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!

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!

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.

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!

Episode 215: College Volleyball Weekly Beach Top 20, 3/5/24

This week Jaden Whitmarsh of UCLA, Alli Hansen of Florida St. and Kylie Wickley of Texas jump into the show (missing Kelly Belardi of Stanford) talking about what they as athletes have seen so far 1/4th into the season (aka, 2 weeks). What's the talent like, what teams are playing well and how are they getting it done?

The CVW BEACH crew then takes a look at eye-catching duals in Week 2, identifying top performing teams and athletes. As always, we end by picking out some duals to look out for in Week 3. 

This week didn't see a whole lot of shakeups around the nation, however we're discovering the MIVA is getting very interesting with Ball St., and Ohio St. sitting at the top. There was an LA rivalry matchup, GCU dominance, Long Beach St. on a winning streak and Hawaii rolling along, however the guys talk "chirping and chippiness" in the game. The guys chatter about few other things that have come up last minute like the "two-handed attack", or what Rob refers to as "The Shove." 

All that and our normal business on College Volleyball Weekly, Men's Top 20! 

While Alli of Florida St. tends to homework, Jaden Whitmarsh of UCLA, Kelly Belardi of Stanford and Kylie Wickley of Texas join Rob on recapping the Week 1 action of the NEW Collegiate Beach Volleyball season! We try our best to talk about the CollegeBeachVB.com Top 20 teams and top athletes. Contributor Kelly garnered Most Oustanding Pair (with Ashley Vincent) at the Duke Kahanamoku Classic, which then became the Pac-12 Pair of the Week, then the AVCA National Pair of the Week! Congrats, Kelly!

Along with the Hawaii Tournament action, there was the Third Coast Invite as well as the Tampa Invite that some some teams skyrocket in the polls and the national eye! We'll touch on some key performers and pick some duals/matchs to keep an eye on in Week 2!

In Week 8 of the the NCAA Men's season we are still seeing intense parity as multiple teams visit "Splitsville"-- splitting their pairs of matches during the week. Along with that we're seeing changes in lineups, some intentional, some not. One thing is for sure-- the competitive levels REMAIN. 

As always, the guys discuss the results, pick their top players of the week, then dive into "Whatcha Watchin'" in Week 9. All that with some tangented discussion about "beard games," "Karate Kid" references and other salty remarks by the CVW Coaches' Panel. 

NOTE: We would have discussed the potential of a D2 Championship but we 1) ran out of time, and 2) Dan of Lewis had to leave the episode early. 

Continuation from Episode 209, CVW Beach Top 20 Intro show with the Beach Top 20's new Student-Athlete Contributors!

UCLA's Jaden Whitmarsh gets her own episode because of a schedule conflict with the Beach team when we recorded Episode 209 however, it works out perfectly so that we can find out about her Volleyball/Beach Volleyball career from WAVE Volleyball Club, Torrey Pines High School and now UCLA.

Jaden has always been Ms. Reliable in the clutch and lives for those big moments-- however as you'll see that she has is a great representative of NCAA Collegiate Beach Volleyball-- and hopefully as an AVP regular!

Listen and chime as we our final CVW Beach Top 20 contributor talks about how she got to where she is!

The CVW panel dives quickly into the recap with "The Elephant in the Room" segment that features our Coaches' matches during week 7. Lindenwood got the better end of a match vs. Dan's Flyers, Brad and the Tritons were at the SIAC/Big West Invite in Long Beach, and we discuss Jay's and Theo's wins for the week as well. It was another solid week of action and there still remains one undefeated team at 11-0-- the Lopes of GCU.

We take a peek at some of the top series/matches during week 7, and although there weren't a bunch of surprises one thing does remain clear. If you're not careful anyone can beat anyone on any given night. From there we jump into an "Insights After 7 Weeks" as the coaches assess what we've seen almost at the halfway point of the 2024 season.

Stay listening to catch the "Whatcha Watchin'" segment as the panel selects some good matches to keep your eyes on!

 (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.

Note: We recorded this episode pre-AVCA Beach Top 20 Poll and pre-CollegeBeachVB.com's poll and player/team awards.

The 2024 NCAA Collegiate Beach Volleyball Season is just days away! With that, we thought it would be a great idea to do an "Introduction Episode" for most of our contributors (Jaden Whitmarsh of UCLA had a team dinner) to find out their backgrounds and a little about them. Alli Hansen of Florida St., Kelly Belardi of Stanford, and Kylie Wickley of Texas.

Along with our breaking news (DM Alli or Kylie for context and/or explanation), we discuss the potential top teams and topy athletes to watch out for in 2024, then pick so of the top duals starting Thursday of this week.

Spread the word! The season is going to go quickly!!! Also, be sure to follow our athletes/contributors on Instagram (and their programs also)! 

More lower AVCA-ranked-teams have taken down higher-ranked teams, but the pane all agree that these are not upsets! No. 1 Long Beach St. dueled No. 4 UCLA with a split leaving only one remaining undefeated team-- Grand Canyon! Strong performances by Grant Sloane of UCLA, Hilir Henno of UCI, Mason Briggs of Long Beach St. and Kevin Schuele of PFW to name a few take stage in our discussions!

As teams enter Week 7 most teams have started conference play-- except the Big West!

Stay listening to catch the "Whatcha Watchin'" segment as the panel selects some good matches to keep your eyes on-- like GCU taking on BYU in Provo!

Episode 207, College Volleyball Weekly, Men’s Top 20, Week 5 Recap & Week 6 Preview, 2/5/24

With the play that transpired in Week 5 of the 2024 D1-2 Men's Volleyball season we have to call this "The Tumultuous Top 20!" There were many good battles discussed from this last week along with our Coaching Panel's insights. Too much to write in a description that's for sure! As always the panel picks their top performers of the week and we recognize some key milestones for Head Coach Alan Knipe of Long Beach St. and Sr. OH, Jacob Pasteur of Ohio St.

Stay listening to catch the "Whatcha Watchin'" segment as the MIVA and Conference Carolinas battle in conference play while UCLA & Long Beach St. look to assert themselve as the top dog in the NCAA!

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This last week brought more than a handful of upsets and a multitude of stellar play in the young 2024 NCAA Men's Volleyball season. From Penn St.'s TWO upsets of Ohio St., the remaining undefeated teams of GCU, Stanford and Long Beach St. it has been pure intensity and excitement from week to week. The share their thoughts on Week 4 action, their players of the week and give us insight of what to look for in our "Whatcha Watchin'" in Week 5 segment!

It’s the Dan Friend Birthday Episode!

In this week’s episode Dan Friend shares some information on the recent approval of Division 2 Championships and how it could be implemented in the next few years. Obviously growth in the men’s game is being seen throughout D1 as well with the addition of Menlo College, Vanguard and now William Jessup University. We take a few moments to explore this growth before we go into our normal weekly routine.

When it comes to growth on the men’s side lots of credit has to go to the First Point Foundation, who just hosted the First Point Collegiate Challenge in Austin, TX last weekend where we saw big crowds and larger enthusiasm for the game thanks to Glen & Kathy Lietzke of Austin Juniors!

NOTE: Interviewed Jacob, before the MIVA weekly awards came out. Congrats, Jacob on being selected MIVA Offensive Player of the Week!

Interview with Senior OH, Jacob Pasteur of the current No, 4 Ohio St. Buckeyes, who are off to a stupendous 4-0 start for the 2024 season. A lot of the success has been due to the play of Jacob as he gears up for the 3rd annual First Point Collegiate Challenge in Austin, Texas. 

In our discussion we discuss the end of the 2023 season, the NCAA Men's Volleyball Championship and his summer with the USA Men's National Team. We then chat a little about their early 2024 success so far and heading into this weekend's FPCC. 

This week’s episode starts out my remembering and honoring Tom Tait, the founder of Penn St. Men’s and Women’s Volleyball who passed late last week. He was the catalyst of volleyball in Pennsylvania, the East Coast and EIVA. Coach Tait invested his life into volleyball and the people who were around him—including Russ Rose (PSU WVB) and Mark Pavlik (PSU MVB).

The CVW MT20 crew discusses some of the top matches in Week 2 of the 2024 NCAA Men’s D1-2 Volleyball season that include a few upsets and almost-upsets along with eye-catching performances from the top athletes in the week that include, Camden Gianni and Jackson Hickman of GCU, Jacob Pasteur of Ohio St., and Nolan Flexen of UC Irvine. We then ask the panel if UCLA and Long Beach St. are as good as the polls suggest.

As always, we finish up with key matches to watch in Week 3!

This week our coaching panel of Brad Rostratter of UCSD, Dan Friend of Lewis, Jay Hosack of George Mason and Theo Edwards of CSUN along with host, Rob-on-the-Mic, discuss the following news items of the week:

• Allowance of “The Double” from VolleyballMag.com
• The AVCA Preseason Pol, going to a Top 20 for the first time (hence the name change on the show to CVW MT20)
• 10 Loyola splitting the matches vs. No. 3 Hawaii (Lukas Anderson serving sub 5th set at 12-8, between OC boys (Jake Read, Cole Schlobel), Ramblers went on a 8-1 run to win the match.

However, this episode was more a “freeform discussion” with topics of the experienced referee crew at the Santa Barbara Tournament spearheaded by Rick Olmstead, Tony Chan and John Park. Jay also brought to light the wonderful community work that Rick is doing with the homeless com. As always we talk about the Coaches’ thoughts on the competition we saw in an action-packed Week 1 of the 2024 NCAA D1-2 Men’s Volleyball season. From there we hit the top performers in the CVW crew’s eyes, then pick their wisdom in “Whatcha Watchin’” in Week 2 of the Men’s season.

Happy New Year! Tonight teams begin to take court for the first time in 2024 Men's D1-2 Volleyball season-- and with that HUGE EXCITEMENT! It was IMPERATIVE we at least get some matches we're watching out for this week, but as things would go some great news items have broken so we discuss those also!

We start off with the renaming of the MIVA Championship Trophy; discuss the retiring of MiddleHitter.com's Jerry Strub and his longtime contributions to the game; VolleyballMag.com's "Hotshot Coaches" who have ties to the Men's game; and OTB's Preseason All-Americans.

Of course, we end the episode with the matches that our CVW Coaching Panel will be on their radars for Week 1!

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The BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN... or at least on the CVW Men's Top 15! This week, the guys shout out to a former colleague, David Hunt, who received his 2nd consecutive National Championship as an Associate Head Coach for the Texas Longhorns. From the weeks of NCAA Women's Volleyball Tournament action we saw significant viewership and attendance. The CVW Crew takes a look at how that can impact the Men's/Boys' side. Afterwards, we'll "kinda" preview the 2024 Men's Volleyball season with what the buzz is (or what information is available at the time of our recording)!

0:00:00 - Intro

1:11 – 12:00 – NCAA Women’s Volleyball Championship & Dave Hunt

12:00 – 29:00  NCAA D1-2 New Kids On the Block, NCAA Tournament Auto-Bids, Expansion

29:00 -  Coaching Moves at King University and CUI

31:45 – 2024 Preseason Chatter/Preview

59:00 – Top players to watch

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.

College Volleyball Weekly, Beach Top 20, 11/7/23: In this special AVCA Fall Pairs Championship the newly crowned Pairs National Champions, TCU’s Lina Khmil and Hailey Hamlett share their experience at John Hunt (not Dave Hunt, like Rob “Freudian slipped” for former Men’s Top 15 contributor) Memorial Sports Complex in Huntsville, AL on their road to the National Championship match. We chat a little bit afterward about what the Sandy Frogs could like in 2024 come February!

With the 2023 NCAA Men's Volleyball Championship in Fairfax, VA, a new champion has been crowned-- the UCLA Bruins, however, there was no shortage of excellent play from the opening rounds until the finals. With that, the CVW crew reviews the matches and All-America reception (video available on @robonthemic YouTube), and discusses their thoughts on each match until the final! We had to run through the matches during the week but we'll most likely have one more episode to recap issues and the entire season!

From Tucson, Arizona, to Gulf Shores, Alabama to Fairfax, Virginia, the CVW crew makes due with what they've got to discuss final week of Collegiate Beach Volleyball tournaments, the NCAA selection show, and what to expect at Gulf Shores-- all while on the road! Listen in

The home of the 2023 Men's Volleyball National Championship is at George Mason University's Eagle Bank Arena, so in this bonus episode of College Volleyball Weekly Jay (since Jay was doing NCAA business) shares his thoughts on the conference tournaments that happened this last week, as we go into even more detail of HOW GOOD THIS BRACKET IS (HUGE KUDOS TO THE NCAA COMMITTEE)!

Jay and Rob discuss some of the eye-catching athletes and matches leading up to the teams' automatic qualification, the At-Large selections and the resulting matchups that could occur as the National Championships begin Sunday!

NOTE: Due to technical difficulties I'm working through there are no intros/bumpers. Hopefully they'll be back soon! Instead, we jump right into the nitty-gritty. Timestamps MAY become available but my tech issues have usurped A LOT of time. Sorry.

First of all, thank you to all the listeners who came up and introduced themselves to Rob at the Big West Men's Volleyball Championship!

This week the CVW Coaching Panel (minus Jay Hosack) of Dan Friend of Lewis, Brad Rostratter of UCSD and Theo Edwards of CSUN get down to tourney business! We all chat on some of the eye-catching and NOT-SO surprising outcomes and results. After words they dives into their thoughts on the NCAA Committees Tournament selection and seedings. Did the committee get it right? Listen in!

Also, will discuss the teams and athletes to look out for in Fairfax along with some chatter on the matchups!

NOTE: You'll notice some differences in this week's episode. Had some technical difficulties producing. Hopefully normal format episodes will be back out next week! Thanks for listening!

This week, the CVW crew looks to the trees! The trees of Stanford in special guest and Freshman standout, Kelly Belardi and usual suspect, Charlie Ekstrom. This week saw very little movement in the CollegeBeachVB.com poll between 11-20, however, with upsets galore in the top 10 delve into the results and the teams that "made the move" last week. We'll also discuss conference tournament and NCAA at-large bid implications, and how it's going to be a slugfest for the 8 at-large bids.

Week 15 of the NCAA Men's Volleyball season has concluded and the remaining conference tournaments (outside of the MIVA) will be in full effect!

This week the CVW Coaches' panel share there thoughts on each of the conferences' regular seasons and what to look for in their conferences' tournaments. The MIVA already featured one conference tournament upset, but can more be had as the Conference Carolinas, Big West, MPSF, EIVA start up, while the MIVA goes into the semis & finals!

NOTE: Remember to get your tickets to the NCs in Fairfax, VA! 

As we move closer to the postseason we discuss Top-20 results that included some top-10 upsets, and how they've affected voters' analysis in the CollegeBeachVolleyball.com and AVCA polls. Then the CVW Beach crew discusses the conference scenarios for the AQ berth and the 13 potential teams that will be vying for 8 At-Large berths. 

As always, we discuss what we'll be keeping an eye on in Week 8-- which for all of us will be the Center of Effort Challenge being hosted by Cal Poly, that will feature #1 TCU, #2 USC, #3 UCLA, #4 Florida St., #6 LMU, #11 Long Beach St., #20 Pepperdine and Cal Poly. It promises to be absolute brawls on the sands of Cal Poly!

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 Gauchos were on a mission to start 2025-- to get back into the Big West Women's Volleyball Championship-- which they have done. They're running one of the best 2-setter offenses in the land with potent attackers all-around. OH Eva Travis and MB Layanna Green talk about the season so far and what Gauchos potential could be in this year's championship.

The Mustangs had a strong and talented group of athletes coming back for 2025, and with that the goal of playing in their 3rd Big West Championship! Talking about their Cal Poly team with the No. 2 seed of the Hawaiian Islands presents the Outrigger Big West Women's Volleyball Championship are Kendall Beshear and Ally Elif Hurriyet.

Be sure to jump into ESPN+ November 26th-29th to watch the action! Rob Espero and former Long Beach St. standout, USC Beach National Champion, and pro beach volleyball athlete Hailey Harward are on the call!