Vital modifications will hit the panorama of school seashore volleyball in 2025, at the same time as one telling query stays unanswered for the upcoming season.
The breakup of the Pac-12 Convention, house to a number of of the faculty sport’s most profitable applications, was a catalyst for the Mountain Pacific Sports activities Federation so as to add seashore volleyball to the sports activities it sanctions for the 2024-25 faculty yr.
The addition to the Massive 12 of three colleges with beach-volleyball groups prompted that well-established league so as to add the game for 2024-25. The information from each conferences broke final week and can take impact for the 2025 sand season.
The MPSF lengthy has sponsored males’s indoor volleyball in its catch-all menu that features swimming and diving, water polo and gymnastics. Its startup girls’s seashore lineup will embody six groups displaced from the Pac-12 — USC, UCLA, Oregon, Washington, California and Stanford — together with Grand Canyon, which can transfer from the CCSA.
In most different sports activities, USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington will belong to the Massive Ten, Cal and Stanford to the Atlantic Coast Convention, and Grand Canyon to the Western Athletic Convention. UCLA, USC, Stanford and Grand Canyon are MPSF members in males’s indoor volleyball.
Some powerhouse sand applications will discover a new house there, notably USC and UCLA, the one groups to win NCAA titles since seashore volleyball obtained full sanction in 2016. Grand Canyon, Stanford and Cal earned bids to the 17-team discipline for the 2022 NCAA Championship, during which USC defeated UCLA within the remaining to three-peat as nationwide champs.
“Amidst a lot change on the planet of collegiate athletics, it’s nice to see the steps which might be being taken to be able to promote the expansion and visibility of seashore volleyball,” USC coach Dain Blanton stated in a launch from the MPSF. “USC becoming a member of the Massive Ten Convention was actually an enormous step in the fitting path, and we’re excited to have the ability to keep a excessive degree of competitors among the many groups that we are going to be a part of the MPSF with.
“The MPSF has been a unbelievable accomplice all through this course of and has lengthy served as a robust West Coast presence for therefore many sports activities, together with males’s volleyball once I was a student-athlete (at Pepperdine).”
A numbers conundrum
The Massive 12 could have 4 groups: TCU, Arizona State, Arizona and Utah. The latter three joined the convention within the wake of the Pac-12’s collapse and the highly effective Horned Frogs, a Massive 12 member in different sports activities, will transfer over after a one-year keep in Convention USA. Ranked No. 1 within the AVCA ballot for a lot of the 2022 season, TCU was an NCAA semifinalist, eradicated 3-2 by the champion Trojans.
The NCAA requires six members for a convention to realize an computerized bid to the nationwide championship. In its launch, the Massive 12 famous, “Participation numbers can be delivered to ranges that permit the Convention to qualify for nationwide championship tournaments.”
Which may imply extra current Massive 12 members might add seashore volleyball or the league may decide up affiliate members. Seemingly not noted within the chilly beneath this alignment are Florida State, LSU, South Carolina and Texas, which demonstrated its intentions of turning into a considerable presence on the sand by hiring Stein Metzger, previously of UCLA, as coach. FSU was a semifinalist and LSU a quarterfinalist within the 2022 NCAAs.
The mass exodus from the Pac-12 is not going to happen till August, which means the scenario for the upcoming 2024 season is unchanged. The remaining sticky wicket is what’s occurring with the CCSA, which is all the way down to 4 groups and thus wouldn’t be eligible for an computerized NCAA bid.
In a wide-ranging interview with Volleyball Journal on Friday, LSU Coach Russell Brock offered some readability on the CCSA’s standing. Brock’s Sandy Tigers have been a perennial nationwide energy, incomes bids to the NCAA tourney in every of his seven seasons on the helm, and he was VolleyballMag.com’s 2018 Nationwide Coach of the Yr. Russell’s merchandise embody Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss, on a path to symbolize the USA within the 2024 Paris Video games, presently No. 2 on the planet within the Olympic seashore rankings.
“Our efforts are attempting to take care of our convention. We’ve got 4 groups, all high-quality applications (FSU, LSU, Grand Canyon and South Carolina), and on our finish of issues, we’ve petitioned the NCAA to permit us to retain our computerized qualifier,” Brock advised us. “That request just isn’t essentially unroutine, so we count on that may purchase us a yr. Notably in a yr when there’s a lot occurring. It could give us a while to form of get our toes on the bottom and actually have a greater plan shifting ahead.
“It’s not as if that computerized qualifier (from the CCSA) would go to a group that shouldn’t be there. It’s most likely going to be a group that wouldn’t want the automated qualifier anyway to make the sector. That’s the fantastic thing about (these applications) being nearly as good as they’ll probably be, in that the automated qualifier is a pleasant backup plan. (LSU) has been within the NCAAs yearly since 2017 and we by no means have been an computerized qualifier, but we’ve completed within the high 5 within the nation time and again.”
CCSA: Will it keep or will it go?
The Coastal Collegiate Sports activities Affiliation is one other catch-all entity that additionally sanctions males’s and girls’s swimming and diving, primarily for Jap colleges. It stepped into the breach throughout seashore volleyball’s extra youth.
“Two or three years in the past, we had 20 groups in our convention, however different conferences began choosing them off when (the panorama) began altering,” Brock stated. “Now subsequent yr can be no totally different, one other huge change. The Pac-12 dissolved, these groups need to go locations they usually have began to search out some houses.”
Brock famous Grand Canyon’s exit from the league to the Massive 12, however added that Texas, which can be a brand new member of the SEC, plans to affix the CCSA in 2025. The Longhorns will stay as an impartial in 2024.
“Our complete thought course of is to maintain our SEC colleges — LSU, South Carolina and Texas — collectively. Our applications’ dedication is that we’re going to keep collectively wherever we find yourself. If that finally ends up being the CCSA, Florida State would nonetheless be there, so the hassle could be to fill in one other couple gaps. But when we do one thing else, which is on the desk so far as us exploring alternatives, then we are going to do this collectively.
“The grasp plan, the last word objective, could be to have a couple of extra SEC colleges launch their applications after which play for the perfect championship you would play for in seashore volleyball, an SEC championship. Maybe the addition of Texas will affect another SEC colleges to be dedicated to beginning, then we are able to get a real SEC going. However there is no such thing as a timeline on that.”
Within the shorter time period, nonetheless, the choice that maybe offers the road of least resistance could be to fold the three SEC groups, plus FSU, into the Massive 12. That may create a extremely aggressive eight-team league. South Florida, which competes within the American Athletic Convention in different sports activities, will add seashore volleyball in 2025 and is likely to be an addition to the Massive 12. SEC member Florida has been rumored as probably hopping on the seashore bandwagon and the Gators would undertaking as instant nationwide energy.
“The Massive 12 possibility positively is one being thought-about,” Brock stated. “The Massive 12 is a longtime convention they usually know methods to run a league. They’ve bylaws and procedures that we must discuss by way of. However these are issues for directors, and we for positive are within the midst of these conversations to see what’s going to be finest.
“How can we transfer ahead whereas defending our little group, and nonetheless look at alternatives to shift gears and do one thing a little bit bit totally different? We need to compete on the highest degree in opposition to the very best groups that we probably can, and it’s an enormous plus to have that convention affiliation and the automated qualifier.”
Flipping again to the 2024 season, Brock emphasised that the CCSA possible would soldier on with 4 members even when the NCAA doesn’t grant its waiver for its champion to obtain an computerized bid to the NCAAs.
“It’s a matter of getting that convention affiliation, and having the perks corresponding to all-conference groups, the power to create some worth outdoors of truly enjoying for the championship even,” he stated. “These elements as a collegiate student-athlete are useful, they’re enjoyable they usually’re price preventing for.”
That features enjoying a convention event even when just for an added week of competitors vs. apply time main into the NCAAs, and the distinction of being referred to as CCSA champion.
“From my standpoint, a convention event could be properly price it,” Brock stated. “For us to have the ability to play Florida State, South Carolina and Grand Canyon, even when it’s simply us 4, we are able to set it up with a pool main into a little bit bracket, it makes a ton of sense. Any high quality competitors you get down the stretch is a big profit, an amazing coaching alternative, with the added bonus that we’re enjoying for a convention championship.”