The panorama of school sports activities was rocked to the core not too long ago when one in all its longtime flagship conferences, the Pac-12, appeared on the verge of disintegration.
We knew that UCLA and USC have been leaving for the Massive Ten, however then Oregon and Washington hopped on the bandwagon. Colorado introduced it could depart the Pac-12 for the Massive 12, and when Oregon and Washington bolted, Arizona, Arizona State and Utah joined the Massive 12, too.
All that’s left of the staggering Pac-12 are Stanford, California, Oregon State and Washington State. The storied “Convention of Champions” doesn’t have a media-rights deal for the 2024-25 sports activities 12 months and past, and the current defections make touchdown a profitable one amid transitional instances in TV extra problematic.
For soccer, basketball and even ladies’s indoor volleyball, convention realignment will evoke profound ramifications to schedules and journey.
However will NCAA seashore volleyball be equally affected?
Most likely not.
Seashore volleyball stays within the formative levels, with roughly 20% of the greater than 300 colleges which have Division I ladies’s indoor groups sanctioning the sand sport. The overwhelming majority of the seashore packages are positioned in coastal states and most are in warm-weather climates, just about a necessity because it’s a spring sport that runs from late February by way of the NCAA Championships in early Might.
The highest groups all just about play one another in multi-squad weekend competitions, so realignment probably could have little impact on scheduling. Packages are restricted to 16 aggressive occasions in the course of the common season, which many collegiate coaches contend shouldn’t be sufficient, and groups usually will mess around 30-32 duals.
Within the brief time period, the 2024 seashore season must be enterprise as regular, for the reason that Pac-12 exodus gained’t hit till the 2024-25 sports activities 12 months that begins within the fall. The most important speedy query is the standing of the Coastal Collegiate Sports activities Affiliation, which is all the way down to 4 groups after TCU and Missouri State joined Convention USA.
The CCSA’s 4 remaining packages are LSU, Florida State, Grand Canyon and South Carolina, all of which have been ranked among the many high 17 within the remaining 2023 AVCA seashore ballot, so the league has sturdy underpinnings. Nonetheless, the CCSA wants so as to add not less than two groups to maintain its automated bid to the NCAA Championship. One attainable addition may be Texas, which in its second season on the sand intends to ratchet up its recruiting of beach-only athletes after snaring Stein Metzger as its coach. Metzger loved large success at UCLA, together with two NCAA championships and two nationwide runners-up finishes.
Looking forward to 2025 offers a greater diversity of prospects. The breakup of the Pac-12 looms massive as a result of the convention is loaded with powerhouse packages. The one groups to win NCAA titles for the reason that sport performed its first NCAA nationwide championships in 2016 have been USC (2016, ‘17, ‘21, ‘22 and ‘23) and UCLA (2018 and ‘19). Of the Pac-12’s 9 seashore packages, six have been ranked among the many high 20 within the remaining 2023 AVCA ballot and 4 performed within the 17-team NCAA Championships.
The Massive Ten (Nebraska has a workforce that performs a restricted schedule), Massive 12, SEC and ACC don’t sanction seashore volleyball. One choice for the 9 current Pac-12 members in 2025 merely can be to play as independents. Beneath that state of affairs, the NCAAs would have one fewer automated bid and the indies wouldn’t take pleasure in enjoying in a convention match.
An alternate may be for the Pac-12 groups to fold into current all-sports conferences that sponsor seashore volleyball as affiliate members. USC and UCLA may be a part of Southern California rivals Loyola Marymount and Pepperdine within the West Coast Convention. Washington and Oregon might hop into the Massive West. Stanford and Cal may go into both.
A risk for Arizona, Arizona State and Utah might be the CCSA, which sponsors competitors in seashore volleyball and males’s and girls’s swimming and diving. Or might the MPSF (Mountain Pacific Sports activities Federation, during which Pac-12 colleges compete in water polo and males’s volleyball) add seashore?
However now let’s contemplate what may occur if the Massive Ten have been to get on board with seashore volleyball. USC, UCLA, Oregon, Washington and Nebraska would have groups, though the Huskers squad at current serves extra as a coaching various for its powerhouse indoor program.
Another college from the 18-member Massive Ten can be all that’s wanted to be a acknowledged convention with presumably an automated NCAA bid. The Massive Ten has quite a lot of indoor packages with rabid fan bases which may make seashore a viable choice. One coach instructed us privately if that college provides seashore it should have a totally separate employees and program or it’s a no-go.
What concerning the Massive 12?
TCU might return house from C-USA and can be joined to Arizona State, Arizona, Utah, and maybe displaced Stanford and Cal as associates. Proper there’s a sturdy six-team league that might argue for an automated bid.
However even with these prospects, the basic nature of school seashore volleyball doesn’t determine to transform. The “haves” — USC, UCLA, TCU, Florida State, LSU, Loyola Marymount, Hawaii — are extremely prone to proceed to populate the highest half of the weekly high 20, the following stage would be the scrappy underdogs and the underside third could have enjoyable enjoying towards one another.