CVW BEACH T20 would not be possible!

The entire CVW crew of Brad Rostratter of UCSD, Dan Friend of Lewis, Jay Hosack of George Mason and Theo Edwards of CSUN talk all things National Collegiate Volleyball Championship week! From the opening quarterfinals, All-America Social, semis to the finals. The guys break it down for all volleyball fans alike! They guys talk about A LOT in this mega-80-minute episode. Additionally, the remaining crew dives into a more recent trend in Men's Volleyball-- the transfer portal. Know that we ran out of time and will most likely have one or two more episodes to address our fan questions from weeks ago (and apparently, the portal will have even more athletes jumping in)! Stay tuned...

The NCAA Collegiate Beach Championship is all set. Nine auto-bids and eight at-large berths. There are top dogs in the mix but there are a bunch of upstarts chomping at the bit for the Natty hardware! Among those teams were 3 first-ever appearances for UT Chattanooga, Washington and Arizona St.! Instead of our normal panel we thought we'd jump on a unique opportunity-- two sisters whose teams could not be more different-- Kendall Whitmarsh of Arizona St.-- the "first-timer" and older sis, Jaden Whitmarsh of UCLA-- who has been to the "Dance" every year since donning the blue and gold. The "Whitmarsh Takeover" is a great conversation of a family who loves the game-- and are REALLY GOOD AT IT!

THE NCAA MEN'S D1-2 TOURNAMENT IS ON! 3/4ths of our coaching panel dive into the matchups, but not before discussing the recently release AVCA All-America teams, the Freshman of the Year, Assistant Coach of the Year and the Coach of the Year! See what Dan Friend of Lewis (at least for half the episode), Brad Rostratter of UCSD and Jay Hosack of George Mason had to say today about what could be an EXCITING NCAA Championship in Long Beach! BE SURE TO WATCH OVER AT NCAA.COM for quarterfinals through the semis, then over to ESPN2 for the Championship match on Saturday!

With the conference championships concluded the CVW Coaches' Panel will review some of the many eye-catching results and standout performances by teams and athletes. With the auto-berths awarded and the At-Large berths made known we ask the controversial question: "Did the NCAA Committee get it right?", and of course, "Are the seedings correct?" As always, some side discussions arise with tournament expansion along with other tidbits of discussion that give you insight to the what we could see during "The Natties."

We're about 10 days out from conference tournaments around the nation in Gul Shores, AL. Kylie Wickley of Texas and Jaden Whitrmarsh of UCLA discuss the Texas' season finale as the Longhorns get their first-ever top-20 program win. From there we run into the top 11-ish and focus on the Center of Effort Challenge which saw a handful of upsets while UCLA continued to assert itself at the top.

Our missing panel member, Jay Hosack of George Mason couldn't make the earlier recording didn’t so we decided to do a “CVW After Dark” episode discussing the final week of conference play and the upcoming conference tournament matches. Jay brings attention to some of the top performers, looks at potential AVCA National Player of the Year candidates and even goes out on a limb to say who will win certain tournaments—all this with beer in hand 😊.

As we conclude the regular season for the remaining 5 auto-NCAA berth conferences the coaching panel of Brad Rostratter of UCSD, Dan Friend of Lewis and Theo Edwards of CSUN discuss some of the top matches in final week of the conferences’ play. Will a new number one emerge in the AVCA poll? What did we see in the quarterfinal rounds of the MIVA? What teams could shine in post-season play? As always, the crew names their “Ballers of the Week (CVW’s Players of the Week).” Rob then poses the question to the panel: “What’s the At-Large situation going to look like?” All that and more on CVW Men’s Top 20! BTW, Rob will post the Jay-inspired brackets on Volleytalk soon for download!

Week 14 saw a great docket of top 5 teams squaring off, regular season champions in some conferences and in one case a tournament field and seedings set. The CVW crew breaks down what happened in Week 14 and inserts their insights, opinions and in some cases, complaints. In addition, we discuss Jay's 1st-ever Conference/NCAA MVB Tournament Bracket, pick our "Ballers of the Week," and discuss some of the key matches in Week 15 to watch out for!

With Week 6 in the books and a handful of top 20 teams idle the student-athletes drive the discussion-- which essentially ended up being a "Death Volley Invitational" summary/recap episode and chatting about how the top teams are getting it done. With that, we discuss some of the key performers during the week, athletes with milestone achievements-- like CVW's own Alli Hansen who has amassed 100 career wins. In our discussions, Cal Poly has been beyond good-- and the Mustangs have done it under the radar with an over 80% winning efficiency at each of their flights. After all that we'll drop some top duals to watch for the weekend!

Things are "kinda" sorting out across the conferences, but still not secure with surprise results, injuries and adjustments playing key factors to what we're seeing in the final few weeks of the 2024 regular season. As always, the Coaching Panel runs down summaries of what's happening in each of the NCAA-tourney bid conferences, The Big West, Conference Carolinas, EIVA, MIVA, MPSF and the SIAC. The coaches then take over and direct the discussion to tourney selection, All-America selections and other interesting factoids. Or course, they always end on their "Players of the Week" and "Whatcha Watchin'" in week 14!

The CVW BEACH TOP 20 Student-Athlete panel chimes in on the action in Week 5 that saw yet another handful of upsets ranging from No. 18 GCU of No. 10 LSU all the way down to Big West teams in the top 10 hammering away at each other. The CVW crew mentions top performances by TCU and USC pairs as well as Arizona St. From there the crew talks about the upcoming Death Volley Invitational where #1 USC, #4 TCU, #10 LSU, #5 FSU, #2 UCLA, #17 FAU, #3 Stanford, and #6 Cal all battle in Baton Rouge, Louisiana for what could be a preview of the NCAA Collegiate Beach Championship!

In Week 12 it seems March Mayhem has re-entered the scene with the MIVA Conference seeing a handful of unexpected results! With only 2-3 weeks remaining in the regular season and conference tournaments around the corner, expect more mayhem! Not excluded from the mayhem is the Big West Conference—with only one matchup during the week that resulted in an upset-split of the No. 2 team in the nation. As always, our coaches’ panel discuss the weeks they’ve had as well, but we also chat about what each of the conferences is looking like at this stage of the season. The Coaches’ Panel closes out the episode by selecting their players (or now, Teams) of the week, and what they’re watching in Week 13!

Week 4 of the NCAA Collegiate Beach season and East Meets West in Manhattan Beach, CA along with the FAU Invite in Pompano Beach, FL took center stage as a lot of top 20 teams went at it. Kelly Belardi of Stanford, Jaden Whitmarsh of UCLA and Kylie Wickley of Texas gathered to chat on what we saw in Week 4 as well as through the mid-point of the season (even though Texas hosted their first-ever home tri-dual today). As always, we talk some of the top performers of the week, then look forward to this upcoming weekend where the CCSA Midseason Tournament and "Fight in the Fort" at TCU go down!

Week 11 brought another 1 vs. 2 matchup resulting in what will most likely be new No. 1-- again. With that we discuss a handful of the top matches of the week but try a new piece for our Coaches' Panel: "If You Were on the NCAA Committee" segment! The coaches discuss what the 20243 NCAA Tournament would look like today given the 8-team scenario and also venture in to what that could look like if it were a 12-team scenario. Tap in and spread the world. We're officially into the last month of the NCAA Men's Volleyball season so it's going to get HOT!

This week we jump into our first special episode with the East Meets West in Manhattan Beach this weekend. With that, the Seminoles of Florida St. "take over" the show to talk about their start to 2024, how deep and talented the 'Noles squad is as they've been hovering at No. 4 in the AVCA and CollegeBeachVB.com polls. They're chomping at the bit to make the case to be at the top. CVW Beach Contributor Alli Hansen and teammate Morgan Chacon chat all things Seminole!

Week 10 saw another No. 1 team go down not just once, but twice at the Outrigger Invitational in Hawaii. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles the Big 12/Pac-12 Challenge brought in a battle of 4 of the top 12 teams in the nation. In Northern California, two top-10 teams duked it out for split. The Big West got heated as Long Beach St. and UCSB squared off with emotions flaring. The rest of the top 20 were in good conference battles or travelled to cross-conference opponents! As always, the CVW crew pics their top performers (“Ballers”) of the week and recommend some of the top matches to watch in Week 11 of NCAA Men’s Championship Volleyball!