NCAA Girls
December 28, 2023
There has by no means been a season prefer it.
NCAA girls’s volleyball attendance and TV rankings have been damaged seemingly on daily basis. The competitors was unbelievable and curiosity has by no means been larger. Right here at VolleyballMag, we have now shattered our earlier greatest page-views report and NCAA girls’s volleyball was an enormous a part of that accomplishment.
Right here’s a chronological look again at 2023 and our high NCAA girls’s posts. Click on on any highlighted hyperlink to learn that story from a 12 months that amazed us all through.
There was great curiosity in two interviews we did with retiring coaches, Joe Sagula of North Carolina and Dave Rubio of Arizona. The veteran stalwarts of our sport had so much to say about their jobs and the way a lot school volleyball has modified:
One in every of our most seen posts was Lincoln Arneal’s February Q&A with Nebraska coach John Prepare dinner:
Talking of Nebraska, this was an enormous story in February when Nebraska introduced it will play a match in its soccer stadium. There have been, after all, extra tales to come back about that occasion:
This story the day earlier than the match was an enormous hit:
After which Nebraska performed Omaha earlier than 92,003. Arneal coated it and Matt Smith had some nice images:
Two tales that went up three days aside have been fairly important. The primary introduced Jaime Gordon as the brand new government director of the AVCA; the second instructed concerning the loss of life of longtime American College coach Barry Goldberg, a fantastic man taken from us means too quickly by most cancers:
One characteristic that was spot on was Chuck Curti’s piece about Grand Canyon and the way it was making large strides in girls’s, seaside and males’s volleyball:
Photographer Zach Schuster confirmed he can write, too, with this piece on former Wisconsin setter Sydney Hilley, who made a Madison homecoming with Athletes Limitless final April:
Dennis Punzel previewed Wisconsin’s journey to Europe which was fairly an journey:
This characteristic was one thing else. Chuck Curti wrote about former Japanese Michigan outdoors Franki Strefling, who has grow to be a professional wrestler:
Proper earlier than the season we have been capable of get the band again collectively for a video as Emily Ehman and I have been joined by Notre Dame coach Salima Rockwell and Southern Miss coach Jenny Hazelwood:
We have been solely capable of get collectively yet one more time, a month later, however man did we chuckle:
Curti featured Howard’s Rya McKinnon, who went on to repeat because the MEAC participant of the 12 months:
Curti wrote about Western Michigan, which went on to win the MAC and pull off the primary large upset of the NCAA Match:
We launched the VolleyballMag.com Tremendous 16 Media Ballot on September 25 and it was an enormous weekly hit. We had an amazing panel. Right here’s the primary one:
And right here’s the final VBM Ballot, from November 27, with hyperlinks to each week’s story.
We had so many humorous Zooms with Emily Ehman, however this one the place she met the Jonas Brothers was one thing else:
Cassidy Lichtman, the previous Stanford All-American and USA national-team participant and now the director of volleyball for Athletes Limitless, wrote an essay for us concerning the state of volleyball and famous that “the most important push is but to come back. I can not wait till volleyball is cemented into mainstream tradition and conversations and it’s going to take all of our collective efforts to get there.”
After the NCAA choice present, Emily and I interviewed, so as, Nebraska libero Lexi Rodriguez; Pittsburgh coach Dan Fisher; Stanford setter Kami Miner; Holly Strauss-O’Brien, the chair of the NCAA Division I girls’s volleyball committee; Oregon coach Matt Ulmer; Wisconsin coach Kelly Sheffield; and Kentucky coach Craig Skinner.
It was an adrenaline-filled night time and the Zoom went nice:
As soon as the sphere was introduced, we had options on Fairfield, Japanese Illinois and USC’s Skylar Fields:
We had all 4 regional ultimate match tales as Pittsburgh, then Nebraska, adopted by Wisconsin, and at last Texas obtained into the NCAA nationwide semifinals:
Then got here Nebraska’s win over Pitt earlier than Texas upset Wisconsin:
We obtained to interview new NCAA president Charlie Baker earlier than the NCAA title match:
Ultimately, it was Texas, and the Longhorns’ victory over Nebraska that produced one other report crown and nice TV rankings:
And at last, we introduced the VolleyballMag.com All-American groups, participant, coach and freshman of the 12 months:
As famous above, this was a report 12 months for us, too, and it’s all due to our readers. In order we head into 2024, an enormous thanks from VolleyballMag!