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 pavin
I'm an Olympian beach volleyball world champion former Nebraska corn husker and longtime pro both indoor and on the beach
And I'm Adam Schultz former indoor player international volleyball coach and the resident show stat guy
It has been a slow week because of holiday season obviously
And we hope that all of you had a wonderful celebration as we prepared a transition into the next set of volleyball seasons
We wanted to dive in to see what has been going on in the transfer portal
Answer some listener questions and have a little bit of fun after the craziness of the NCAA women's tournament
With some of Adam's games my favorite. Let's get started
So the major buzz around the volleyball world currently has been what is going on in the transfer portal as the
NCAA season has wrapped up. We've been following along and taking a look at what's happened
So we're gonna break this down into a few different sections as we get into it
So we'll have biggest news when we'll talk about some specific players what's happened and then we'll talk about the biggest program poachers and
The biggest losers it really makes you wonder why so many people left a program
So let's get started and hop right in keep in mind the biggest news is like biggest news
According to Adam and I so not everybody will agree or we probably missed something that you think is very important
But in our research, these are the things that popped out. So let's start with Purdue who had a pretty good season
They've lost four players. So both starting outsides a starting middle and their opposite have all left
Clearly something is going on in that program
We don't have the details but you have Eva Hudson and Lizzie Carr both going to Kentucky
You have Chloe Chacon heading to Louisville and Lourdes Meyer is still uncommitted, but that's a lot of players to lose
That's a lot of starters to lose
So there's setter
Anderson, I believe she was just a sophomore
Raven Colvin obviously was a senior
I'm not sure what class their libero was in but you're looking at
Potentially five remaining starters and four left. So that to me strikes as something's not quite right
With the program or in the locker room
Normally, you don't see so many starters leave after a success a successful year
I mean sweet 16 then they got trounced by Louisville
That's a fair point but for Purdue given the athletes that they have I think that they finished about where they should finish
Yeah, and I feel like if you commit to Purdue you're you understand where you are. You would think like they're not a top five program
So I'm very curious as to what is happening not to mention their assistant coach left
Midseason last season so something is in the water in Purdue very interesting stuff
What do you think about Eva Hudson going to Kentucky and Chacon going to Louisville? I think that's a case of
Both of them believing they're better than the program or thinking or like being like no, we want to win. Peace
Yeah, that's definitely possible
But that goes back to my question of like what did you think you were getting into in Purdue?
Like if you had made an elite eight, is that better?
Well, I think you're not I'm sorry Purdue is not a final four type of program
Consistently they might have a year here and there where they're really good
But like I don't think they're like the perennial final four type of
Team. Oh, I think that's an accurate assessment. I think a lot of players
Now with the transfer portal who maybe aren't top recruits go. I'm going to go to a decent program
I'm going to play one year and get recognized and then I want to go to a Nebraska Kentucky
Final four edge team and they're not
Willing to stay and help build a program. There's no loyalty
I mean, we're going to talk about this a little bit later in the show
So I'm not going to get into it, but I think that's the case
I mean both Louisville and Kentucky lost senior outside so they're essentially
Being given an opportunity to walk in and earn a spot. So I don't know I have very been
I have very distinct opinions about the transfer portal. We'll get into it another
Very interesting move in my opinion
Was the starting setter for Texas Avery Carlson
Entered the portal now
She went to Texas from Baylor
And then was part of the whole 6-2 situation that Texas had going on and actually won out the
Five-one spot when they made that switch in October November
Yeah, I'm sorry. You're not going to transfer once but twice
Oh my gosh. Okay, Texas lost five players total, which honestly is not that's not the shocking part to me
Because they just like stack their roster and of course
Everybody thinks they're going to be a big star at a top program and then when they're not they're like bye
The shocking part is that they have not picked up anybody from the portal yet and they are usually scooping
They're usually waiting until a like a shock athlete comes out
And then just like tries to snag them them in Nebraska
So I have a thought about picking up players from the portal
From a coach's standpoint that we'll get into later, but I think it might be in effect here
Oh, you're going to keep us hanging. Okay, very curious about that
Looks like Ellis Wendell's got her job back
I mean the the setting in Texas was a question mark all year you come out on top
I don't know whether it's just you're losing hitters and you don't think you're going to be successful or
Didn't get along with your teammates after everything that happened or the coaches
Told you you're playing a 6-2 again after you won the spot leave. There's so many things that it could be there
But it is surprising. I agree with you. Maybe she just thinks that they're gonna suck. They lost Rutherford. They lost Skinner
They lost Wenis. I believe I mean, okay
So many issues are coming up that I do not like but okay
This one makes me really sad. This one hurts. Yeah
Ohio State lost four players
including
Emi Selman who's going to Penn State and middle blocker Eloise Brandway
Who is going to Creighton now you and I talked about this a few times on the podcast
I thought Ohio State had an incredibly bright future. I enjoyed watching them. They had a ton of young players
You could see them
Put strings of points together and see man
They're gonna be so good when they mature and come together
And figure it out and find some consistency
And I know they had some bad losses and it's never easy to go through a season
You know where you probably want to win more games than you do
But that core could have been something special in my opinion and for them to jump ship
this early for greener pastures this to me is
The major problem with the portal and it's for me the major problem with
Young athletes today. Yeah, this one was very disappointing to me. I have so much respect for a coach who's willing to
Build a program from the ground up and who won't just cop out and take more developed or experienced players
To have an easier path to to success
So I was so excited when I saw this roster earlier in the season and yeah, were they good?
Not really, but they had moments of brilliance
And so you I really believe that they would be able to to build something and to see this it just
it makes me so upset for
Jen olden jen flinn oldenburg because
What do you do? You do all the right things and
There's no loyalty. I feel for the coaches in these situations for sure
Miami is losing six players
One is a grad student, but
They're two biggest point scores in grace lopez and floor marie. Eridia colon
Lopez is going to wisconsin and colon is currently uncommitted
That is going to decimate
That program and this is another program that had some really good wins this season
They had some big upsets against ranked teams
They were five points ahead of the other teams
They were fun to watch play. I don't understand
It's not going to be good down in coral gables. Let me tell you
Those two scored so many points for that team and we talked about how bad their serve receive was like
So those two were hitting a lot of out of system ball
That's that's got to hurt
yeah, I hope that they're able to pick up a couple players from the portal and just
Keep it going because that's
Like you said it does it decimates the program you have to start over essentially when you lose players like that and you're not
Expecting to and here's the thing for me is like i'll use these two players as an example. It's like
Yeah, you are a star
at miami
Basically, like you
Were the go-to players
You came up big in some big matches like you were the stars and I think and I don't want to say that
This is what their thought process is but the impression that I get from a lot of athletes
Who maybe aren't in top programs or you know are on the bench at a top program or something is just like no
I'm better than this
Like look how good I was this year at this program like I can for sure play for a top
10 program or whatever and it's like not everybody is cut out for that and like
Maybe you are a big fish in a medium-sized pond here, but like you're about to be in a big pond
I'm grace lopez is going to struggle in the big. I don't think she's a big 10 opposite
I do not I mean look who you're putting her up against in what division and you are going to have to score
Against great blockers and good defenses night in and night out
This is the dichotomy for athletes where you think
you're a
but really when you play against great players night in and night out your b and and that and the reality is probably somewhere in the
middle and
Switching programs to learn that lesson hurts a lot of people. I think it's a completely different set of
Expectations to be on a wisconsin versus a miami. It's just fact
When you are at a top program the expectations are different
Speaking of grace lopez going to wisconsin
Wisconsin lost both their backup ds slash liberos
Guchtiken is heading to tennessee and damerow is off to creighton
which
Is kind of surprising given that they both saw playing time this year due to injury
I'm kind of scratching my head with this one wondering if it's just about playing time or if there was some
Losing a lot of players in the dressing room not sure where it's going to go thinking. They're not going to play
I couldn't quite reason my way through these these two for me
It's one of two things either you graduated your entire roster pretty much and you're like we're gonna suck i'm getting out of here
or
you
The writing is on the wall and you want to play
And you know with a current freshman libero. You're probably not going to
My question to creighton is did you watch any matches that wisconsin played?
When damro was the libero and how many times she got ace like did you watch?
Yeah, but she's going to be great in that division
She's going she for creighton during the season is going to be just fine and probably exactly what they need
if
They go deep in the tournament though, and she has not settled into
Looking at big 10 serves it's it's going to be tough for creighton. I think bet on yourself. I guess
Bet on yourself, I guess
Finally aya el nati from kansas is heading to northwestern and I need somebody to clarify this for me because
How are these grad students still able to play?
Like have they not used up four years of eligibility like I am so
Confused about this. I thought el nati was a senior
I thought she played all four seasons. I maybe i'm wrong
But it's like a question I have in general is like I thought the extra year like with covet and stuff was done now
I mean this is
Academic reasons I have to imagine northwestern has a very good academic reputation
What i'm saying like how is she able to go play there?
No, I understand that I don't the rules don't make sense to me at this point either
I thought the somebody tell us are the covet years done are they allowed a fifth year still because like I don't get it
I don't get it this one. I have no problem with she she graduated. She wants to do a master's. It's a great school
She can keep playing. All right onto the biggest poachers
I don't think anybody is going to be shocked to hear that smu has already picked up five players from the portal
Continuing their streak of recruiting almost exclusively from the portal
Um jaden livings in favor on yanwu from usc and malaya jones from colorado state are their biggest pickups so far
but
I'm sorry
If i'm a parent or if I am a high school student athlete getting recruited by smu. I'm like
No, thank you
because clearly
You are incapable of developing your own athletes
Last year their entire roster was grad students taken from the portal and now they're continuing the same thing like
Red flag alert
Yeah, and I think from a coaching standpoint when you started a school you have to go through your recruiting class pulling in
Portal players make sense. You want to build your name. You need to have some success to recruit players
But at some point you have to trust your own ability to develop to recruit and to put a winning product on the floor
and
Smu had a great regular season last year. They were polished. They beat some good teams
But there is something to be said about playing with athletes for more than one year
when the chips are down and things get tough and
You saw that in the tournament
They underperformed
And you can't blame it solely on having transfer players, but I think that's a big factor
Well with such a huge turnover all the time. Like how are you supposed to develop?
a consistent team culture
How are you supposed to develop a consistent team identity?
like
in the past
You would be in a program most players would stay in the same program for four years
And as the young players came in they were taught
That you know, this is what we do. This is who we are
This is what the team values and like sure you make tweaks to it every year. But when you're having a complete
your cleaning house every year, how do you establish like
What your program is like from an identity and culture perspective? It's it's no good and I will say from a coaching standpoint
You help shape the culture but you need your senior athletes who have been with you for three four years
Who understand what you want to be a voice in the room for you? You have to develop those relationships
I don't care how good of a coach you are. It's a
symbiotic relationship with your senior players and you know you come in as a freshman and
You got a little swagger and you got a little attitude and you want this and sometimes you need a vet to sit you down and say
Listen kid, this isn't how it works and every top athlete has gone through that experience and you need it. It's part of your development
I don't know. I'm gonna stick by it like
Prove to me that you know how to coach prove to me that you know how to like
Build a team and develop players because right now i'm not buying it
We see auburn following in smu's footsteps
They lost two athletes this year, but picked up six be interesting to see how they do next year
They're like, oh look at what this did for smu. They were ranked all season
They were the only team to beat number one and two seeds blah blah blah. Like let's do it. Let's don't do it
And finally creighton didn't lose anybody to the portal but they snatched up three athletes
Including eloise brandwe from ohio state and sage dame
From wisconsin as we talked about earlier
Yeah, they did they did some stealing not sharing
Well, and the other thing for the portal for me is and there's no way to regulate this and I totally understand
It's one thing if a player reaches out to you and says hey, can I come play for your program?
It's another thing to actively
Try and grab athletes in my opinion and I know there's no
right or wrong or there's no
Way to police that but that's just a a personal philosophy. I would say no
We're not saying that creighton did this but I was surprised because they have had
obviously, they've taken transfer players in the past, but
They've been steadily rising year over year and
Yeah, interesting
So florida state loses six total players one grad including their starting libero emery dupes and their starting
Setter kena felon dupes is heading to pit and felon is heading to illinois
The majority of their starters were seniors last season. So
That's maybe not shocking
I don't know. I mean six is a lot
Because then you have to think like
Okay, maybe those six would have stepped into the starting role
So now is the starting role not enough and now you need to be a part of you need to be a starter on a successful team
Well, guess what positions are limited
So i'm not shocked that the two remaining starters chose to leave but I am surprised about the other ones
we
Something is in the water in the rest of these places because these schools were just burning athletes like they're like see you later
virginia tech lost seven
memphis lost eight
That's like almost a whole team
charleston southern lost seven cal state full of
charleston southern lost seven cal state fullerton lost seven rider lost six
georgia state lost six marshal lost six old dominion lost six
There's there's a problem here
Well for some of those lower ranked schools
I think athletes use it as a stepping stone as well now losing a whole roster is one thing
but I think there's probably
A mix of I think I can play for a better program and maybe something going on with the team
And then the last one that we're going to mention
that might be
something
That we haven't talked about yet
Is that san jose state lost seven for those people who haven't been following?
What's happening san jose state had a transgender athlete playing for them?
Who I believe is going to be a senior this coming season don't quote me on that, but I think maybe and
There was a lot of talk a lot of controversy as this is kind of an ongoing issue in
One a lot of teams forfeited. Yeah against them. So it's it's a tough
situation to navigate
I would imagine it's even harder for the athletes and the coaches and the athletic staff at san jose state
So it'll be interesting to see if they can feel the team if people are willing to play there and how that is going to play out
like we are not going to
Weigh in with our opinion on the issue at all, but I can see the fact that so many
Teams forfeited against them is probably incredibly frustrating like as a young athlete you want
to play you want to compete
and to not be able to because I mean of choices and value systems and beliefs
From different programs like that was probably tough for for a lot of the people on that team
So yeah, that one was interesting
Obviously the transfer portal is still open for a little bit of time and there's another transfer window in the spring
But this is what we've seen so far
We will keep our eyes on this as other things develop as players commit. We'll try and keep you guys updated on on what's going on
We're going to dive into some listener questions now
We have answered some here and there in recent episodes, but we wanted to have a section where we just
Answer a whole bunch. So thank you to everybody who submitted questions or
Have been engaging with us on youtube and social media. Um, the first one is
What are your thoughts on nil and the transfer portal and how do you think you would have interacted with them as a student athlete?
Simple answer. I hate both of them
Well, I think it's a little more nuanced for me I have no problem with nil for the athletes
I think college sports makes a ton of money
I think that the athletes they are getting a free education. I
totally see the value in that but if somebody wants to sponsor them and
they want to use their social media or
Whatever else they have to generate a little revenue for themselves. I don't think there's anything wrong with that
I don't like buying players to go to colleges, which is something that is happening with the nil
So I think there needs to be some guardrails around that but players who are good and who have a presence and who can monetize that
Should be able to that's my stand on the nil
Maybe my distaste for the nil has to do with me missing out on the nil
I'm not bitter at all. Don't worry about it. Um, I think
You know so many college athletes are making more money than they are
Making more than pro athletes and for me, that's an issue
I don't I think
It is fine within reason. I just think it has gone to these extremes and at the end of the day like
Some of these are kids and they are very young adults like trust me
I understand that I went to a school where student athletes are put on a pedestal
I am fully aware of that
It is unfair
when to adam's point about
Schools buying players with nil money like it just creates such a big discrepancy back when there were
Strict scholarship limits. It was just a really sneaky way to like
Avoid it and I don't I don't like it like when I was a student athlete
I valued education very much and so for me knowing how expensive an american
Post-secondary education is I felt like it was a fair trade
I felt grateful
that
I was being given an opportunity to have get an education and leave college debt free
In exchange for my skills as a volleyball player. I felt like that was fair
But I understand that not everybody has the same values as I do
So from where i'm standing, it's really hard for me to get behind nal because I know what is important to me
But it's not like that for everybody transfer portal. I hate it
I think it is
Killing college sports. I think you know with the transfer portal. It is a microcosm of what we have seen in just this
generation of athletes and of human beings in general. It's just obviously there are
Scenarios where a transfer is necessary back when I played there were people who transferred it didn't happen nearly as much as it does now
But it did happen and that's very personal to individual athletes
But I think when it becomes a me me me thing
I think we've completely lost the essence of what it means to be on a team what it means
To be resilient and to work hard what it means to be loyal
And do what you say you're going to do
I think there are so many big pieces that are
Are completely thrown away with how easy it is to get out of a situation and I feel like college sports
used to be such a pure thing
Where you are going to battle with your closest friends people that you are
Experiencing the transition into adulthood with and you're there for each other
You are not making money you're you're doing it for the love of the game and for the love of each other
So if you're not doing those two functions at the same time
You know, just in the context of being in high school playing
And being able to understand them like division
I'm in high school playing
I've had to go back a few footballs
And a retreat
I went to military school
am, if I was on the bench, I would use that as motivation to get better and to earn the
spot because then it becomes so much sweeter when you know that you've worked hard to achieve
something that you want.
And that's the danger and the gray area of sports is you want to play.
That's human nature.
You want to be on the court.
You want to play.
But then having that inter squad competition of pushing each other and making each other
better and being happy for your teammates successes while also pushing for your own
personal ones.
Like it is such an interesting balance and I think we're completely losing that as athletes
become so much more me focused.
And I will give a shout out to Kennedy or from Nebraska because here is a setter who
is obviously very good.
She was recruited by Nebraska and she sat on the bench her entire career and she stayed
and she was a teammate.
And because you know what, like sure seven players get to have the spotlight on them
on game day, but those seven players don't get better without the seven that they're
competing against every day.
And for her to stay despite never being a starter, like that is a teammate to me.
That's what being an athlete and being on a team means.
And I think from a coach's perspective, it makes things much more challenging.
Sometimes you have to look at your athletes and tell them that wasn't good enough or have
hard conversations or push them into uncomfortable places at practice for them to get to where
they want to go.
And now I can only imagine as a college coach, you're thinking if I push too hard, is this
athlete going to leave?
Are they having fun?
Are they, do they like me?
You know, all of those things and don't get me wrong, there needs to be a balance.
It's not a dictatorship, but the fact of it is as a coach, you're developing the player
and the person and sometimes they're not going to like you.
That's you doing your job.
And I think with the ease of transferring now, you have to walk a very thin line in
terms of making your players happy, but also trying to push them to be better.
And I think that that is probably incredibly difficult.
Adam and I know a young athlete at a top program.
She is not a starting player.
And we heard from this player that their coach basically only works with the starters or
the people, the eight people who consistently play and does not engage with the other players
at all.
And it's shocking to hear that as an athlete because my instinct is, well, doesn't he want
to develop the athletes to replace the ones that are going to be lost to graduation?
But then it's also like, why?
But I can understand in this day and age, why would this coach waste his time on the
players who aren't playing because they'll probably leave anyway.
Like that is how messed up this whole thing is.
We've just completely taken away the best parts of being on a team.
So Adam, another question we got was, what is the difference between an outside hitter
and an opposite hitter?
That's a great question.
So generally there are two outside hitters.
They play on the left side of the court and only one opposite because they're in the position
with the center.
And so 90% of the time you will see the outside hitters passing and hitting.
And so the two outside hitters, regardless of whether they're in the front row or the
back row, along with the libero, generally form the core of your passing team.
And then they also hit when they're in the front row.
The opposite is generally your point score.
They're usually your biggest athlete with the heaviest arm and they may or may not have
the best ball control.
Their primary responsibility is to score points and generally get you out of trouble.
They hit a lot of high balls.
They hit a lot of out of system balls.
They generally have a very good serve.
It's your quote unquote power player.
And then if you hear the term pin hitter, that is like an all encompassing term for
the outsides and the opposites because they're the two hitters that hit near the antennas.
If we're talking about player stereotypes, generally outside hitters, you have two different
types, one who can score you more points and then another one who maybe has better ball
control.
So you very often see the better ball control outside hitter and the libero passing, you
know, three quarters of the court and then another outside hitter passing a sliver.
There's different ways that teams can build with outside hitter strengths and weaknesses,
but that's the general overview.
The next question we got is, would you like to see more parity in the NCAA game?
This is a very good question.
And I believe the person who asked this was getting to the essence of if there is more
parity, you will see the stronger teams kind of take a little drop in their level while
the lower ranked teams increase theirs.
I think when you talk about parity in terms of the team's competition level, you're always
going to have teams that are at the top and teams that are at the bottom.
There's not a whole lot you can do about that.
You're going to have some coaches who get the best out of athletes at this age and some
who don't or maybe better suited for a professional or a club team.
And so there's no real way to facilitate parity in my mind because you're always going to
have groups of good athletes who want to go and do something special together.
Well, I think the pre-NIL days were as close as you would get.
I would agree.
To that being a reality because when you look like there are so many factors that go into
an athlete selecting a school and there are so many different things that are important
and not important to different people.
So certain programs have given themselves a reputation of being a great place to play
volleyball, but maybe somebody doesn't want to travel that far from home or maybe somebody
doesn't want to live in that city or state or they value their education and it just
won't work out.
Like there are so many pieces that go into it.
So I don't think there ever really is truly parity.
I personally am fine with the level being the way it is.
I would say the one interesting thing being relatively new to following college volleyball
closely.
If you build your program in a mid-major division and you become very competitive, I would have
loved to see Creighton play in the Big Ten, in the ACC this year because they dominated
their league play.
They had however many games of not really being pushed or challenged.
How good could Creighton have been if they got to hone themselves against the best teams
for that part of the season?
That to me is something that would be potentially interesting and create a little more parity.
I know logistically it doesn't work, but when you talk about parity in the game, that's
something that comes to my mind having followed this season relatively closely.
Or maybe instead of just preseason cross conference play, there's this random tournament in the
middle of the season so you can see the teams at close to top form going head to head and
just see where they fall because so many of those matches happen during the preseason
or the NCAA tournament.
There's no in between.
People are either trying to figure things out or it's crunch time.
So that might, it would be interesting to see like a tournament part way through.
But I think another thing to remember is like, I know we've talked a lot about the transfer
portal and people wanting to be a big fish in a big pond and win and start and things
like that.
But I think not everybody wants a big college experience.
For a lot of athletes, like getting the opportunity to still be part of a team is enough.
And I know we have kind of taken it to the extreme when we've been talking about the
transfer portal, but and not every athlete is like that.
But it's like some athletes know that they have no future in the sport after college
and just the opportunity to set themselves up for their future and get their education
paid for or be a part of a team for another four years.
Like that is enough.
So I think if you bring the parody discussion into it, you would lose so many of those types
of kids.
That was a very long way of saying, no, I don't want to see more parody in the NCAA.
So somebody asked and I thought this was a great question.
What are some of the most challenging places to play?
Oh gosh, I don't know if I could answer this now.
It was a long time ago that I was in college.
Rattle me off your top five.
Oh gosh, I don't even know if I could give you five.
Okay, I think Nebraska is challenging in the sense of it.
It's overwhelming for people who don't experience that day in and day out.
I remember my first red and white game.
It was the inner squad scrimmage when I was a freshman and that was the first time I had
played in front of that many people and my legs were shaking.
I was like 17 and my legs were like shaking and it was a scrimmage.
So if you're coming into an environment like that and they have like tens of thousands
of people, even though it's not a hostile environment, unless you're Wisconsin, no,
just kidding.
Even though it's not a hostile environment, it's intimidating for somebody who doesn't
see that.
So there's that.
I think the meanest fans when I played were from Missouri.
I hated playing at Missouri.
They were so mean.
They were great hecklers and like looking back, like they were really good burns, but
like they were mean and Texas was mean.
Those were probably the two words.
Oh, I heard BYU is, I think BYU leans heavily on their fans.
I think BYU is probably a tough place to play too.
Looking at just some of the matches and facility wise and where it would be challenging, I
think the elevation in Colorado would be tough to play in.
I also think the super low ceiling in Miami, if you're used to playing in a really big
gym and you're digging high and you're looking visually at all of the space around you, going
into that closed environment would take some getting used to.
Playing at elevation is no joke.
So I think that we've hit the majority of questions that I've seen on the channel so
far.
If we haven't answered your question, please send us a message on YouTube.
I'll be looking for them and we'll continue to aggregate questions as the episodes go
on and we'd love to hear from you.
And we have answered some on YouTube too.
So if you didn't hear yours, check your YouTube comments to see if there's been a reply.
But thank you so much to everybody who took the time to write into us.
All right.
Coming up in January, we have both Love and the PVF starting.
PVF will be in their second season and Love is starting with their inaugural season.
Sarah and I looked through all of the rosters for all of the teams that have been posted
thus far and why don't you give me your impression of who's playing in the league, what it's
going to look like, you know, what people can maybe expect going into these seasons.
To be honest, I have no idea what to expect here.
I went through all of the rosters of both leagues.
For Love, you have, you know, the founding athletes, which are current or recently retired
national team athletes.
Big profile athletes.
Big profile athletes, big Team USA, you know, history there.
So I think you're getting a wealth of skill and experience and professionalism from that
core group and there's one to two on each Love team.
We couldn't find anything about foreigner limits for Love.
It did seem like there were a lot of foreign athletes.
What we're seeing is foreign athletes who are kind of on the tail end of their career
looking through the names.
I played against a lot of them, you know, early in my pro career and I thought they
were on their way out when I was.
We won't mention any names.
But they're not.
So you're seeing some international experience, some foreign professional experience, but
a little older.
And then you're seeing new young talent.
We'll get into the quote unquote Love 6 as they're calling them here shortly.
But you have another group of athletes that I don't want anybody to take this the wrong
way, but they have very big social media followings, but maybe have not been in the volleyball
world or in the volleyball spotlight in recent years.
Does that adequately sum it up?
Yeah, I think that that adequately sums it up.
And I mean, let's be let's be fair.
These leagues are brand new and starting something is difficult.
And I think having a professional league in North America is a great thing.
Are you going to know having three professional leagues in North America?
But this is how this is how things start.
Right.
And that's okay.
You're not going to get the big international stars.
You're not going to pay enough for them.
You're not an established league.
People don't know what they're getting into.
You have many things you have to do in this first year.
You want people to follow you.
So the social media presence, it does make a difference.
You need to put people into the stands.
You want to continue to develop your college level athletes for people who may not want
to play overseas or may not be good enough to do that yet.
You want them to be able to stay in the States.
I get that.
So it's an interesting dichotomy of, like you said, young players who are inexperienced
internationally who haven't been professionals and then people who have probably done and
seen it all.
So it makes sense that they would start in that way.
And hopefully you start to groom the next layer of professional athletes, given the
experience that you have for the athletes who, let's be honest, you get to a point
where you don't want to leave and live overseas anymore.
And now they get to pass their knowledge and experience and continue to play in a setting
that's more comfortable to them.
So I think the way the rosters are constructed make a lot of sense for where the league is.
Is it going to be the best professional volleyball?
Probably not.
And there's going to be some growing pains, but hopefully it's good enough to be entertaining.
I'm very curious what the level will look like.
I understand that, you know, you're not going to get the big names to come right now.
The money's just not there.
There's no reason for those players to leave Asia and Europe.
But like you said, you have to start somewhere.
I found it very interesting.
I don't know if it was transparent to everybody, but how obvious it was that they were looking
for social media, like followings.
It's very clear that they want to get the word out there.
And I'm just so curious how those contracts were negotiated or what those conversations
were like, because it's basically like, we want to use your platform, but you will not
play.
Maybe they will play.
If some of those players do play, I will be on the floor.
Like I'll be shocked.
Yeah.
It's, it may, it's, it's a bold move.
It's a genius move from a business standpoint, from an eyeballs on the product standpoint.
But like, yeah, I'm just, I'm curious how this is all going to pan out.
Just quickly, before we get into the love six, the PVF rosters, PVF is allowed to foreign
athletes per team.
They have been very transparent about their pay structure.
I don't know anything about the love pay structure.
So that is a question mark that I have.
Like how much are some of these American like Olympians giving up financially to do this
or has love made it worth their while?
That's, it would be a very interesting question to get answered.
I am very curious.
The PVF rosters, I will be honest.
I think PVF is based on the roster.
It's a great opportunity for people to play after college.
I just looking at the, the names, I think love will be a higher level than PVF.
Can I say that with certainty?
No, I'm just going based off of.
Give us a month.
We'll have a more in-depth opinion for you after watching a few matches.
Straight up looking at headshots and names and like who I know versus don't know.
I think love will be much stronger, but you know, it's, it's cool that these athletes
have an opportunity to be professional volleyball players and make money playing volleyball.
I'm very curious to see how the different leagues function, what the production value
is, what the entertainment value is, what the, what the level of volleyball is.
I I'm actually, it's going to be an interesting two months.
I'm looking forward to seeing what product gets put on the floor and how it is shown
to the public.
Let's get into the love six.
So love has signed six graduating seniors that we saw play in the 20, 24 NCAA season.
They have sent one athlete to each team.
Those athletes are Sophie Fisher from Georgia, Lexi Rodriguez from Nebraska, Sarah Franklin
from Wisconsin, Jess Merzik played at Penn state, Madison Skinner played at Texas and
O'Neill of Fegboo from Oregon.
I think of all of these players, Madison Skinner has the brightest future professionally.
Lexi Rodriguez as well.
I think her skillset is it's solid and it's good for her position obviously, but it's
just a different game.
And I think that Skinner's skills will translate to the international style of play better
than the other ones.
All right.
It's game time.
And in honor of the final four wrapping up in the NCAA women's season, I thought it would
be fun for you to pick a semi all-star team, but there's a caveat.
So I've gone through and for each position, I've selected three athletes and you have
to pick who you would choose for your team and why.
And for everybody out there, she has no idea who I've put on my list.
I've picked players to make it interesting, but most of them are top level players.
And I'm just curious what your thoughts are.
We haven't done one of these games in a while.
I'm very excited.
I mean, we've been watching 20 plus matches a week, so it's been a little busy.
So this is actually fun.
All right, here we go.
Starting at the center position, your three options are Fairbanks from Pitt, Stark from
Penn State, or Waite from Creighton.
This is harder than I thought it would be actually.
I'm going to go with Izzy Stark from Penn State.
The reason I say that, I think that Rachel Fairbanks has some incredible hands.
I think the way she runs the middle off the net is great.
She has made some spectacular plays that I have seen, but in critical point matches,
I have seen her crumble.
That is a red flag for me.
Izzy Stark was a freshman and I saw her in a couple different matches look terrified
and look like she did not believe in herself, but I saw her rally and I saw her dig deep
and pull herself out of whatever dark place she was trying to crawl into and deliver.
And her out of system setting, the way that she is able to run an offense, I think her
future is very bright.
I think she puts up a solid block.
There are way more upside pieces to Stark than there are negatives.
And I think her upside outweighs the other ones.
So yeah, Izzy Stark.
All right.
At the liberal position, we have Rodriguez from Nebraska, we have Scott from Louisville,
and we have Grimes from Penn State.
This one is really hard.
Give me a second.
I had to take a break and think about this one for a minute.
I'm back.
I would go with Elena Scott.
I know there are probably so many people out there who are like, you are absolutely insane,
but hear me out.
From a serving perspective, I think they're a wash.
I don't think either one of the two is a particular prolific server.
I know what's going to tip the scales in Elena Scott's favor, but continue.
From a setting perspective, I think Elena Scott is an outstanding setter.
That's what I think tip the scales in her favor.
I'm not saying Lexi Rodriguez is a bad setter.
She's pretty good, but when the chips are on the table, she did not set well in that
semi-final match against Penn State.
It's true.
Go back and watch the tape.
From a passing perspective, Lexi is a very good pass.
They're both very good passers.
I would say Lexi is probably a more solid passer than Elena Scott is.
Defensively, I think they are both outstanding, but I will say I think that Elena Scott digs
down the line better than Lexi Rodriguez does.
I saw Elena Scott make better adjustments in critical moments than Rodriguez did.
Let the comment, keep them coming.
I want to hear your comments.
I know you're probably mad at me.
I love it, but that's who I'm picking.
All right, the first group of middles is Cressy from Louisville, Jackson from Nebraska, or
Frances from Stanford.
Andy Jackson.
I knew whatever list she was on, you were going to pick that.
No.
I think both Frances and Cressy are great blockers.
If anything, they might be better blockers than Jackson is, but offensively, there is
absolutely no comparison between those athletes.
If I am taking a little bit of a dip in the blocking category, I'm more than making up
for it offensively.
Jackson.
Colvin from Purdue, Kelly from Pitt, or Alec from Nebraska.
I would pick Bree Kelly from Pitt.
I think Raven Colvin's strength is her blocking, but I think Bree Kelly is a pretty solid blocker
as well.
Maybe I'm taking a little dip from Colvin in a blocking sense, but with good passing
and a setter who can deliver, I think Bree Kelly is much more efficient from an offensive
perspective.
For your first left side, you have the choice of De'Beer from Louisville, Murray from Nebraska,
or Parah from TCU.
Oh, it would have been so interesting to see Parah play with a solid team around her.
I think from a passing perspective, all three are pretty similar.
I know people are going to be mad about that too.
I don't care.
Parah's passing is probably a little worse than the other two.
Defensively, I think she's better than the other two.
She reads the game so well from a defensive perspective.
Her serve is substantially better than the other two.
This is just so hard because Parah had to do everything for her team, and she was very
successful at it, obviously, but she hit her limit.
She was maxed out.
I'm going to cause a ruckus here and say Parah.
I think if she had a solid team around her, she would be able to score with so much more
ease.
And mixing in her serve and the way she reads the game, I think it's great.
All right.
Your second left side position, you got Stafford from Pitt, Merzik from Penn State, or De'Lay
from Kentucky.
I'd take Tori Stafford.
I think she passes better than the other two.
I think she has been part of a good team, but her hitting percentage is outstanding.
The way how fast she gets off the ground.
She's a versatile attacker.
She plays good defense.
Man, you're setting me up to just be ripped apart by people.
I purposely made the choices difficult.
I wanted to see the thought process.
No matter who I pick, there are going to be people like, how dare you?
So it's a lose, lose, lose, lose, lose for me.
All right.
And last, we're going to go to the opposite position.
I purposefully left Babcock off the list because I knew you would just pick her no matter what.
So to make it interesting, we've got Jura Vicious from Penn State.
We've got Kennedy Martin from Florida and Anna Smreck from Wisconsin.
Kennedy Martin.
That might have been the easiest one.
I think, again, she gets every ball for Florida and still scores and is still effective.
I think she's a much better attacker than the other two.
I think she actually plays six rotations, which can't say that about the other two.
She actually serves.
No, not even close.
All right.
Well, there it is.
That's your pick a player.
And I thought that I'd make you sweat a little.
That was the goal.
I'm literally sweating as I'm stressed out about these answers.
Some of those were very hard.
But for all of you who are going to be critical, put your biases aside.
And I'd be curious what you would actually think, too.
Well, I would be.
So throw your teams up on YouTube.
Let us see.
Let's have a conversation.
I would be curious what people think.
I know we've had a lot of very intelligent comments on YouTube from some serious volleyball
fans who watch a lot of college volleyball.
So I would be I would be curious to get other opinions.
It was a little more laid back this week, kind of like a fun housekeeping week, if that
is a thing.
Can housekeeping be fun?
No.
OK.
But yeah, hopefully you guys are as excited about the new American Pro Leagues as we are
just to see what the level is, see how they function.
Obviously they are very viewer friendly because the NCAA did a great job this season in, you
know, making those games accessible.
We are actually going to be off next week as the leagues kind of get started.
We roll into things.
So we wanted to wish you all a very happy new year.
Thank you so much for being part of the start of this podcast with us.
We have so much fun doing this together and sharing our love of volleyball with all of
you.
Yeah.
So don't expect anything from us next week, but we'll be back the following week with
an update on how love is going.
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 you don't miss any updates and we'd be so grateful if you'd
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You can also find us on Instagram at VolleyTalk underscore podcast.
If you have a topic that you want us to discuss, be sure to let us know by reaching out to
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Thanks so much for joining us and we'll be back in two weeks.