The Viral Volley Podcast: Recent Episodes

Viral Volley Media

Volleyball from sport court to the sand court-- from the preps to the pros and beyond. Home of College Volleyball Weekly Indoor/Beach. Episodes drop “most weeks.” Follow the pod on Instagram at @viralvolleypodcast!

In this Viral Volley Podcast/CVW crossover episode, Rob checks in with former Cornerstone Christian super star, Megan Fitch, who finished a remarkable first year at Texas A&M as a National Champion!

From their meeting at the Durango Fall Classic in 2023 (Rob may have said 2024 in this episode) along with Aggie alumna and USA National Team Libero and Olympic Silver Medalist Stacy Sykora who were on the call at the event, it was apparent Head Coach Jamie Morrison had a talented athlete coming his way! Rob gave a shout out to one of Megan’s former Warrior teammate, Kaia Thiele of UNLV!

We talk about Megan’s first season in training, media days, playing in front of massive crowds at national powerhouses and competition through the 2025 season. Naturally, we discuss her freshman experience going into her first NCAA Women’s Volleyball Tournament and how Head Coach Jamie Morrison dialed in the Aggies for their title run!

With the 2026 season coming into view, Megan gives some thoughts as to what we can see competition wise for the Aggies and the gauntlet of a schedule Texas A&M will have to kick off the year!

Thanks for watching and listening “The Viral Volley Podcast” on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts!

In this episode of the Viral Volley Podcast, the former PVF/MLV superstar and now LOVB Austin OH Brooke Nuneviller joins Rob on the “Names in the Game.” Brooke dropped a HUGE announcement back in May that she would NOT be returning to Omaha, but everyone knew something else was on the horizon for the Chandler, AZ native.

Brooke reflects on her time in Omaha with her 2 Championships and Best Outside Hitter hardware in her time as a Supernova. She shares about some of her favorite (setter) teammates, favorite teams to compete against and other anecdotes in her time in Omaha.

The conversation then moves towards what the future holds for the former Oregon Duck All-American in Austin, as she combines forces with a rock-solid LOVB roster. With Brooke, joining LOVB she’s one of the few “unicorns” in the American professional volleyball to play internationally (Turkiye), don the USA WNT uniform and in the 3 American women’s professional leagues of Athletes Unlimited, Pro Volleyball Federation/Major League Volleyball and now, LOVB.

Without a doubt, Brooke has some great matches ahead of her, along with the support of Gorjana and Mizuno!

As always, thanks for watching or listening!

In this Episode of the Viral Volley Podcast, ascending pro volleyball athlete Alaina Chacon jumps after she and partner Maddie Anderson go 2-0 at the opening weekend of the AVP League in Belmar, NJ.

Before that weekend, Alaina has always been one of those "watchlist" athletes from her days in HS indoor, to Florida St., and now the Beach Pro Tour and the AVP. One of three tallented sisters, Alaina has been a switch-blocker on the beach but has also been a lightning quick defender with a full toolbox of attacks-- that include a very heavy hammer. This week she reflects on her volleyball beginnings, getting discovered by coaches Hector Gutierrez of TCU and Brooke Niles at Florida St.

After finding success at the collegiate beach game she ventured into coaching and eventually her pro career where she has continued to find success at both the BPT and AVP! How she had to find a partner rather quickly at the start of the 2026 season being that sister, Morgan was carrying her first baby for Auntie Alaina! What did she do? Did she "...slip into Maddie's (Anderson) DMs?" Nope. She just texted her :).

Listen in!

After taking a much needed week off the Coaches' Panel of Nickie Sanlin of McKendree, Jay Hosack of George Mason, Brad Rosstratter of UC San Diego, Theo Edwards of CSUN and Dan Friend of Lewis (for a brief moment) jump into this mega-closeout episode to talk about the NCAA Championship match crowing the University of Hawaii as the 2026 National Champions. Along with that a lot of news of top names turning pro before the completion of their collegiate careers as well as athletes changing teams. With that, we move into the effects of "The Portal."

As always, we end with a fan favorite, "Jay's Hot Takes!"

NOTE: A special thank you to all of you who have followed the podcast during the 2026 NCAA Men's Volleyball season. We truly and deeply appreciate all your support, comments, messages and friendly conversations with those of you who have contacted us or said, "Hello," to us! We may do some special topics over the summer, or even track our USA Men's teams!

It's the first Viral Volley Podcast of the summer! To kick it off former Florida St. and LMU Beach standout Avery Poppinga shares about the start of her volleyball journey struggling with scoliosis, playing in Texas, to Florida St. and finally to Loyola Marymount. Avery talks about the wonderful, yet different coaching she received from Brooke Niles and John Mayer and additional back issues she suffered with during COVID.

Avery then discusses her current life as a pro-beach volleyball athlete and how she is navigating the pursuit of her dreams, traveling across the USA and the world competing in multiple tours, which has lead her to OnlyFans. Avery, along with other pro-beach standouts Alaina Chacon, Falyn Fonoimoana and Hagen Smith are featured on "Perfect Set" on OFTV-- a competition to see which pro can coach their team to a $50,000 grand prize! Visit the URLs below to check out the former Lion's ventures!

"Perfect Set" Series on OFTV: https://of.tv/c/perfect-set

Avery's OnlyFans Site: https://onlyfans.com/averypoppinga

The title speaks for itself, but specifically the panel taks about the AVCA Player of the Year, and the TWO great semfinal matches! May add more to the description later but I've got to jump on the mic. Posted at 2:49 PM BEFORE the championship match!

This week only Jay and Rob were available for this week's discussion amid the AVCA and NCAA Men's Volleyball Committee members' responsibilities this week (Yes, Rob is also "doing stuff" for the AVCA). That being said, the discussion goes to the 2026 NCAA National Championship Volleyball Tournament at their regional sites, the top performers, interesting stat lines, and other related issues that arose from the exciting play that we encountered at the regionals!

Sorry, Rob may or may not get to the timestamps. He has a hard deadline to get the episode out in the Pod-Realm!

Sydney Miller of Hawaii and Rob touch on the conference tournaments across the nation winning automatic berths fand punching their tickets to Gulf Shores for the 2026 National Collegiate Beach Volleyball Championship!

Announced recently was the AVCA Collegiate Beach Player of the Year Finalist list and as expected, it should be a tough decision for the AVCA panel to choose between the FSU or UCLA girls.

From there we talk about the matchups to kick off the opening round of the NCAA Championships. See what Sydney and Rob had to say about the matchups and drop some insight as to who to watch for in the pairs!

Thanks for listening and apologies for the missed episodes the last few weeks!

The CVW crew is joined once again by McKendree Head Coach, Nickie Sanlin, as we talk about most of the big conference tournament results. We bounce all over the place with a few of the contributors having to attend to other responsibilities, but we try to hit on all the top matches, performances and news of the last 7-10 days! We discuss whether the NCAA Committee (with Dan Friend) got the right teams in-- and even consulted ChatGPT TWICE and even IT AGREED! Although we joked it was "Easy" this year to pick the at-large berths, we know they were at the grindstone for the entire season!

With the brackets set, all the panelists are heading over to volleyballrankings.com to fill out their 2026 NCAA Men's Volleyball Championship Bracket! You should jump over there also and play for fun!

Thanks for listening and apologies for the missed episode last week!

It’s a MEGA episode this week with special guest contributor, Nickie Sanlin of McKendree. Nickie has been one of the most influential coaches in the game not only in the NCAA but in the USANTDP and is what some may classify as a “mover and a shaker.”

Our almost-2-hour discussion delves into all the panelists’ matches, key performers and the state of where their teams are at in conference play as some head into their final weekend of regular season play, while others are opening their conference tournaments this weekend.

As always, we pick a handful of top-20 matches that caught the nation’s eye with exciting play, upsets to shake up seedings, and standout performances by some great student-athletes. Still much to be sorted out this last week in relation to conference seedings, so we know ALL matches this week are worth watching to see the exciting conclusion!

The panel drops their “Ballers of the Week” and fire off on “Jay’s Quick Hits” or “Hot Takes” to round out the episode!

This week's format is an open-forum for the coaches' panel to select the matches and topics we discuss from Week 14. Everything from multiple red cards to "Libero of the Year Award" for the AVCA!

With Hawaii sweeping the series vs. UCI, the Bows appear to be in the driver's seat for the No. 1 seed in the Big West Men's Volleyball Championship. The MIVA will be entertaining to see how it settles before that conference tournament, with Ball St. narrowly leading Loyola for the top seed. EIVA is not a lock-- yet-- especially since the Nittany Lions finish up their regular season at 2nd place George Mason.

This week Kelly Belardi rejoins CVW Beach to recap the week that was for the Stanford Cardinal that had them reclaim the No. 1 AVCA Coaches' Poll ranking for 3rd time in 2026. Kelly also gives some insight on couple of the top 10 teams to watch in the final 3 weekends of regular season play. Last weekend, Kelly achieved the 100th Career Win milestone so she also shared how important her teammates were in accomplishing that feat. In addition, Kelly and partner, Avery Jackson were honored as the AVCA National and MPSF Pair of the Week! The Stanford Cardinal are "gunning for the top" hoping to defend their MPSF Beach Tournament Champion title but are aware that teams are better and deeper than ever!

From there, we break down a couple of the hot teams during Week 6: #5 Florida St. & #3 Texas.

In the Week 13 recap, we saw a week were there were no upsets in the top 10, however it didn't mean there was a shortage of action! Long Beach St. took down Theo's Matadors twice, while Brad and his Tritons were in the battle but UCI found a way to get it done in 3 and 5 sets accordingly. Dan and his Flyers only had one match for the week in the Battle for Chitown on Rae Strong Night, where the Ramblers came out with the win in 4. UCLA is at 20-0 and looking unstoppable, while Pepperdine had a very important pair of wins Provo vs. BYU that cold prove important if an At-Large bid is on the line. Just a few samples of our discussions before we pick our "Ballers of the Week,"

NOTE: For those requesting time-stamps, we apologize for not posting them. Rob has to get the episode up within an hour of recording so we have to turn the episode around REALLY FAST.

As always, thanks for watching or listening!

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This week saw top teams like UCLA, Stanford, USC and TCU idle, however that didn't stop the rest of the other top teams from pulling off big wins, like #9 Cal over #4 Texas, and #16 GCU over #12 LSU. University of Hawaii's Sydney Miller and Rob review and recap Week 5 of the NCAA Collegiate Beach season as we inch closer to conference tournament time and begin looking at At-Large berth scenarios! Throughout the episode we discuss a few career milestones for some Mustangs, Seminoles and a Sundevil!

Thanks for watching or listening!

This week we remember Ann Davenport after her unexpected passing last week. She was truly a volleyball pioneer helping the game grow in so many aspects.

In our “Social Media Shoutout” segment, @lewismensvb is recognized for their viral post of the week—a celebrity doppelganger with one of their current OHs, Daniel Haber.

We got through our Week 12 recap focusing on some of the top 20’s matches that received national attention, spending some extra time on the No. 2 Long Beach St. vs. No. 3 Hawaii matches, picked our players of the week, then dropped some “Whatcha Watchin’” matches for Week 13.

To end our episode, “Jay’s Quick Hits,” brings some interesting questions about team culture and must-have equipment as the panel responds in not-so-lightning-quick speed.

After a two-week break, Sydney Miller of Hawaii and Rob Espero breakdown some of the top tidbits of the top-10-ish teams in the most recent AVCA polls. There were minor shifts in the top 10 this week, but all within expectations. A lot of discussion on East Meets West in Manhattan Beach and the FAU Invitational where a few unexpected results arose involving USC, Florida St. and TCU.

Thanks for listening/watching and following!

As always, we start off "shouting out" some of our Men's Volleyball digital content providers, and this week it's Lee Feinswog of 900 Square Feet and @flicksbyry_!

In the 300th episode (on Viral Volley Media) we’ve got an NCAA Men’s Championship Volleyball Recap in Week 11 that saw No. 1 UCLA remain undefeated—which beckons the question, “Can the Bruins be beaten?” Also, Penn St. makes a West Coast swing vs. Long Beach St., Pepperdine and USC as Coach Pav continues his retirement tour. Stanford snatches a couple wins against No 7 BYU that could prove to me huge come MPSF Tournament time while celebrating Volleyball Day in the Bay. The then-No. 11 UCSB Gauchos split their Big West series vs. No. 4 UCI behind George Breuning and the mustache-clad Cole Schobel. The Coaches’ Panel chat about a few other matches, then we go into the new HOT segment— “Jay’s Quick Hits,” and this one is a doozy!

Thanks for listening/watching and following!

In Episode 299 CVW Men’s Top 20 is graced with the guest appearance of Princeton Head Coach, Sam Shweisky. Sam joins the crew to talk about some of the top 20 matches during the 10th week of the Men’s Collegiate season. Each week, the MIVA seems to have more mayhem as teams jostle for positioning for post-season play. The Waves split with the Bows for an entertaining series, Belmont Abbey and Mt. Olive are vying for the top spot in the Conference Carolinas, while the “Battle for LA” proved that the lone defeated team in the nation can turn it on in crunch time.

From there the crew selects their “Ballers of the Week,” and matches they’ll be watching in Week 11. We finish the episode with a new favorite segment, “Jay’s Quick Hits,” where the coaches answer some interesting topics in Men’s Volleyball!

Thanks for watching and/or listening! #NCAAMVB

This week, we go through our normal routine of recognizing digital content creators in the Men’s game. This week it was reported that the Official Fan Account for NCAA Men’s Volleyball, @ncaamvb surpassed 22.6 MILLION views! Great news for #ncaavb, but even better news for Men’s Volleyball! In our news segment we remember Steven Lee Sander, father to Taylor and Brenden, two wonderful personalities in Men’s Volleyball. Other news for the week, had former Stanford All-American Matt Fuerbringer being named as Head Coach of the USAV Beach Team as well. From there we go into the “Elephant in the Room,” that highlights the Coaching Panelists’ matches in Week 9, “Eye Catching Matches” of the week and finally, the panel’s “Ballers/Players of the Week.”

New this week, is “Jay’s Quick Hits” segment where we bounce a handful of NCAA Men’s Volleyball questions/topics on the spot for a hot take!

Thanks for listening and following! #ncaamvb #ncaamvolleyball #ncaavolleyball

This week’s episode brings on Arizona St.’s Arden Besecker and Kendall Whitmarsh fresh off the most recent AVCA poll and the first named conference pairs of the week across the nation! Arden and Kendall discuss last year’s journey for the Sun Devils as they had another great season under Head Coach Kristen Glattfelder being on the verge of heading to Gulf Shores!

Both the Sun Devils share a little about their 2026 team and recap their 1st week of play which grabbed the attention of the voters in the most recent poll, as ASU thrusts up 2 places from #11 to #9. Along with the climb, Arden and partner, Zoey Taylor, and Kendall and her partner, Olivia McElroy went 4-0 on the weekend. The latter were named Big 12 Pair of the Week!

We discuss what matches and results grabbed their attention in Week 1– which all happened on Queen’s Beach in Waikiki, HI at the Duke Kahanamoku Classic!

Thanks for listening/watching!

In our Week 8 recap of the 2026 season the Coaches’ Panel (minus Dan out with the flu)

discusses the action that happened in D1-2 Men’s Volleyball at our half way point!

But first, we shout out our Instagram content creators @1stseedvolleyball’s John McNallly and

Holly Wong of @hykchora for putting out excellent and engaging content in Men’s

Volleyball!

From there we discuss the start of a new D2 program at Mercy University, career milestones

for Kevin Burch of Ohio St. and Shawn Olmstead of BYU. As always wee flow into

our “Elephant in the Room” segment to our matches of the week and our Ballers

of the Week.

Our conversation flows into “Whatcha Watchin’” in Week 9 and we end with dropping a “Volleyball

Hot Take”—for which I recommend you take a good listen!

As always, thank you for watching/listening!

As we kick off the 2026 NCAA Beach season, Sydney Miller of Hawaii jumps on to chat with Rob about the first-ever AVCA Player of the Year Watchlist while breaking down the top-10-ish teams in the AVCA Preseason Poll. Of course we drop a lot of names because that list could have been bigger, but there is such an abundance of talent on teams' rosters-- to a point where some did not get mentioned!

CVW BT20 will change format for this season (listen to the episode to find out why), but no matter what we'll have at least Sydney on the show for a chat of the Top 20 Tidbits/Results!

Thanks for listening/watching! #NCAABEACH

Our Week 7 recap mean’s we’re coming upon the half-way point of the 2026 NCAA Men’s Collegiate Volleyball season! Tteams are turning heads as conference play in the EIVA and MIVA have made us expect the unexpected! Meanwhile, Non-conference clashes have teams butting heads to keep records unblemished, establish nonconference superiority and get quality wins under teams’ belts! The CVW crew runs down the Week 7 recap all the way down to the No. 1 team in the nation, but not before our special guests from the MPSF join us!

From there, the guys pick their Ballers of the Week and drop the matches they’ll be keeping dabs on in “Whatcha Watchin’!”

Thanks for watching/listening! Spread the word, and click on subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and/or on YouTube!

Illness and technical difficulties made this episode a little choppy but it didn’t matter as the Coaches’ Panel dropped their recaps, insights and opinions on an action-packed Week 6!

Discussion includes “Social Media Shout Outs” to Vinnie Lopes of Off-the-Block Blog and a family of digital media creators of the Zapanta family (Jay, Rachel and Noah)! From there we chat about some of the top matches of the week, highlight play and other news items—like Penn St Head Coach Mark Pavlik’s 700th win and the debut of the first-ever AVCA Player of the Year Watchlist.

As always, the guys pick their “Ballers of the Week,” and conclude with matches they’ll be keeping an eye on in week 7!

Thanks for listening/watching!

"No Average Joe" episode!"

This week we bring on Men’s Volleyball Influencer, Joe McCurdy (@jtmvball on Instagram and TikTok) on the show to talk about the happenings in week 5 of the NCAA Men’s Volleyball season from a digital journalist perspective. Joe and Rob bounce between select matches of the top 20 and highlight key performances in those matches. Of course they take a stab at top athletes of the week, then pick out some of the top matches to look out for in Week 6!

Week 6 "Social Media Shout Outs" to @nekobavisuals and @buhlmedia and, @thevolleyballrecap!

The Coaches' Panel is back after a busy week for Rob (apologies for no episode) at the Southwest Boys Classic after the First Point Collegiate Challenge!

Rob mentions a few news items for the week with some first-ever victories for first year programs, (but he forgot to say, "Congrats," to Ohio St. Head Coach Kevin Birch for his 100th victory).

The panel discuss the top 20 matchups that caught their attention during Week 4 play, From there they, pick some other matches that just were eye-catching outside the top 20 as well! Of course, they always pick there "Ballers of the Week," then the matches they'll be watching in Week 5!

Thanks for listening/watching and tuning in!

Episode 290 of Viral Volley Media’s, College Volleyball Weekly Men’s Top 20 for Week 2 of the 2026 Collegiate Men’s Volleyball season is coming in HOT!

This week we acknowledge two content creators covering the men’s side, then go to the “Elephant in the Room,” which discusses our coaching panelists’ results from last week’s play. From there we venture into the “Eye-Catching Matches” of the week followed by “The Panel’s Picks,” highlighting any other matches around Men’s Volleyball in any conference, at any level.

Of course, the guys have their say in CVW Ballers of the Week with the top performers while finishing with “Whatcha Watchin’” for Week 3!

ncaamvb #ncaamvolleyball #ncaavolleyball

In this week’s episode we catch up on A LOT of news from the last 6 months with special guest, Men’s Volleyball Influencer, Joe McCurdy and George Mason Head Coach, Jay Hosack.

Firstly, we honor and remember Glen Lietzke, who passed away on Christmas morning. Glen was a generous supporter of volleyball who impacted thousands by his love and support of the game.

From there we hit on the news of announced retirements, program discontinuations, movements and “resurrections.” With all the growth we also delve into the addition of the GLVC Conference and the expansion of the NCAA Men’s Volleyball Championship to 12 teams for 2026!

To close out the episode we discuss the first 2026 AVCA Preseason Poll, then have the panelists make bold predictions for 2026.

As always, thanks for listening in! Apologies for a “basic format” episode! I’m on travel

With the unexpected retirement of Long Beach St.'s 22-year, Hall of Fame, Head Coach Alan Knipe, Beach did not have to look far or too long to find who would succeed Al. New Head Coach Nick MacRae has been in Long Beach his entire life, and with the 49ers/Beach for 14 years!

Nick takes some time to discuss his experience at Long Beach St., his relationship with Alan, how he plans to continue the winning ways of the beach in the near and distant future!

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!

In 2025, UC Davis has completed their first-ever conference championship and made Head Coach Dan Connors the winningest coach in Aggie volleyball history. They've got a solid core of athletes at each position who have been competing together for years! Talking about their team with the No. 1 seed of the Hawaiian Islands presents the Outrigger Big West Women's Volleyball Championship are Mia Starr and Ally Chandler.

Long Beach St.'s Elise Agi and Madi Maxwell discuss the 2025 season and their path to the 2025 Hawaiian Islands presents the Outrigger Big West Women's Volleyball Championship.

Episode 287 features 2025 AVCA Fall Pairs Champions from Long Beach St., Malia Gementera and Taylor Hagenah. The San Diego County products have been the work-horses for the Beach and have been almost unstoppable their entire first three years at Long Beach St.!

We discuss the start of their partnership-- proof that nobody can "ghost" Taylor-- even Malia, their natural success together, winning outside of collegiate beach ball and their road to the 2025 AVCA Pairs Championship!

The "Salty Guys" of College Volleyball Weekly Men's Top 20 are BACK! Heaps of news has come about since the last ball drop in the Natty match in May so the band got together to talk about SOME (yes, we've got to do a part 2) of the news that has hit D1-2 Men's Volleyball!

00:00:00 Introduction

00:01:30 AVCA Hall of Famer: Alan Knipe, Long Beach St.

00:06:00 2025 NCAA D1-2 Coaching Changes

00:34:20 NCAA Tournament Expansion

00:46:00 MPSF & Big West Previews: Others in the Making?

This summer the USA Men’s U21 team had an extremely talent roster that literally could have run far deeper than the 24 athletes who made the “official” roster– and it was composed of some recently graduated and a lot of current NCAA D1-2 players! What’s that mean you ask? We’ve got a young crew getting ready to take on the world as potential senior national and Olympic team players!

In this episode, Head Coach of the history-making USA Men’s U21 team jumps on College Volleyball Weekly Men’s Top 20 to talk about this talented group of guys that he, Donan Cruz, Matt Pollock and Donovan Martinez had the honor of training through the Men’s U21 World Championship in China and receiving the USA’s first-ever medal in the U21 World Championship!

From there, we discuss the expansion of the NCAA Men’s D1-2 Men’s Volleyball Championship to12 teams– which we are all EXCITED FOR! John also takes time to discuss the importance of the Championship’s growth, as well as the recent news that in the last 10 years boys’ participation has grown over 76%!

We close out the episode talking about John’s UCLA team, the expansion of the MPSF and what competition could look likein 2026!

Big 12 standout Anhlina Khmil of the 2025 NCAA Collegiate Beach National Championship team, TCU jumps onto CVW Beach Top 20 to discuss her happenstance beginnings in indoor volleyball, then making her way over to beach.

She also shares about her home and family as Ukraine was being attacked by Russia during the time she was making decisions about competing in Beach Volleyball and attending TCU.

From there we recap her career during her Freshman through Junior years, TCU’s uprising and the continued improvement of her play resulting in groundbreaking performances for Lina year-after-year!

We then focus on 2025– where Lina and her history-making team won the National Championship in Gulf Shores. She shares how the dual points were dropping and how she was running to all the courts to root her teammates on, then finally celebrating with “The Spaniards,” Dani Alvarez & Tania Moreno as they claimed the “Championship Clinching” dual-winning point!

We move into what she’s been doing this summer on the Beach World Pro Tour, CEV’s and what we should expect to see with the 2026 Sandy Frog team with their player and coach additions!

Thanks for watching and/or listening to College Volleyball Weekly Beach Top 20, Viral Volley Podcast!

First episode for the summer after some time off we jump into the AVP Contender Series event, the Denver Open!

Heading into the Rockies is always a special event at The Island facility where we would find an unlikely tandem teaming up for this event—Stanford Beach Freshman All-MPSF honoree Avery Jackson, playing her 1st AVP event with former USC standout and long-time AVP star Geena Urango—playing her 86th AVP event! The 2025 Denver Open Champions did not face any resistance until the final—where we saw one of the top comebacks in the game to win the $10,000 and automatic berth into the main draw at the Manhattan Beach Open. See/listen what Geena & Avery had to say about competing this last weekend!

Thanks for listening in! Be sure to support these athletes by following the on social and supporting their sponsors and programs!

In this final 2025 episode of College Volleyball Weekly Men's Top 20, we briefly recap the 2025 NCAA Men's Volleyball Championship match, then jump into some of the top news stories of the 2025 season. The topics discuss include "The Moni Effect," Nickie Sanlin, Head Coach at McKendree, the USA Volleyball changes in leadership and National Teams, the explosion of digital content on the Men's D1-2 side, the sudden discontinuation of GCU Men's Volleyball and the impacts, as well as what we learned/saw and/or bold predictions for 2026!

We're all extremely thankful for your listening and watching in 2025! We'll hit a few topics this summer as they arise! Stay tuned!

It's NCAA Championship Day to see who becomes the 2025 National Champion! Will it be the "Moni Effect" of No. 1 Long Beach St. claim the hardware, or will No. 3 UCLA "Three-Peat?" Before we discuss that we discuss some of the news items from this last week, the semis and THEN items related to tonight's Championship on ESPN2 at 4:00pm PT/7:00pm ET.

The NCAA Men's Volleyball Championship has begun and we are down to the quarterfinals with the top teams ready to go into battle. The CVW Coaches' Panel break down who we should watch for, what players will/can go big with stellar performances.

The panel attempts to make their NCAA predictions but to be honest, most of the pale was hesitant!

All this with a few tangents here and there en route to a few laughs as well!

CollegeBeachVB.com's (and UCLA Alumna) Jaden Whitmarsh jumps on the show this week to talk about the recently finished 2025 NCAA Beach National Championship inh Gulf Shores, AL. There were plenty of BIG and clutch performances along with a few unexpected results mixed in. All in all, never-before crowned champion is going to emerge with the NC hardware.

For the first time this season EVERYONE on-screen! Marilu Pally of Cal, Sydney Miller of Hawaii and Kylie Wickley of Texas gather to discuss their conference championship tournaments and what grabbed their attention throughout all the action. Stanford made a "statement run", while USC is heating up. Texas won their 1st CCSA, what will end up being the last CCSA tournament EVER. From there we discuss the brackets for the National Championship in Gulf Shores. Kylie and Marilu's teams face off in the single-elimination dual in the first round.

Breaking last Monday was the devastating news that the top-10 Lopes of Grand Canyon University announced the discontinuing of the Men's Volleyball program. As more details emerge the team was not notified or prepared for this major decision by GCU Athletics Director, Jamie Boggs (@jamieboggsjd). CVW Coaches' Panel of Dan Friend (Lewis), Jay Hosack (George Mason) and Brad Rosstratter (UC San Diego) share their takes on what has transpired and try to shed some insight into this reckless decision by GCU.

Jamie Boggs, Athletic Director: 602-639-6307

SaveGCUMVB: https://gofund.me/408615c7

Breaking yesterday was the devastating news that the top-10 Lopes of Grand Canyon University announced the discontinuing of the Men's Volleyball program and making it available as club program. CVW Contributor, Theo Edwards of CSUN shares his take on what has transpired and tries to share some insight into the situation.

In this special NCAA Championship episode, the Coaches' Panel had to take care of "house affairs" so Rob brought on NCAA Men's Volleyball Digital Content Creator and influencer, Joe McCurdy. This University of Tulsa graduating senior has a high-charisma, entertaining and hi-volley-IQ inherent in all of his social posts that have created a great deal of buzz from athletes, teams, broadcast personalities and fans throught the NCAA Men's Volleyball world!

We explore his beginnings, take a peak at the early part of the 2025 season then transition through the rest of the season recaps before talking about the NCAA Committee and the 2025 NCAA Collegiate Channpionship in Columbus, OH!

Week 8 only saw one team get upset-- three times-- otherwise there were only "baby steps" made for two other teams. Kylie, Sydney and Rob break down the Top 20 and talk about teams’ chances at winning their conference tournaments (8 conference automatics) or receiving one of 8 available At-Larges into the NCAA Beach Volleyball Championship!

In this BONUS Beach Episode, TCU's Tania Moreno jumps onto the pod/vodcast to discuss her beginnings in volleyball with a pro-beach volleyball Mom and starting her volleyball career in the sand chasing volleyballs as a toddler.

We also talk about her competing at the international level in Europe at a young age and connecting with Daniela Alvarez (Dani). From that relationship at the Spanish Federation, Tania found her way to TCU to be a part of a lot of program firsts-- that included a first-ever No. 1 ranking for TCU. In addition, she discusses her journey to the Olympics, coming back to TCU for her Senior season, and what we could expect to see in the 2025 CCSA and NCAA Beach Volleyball Championships!

This week we jump right into the post-regular season coverage discussing the early 2025 Conference Champions out of the SIAC, ECC and IVA--(some of which don't receive automatic berths to the NCAA Men's Volleyball Championship). From there we break down teams and conferences that are in Conference Championship play or about to begin. Only a few topics, but LOTS of content within each of the matchups!

Tap on bios for @therobonthemic or @viralvolleymedia links to either YouTube or podcast episodes. College Volleyball Weekly is available wherever you get your podcast episodes.

For Week 8, we thought we'd change it up and talk to one of the top Head Coaches on the current top team in the nation, Jenny Jordan of UCLA Beach. Rob and Jenny discuss her transition from Assistant, Associate and now Head Coach of the Bruins. We discuss the many roles she serves outside of the position like being a wife and mom to incredible athletes, and how some don't realize that her daughter can ball also-- Jaylen at Long Beach St.! We also discuss the formation of her staff, expectations of the program now that she's in Year 2.

Of course we delve into this year's squad and how they are developing for a post-season run. "Triple J" is always a fantastic guest so be sure to listen in!

This week some teams conclude conference play like the MIVA, Conference Carolinas, SIAC and IVA. Other conferences like the Big West, MPSF, NEC and EIVA still have battles with post-season conference tournament and At-Large implications. There was no shortage of action as we saw big wins in unexpected places and high-flying performances by pin-attackers across the nation. We saw 10,370 fans each night in the Long Beach St./Hawaii series (SO GOOD FOR MEN'S VOLLEY), who were treated by insane and clutch performances across the board.

Additionally, we'll take a look at players of the week, matches to watch and jump back to our "Hot Mic" moment-- but it took us over an hour so be ready to listen or watch!

In Week 6 most of the the top 20 teams were either a) in Tallahassee, FL for the Florida St. Unconquered Invitational, b) in Laguna Beach, CA for the Best in the West, or c) idle for the week.

The CVW student athletes with Rob discuss what they saw this last week primarily in the top 10, but touch on a few other teams. From there, Rob asks the athletes to summarize where the top 11 teams are at as far as competition!

Week 14 brought about unexpected upsets, split series and marquee performances by the usual suspects. Three of the top 5 teams were not immune to the upset bug, but recovered on night 2! With all the upsets the races are getting tighter in each affected conference! Along with upsets were the expected results in the other matches as we near post-season conference play!

From there we hit up some of the top performers of the week according to the coaching panel. Also, we throw down some "Hot Mic" segment then pick some matches to watch in Week 15!

It's a BEACH BOW TAKEOVER!

This week's episode has Hawaii's Sydney Miller and Alana Embry jumping into the weekly recap of Collegiate Beach Volleyball! The Death Volley Invitational-- which gathered 8 of the top 15 teams in the nation-- took center stage as a couple upsets transpired along with breakout play by pairs/athletes. In other action, top ranked teams did what they were supposed to as they head into Week 7. From there we all choose our top athletes/pairs of the week, then finally discuss where the Beach Bows will be at this weekend-- another BIG TIME tourney down in Laguna Beach! The Best In The West Kicks off with UCLA, USC, Stanford, Cal Poly, Hawaii, Stetson, UNF, Long Beach St. all brawling on the beach!

The 13th week of the D1-2 NCAA Men's Volleyball season and it was full of upsets, incredible action, and fantastic highlights. There are no more undefeated teams and jostling for conference titles and post-season seedings are shifting on a weekly basis in some cases.

Through all the chaos, the CVW Coaches' Panel shares what caught their attention around NCAA Men's D1-2 volleyball. From the upsets, five-setters to the walk-off aces, they guys break down the play and offer their take and their players of the week. Also in our discussion this week: The "Moni Effect" on and off the court and St. Francis transitioning from D1 to D3.

Note: Due to the hyphenated availability of Rob we weren't able to get into it as we normally do. We'll have the "Hot Mic Moment" back next week!

Thanks for listening/watching! #NCAAMVB

The Collegiate Beach Volleyball season just surpassed the midway point and we're seeing shifts from 2-5 without a lot of big changes in the rest of the AVCA top 20. A lot of the top teams were idle in week 5, but the ones that weren't saw solid action at the Big West Challenge in San Luis Obispo, CA and East Meets West in Austin,TX.

Although teams may have split their duals this last weekend, without a doubt the teams are developing in a beneficial way as we move closer to conference tournaments. The athlete panel chats about then No. 10 Texas' upset of then-No. 2 LMU, and the quality of each their flights. In addition, we discuss the dynamism of Cal Poly and how interchangeable their entire lineup is.

From there we discuss the top teams we've seen this last weekend and even drop the names of top performers!

🚨 EPISODE DROP 🚨 College Volleyball Weekly Men's Top 20, Week 12 Recap, 3/24/25

This week our coaching panel (except Brad) were really "salty," so we start off on a grumpy note.

Week 12 saw MANY 5-set battles-- particularly involving many MIVA teams honing their skills and talents to mount a surge as they continue MIVA conference play. With that we saw Theo's Matadors ride into Chicago splitting their top-20 matches with Dan's Flyers and Shane's Ramblers. As expected, we tangent away from volleyball and into Chicago Cuisine-- and the tangent only got worse. We jump into our discussions about top 20 teams in NOVA/DC, Long Beach St. and what we could be seeing as teams are gearing up for the remainder of conference play.

As always, the guys pick their Players of the Week, and share what they'll be watching in Week 13. For the "Hot Mic" moment Brad starts us off on a light note, then the "salty guys" take over!

Thanks for listening/watching! #ncaamvb #ncaavolleyball #ncaamvolleyball

SHE'S BACK! Kelly Belardi of No. 7 Stanford rejoins CVW Beach for a very detailed analysis of the top 20 this week.

From looking at the duals and invitationals there was nothing but hot action no matter where you were watching from! From there we discuss some of the top performers last week and in 2025 so far. We end the episode discussing what duals we'll be watching for this weekend (or for Kelly, how she's going to enjoy life after her Finals are done)! #NCAABEACH

This show is dedicated to Cindy Luis, pioneering Hawaiian journalist and passionate writer/follower/fan of volleyball who passed unexpectedly this last weekend. If you would like to send notes to her son, Tiff Wells, who is a UH Broadcaster, please feel free to email Rob at rob@robonthemic.com. Rob will forward Tiff's contact info to you.

Week 11 of the NCAA Men's Volleyball season did not disappoint! Upsets happened, athletes rose to the occasion and teams tightened up races and rattled the At-Large discussion in their battles across the nation! Also, the Outrigger Invitational went OFF in Manoa, Hawaii this last weekend and it did not disappoint!

The CVW Coaching Panel discusses the results that caught their eyes and pick their Players/Personalities of the Week, pick their players of the week, share what they're watching in Week 12 and drop a couple "Hot Mic" topics.

Thanks for listening! #ncaamvb

The CVW BEACH T20 crew discusses the action at the TCU Invitational and MPSF Rumble with a few other big tournaments thrown in. Along with the results (with some upsets), they pick out their top athletes/teams during the week 3 action.

On this episode Kylie & Sydney pick topics to discuss: internationals in Beach VB and the NCAA Collegiate Beach Championship format!

NCAABEACH #NCAAVOLLEYBALL #NCAABEACHVB

This week, it was confirmed that there were no upsets to be had in D1-2 play, but some pretty significant statements about teams who are heating up during conference play. CSUN Head Coach Theo Edwards starts off with Rob discussing some of the top matches of the week, while Jay Hosack of George Mason drops in HOT, with Dan Friend of Lewis just minutes later. The guys make it in time to pick their "Ballers of the Week." From there we talk about the top matches to look for in Week 11 and the popular "Hot Mic" segment.

We close out the episode finishing up the leftover fan questions from Episode 258 that we did not get to!

Thanks for listening! Be sure to spread the word and follow your favorite teams, programs and resources in D1-2 Men's Volleyball!

This week our athlete panel of Kylie Wickley (Texas) and Sydney Miller (Hawaii) with Rob discuss what was a week with only a couple upsets, but interesting movement in the AVCA Top 20. The panel discusses eye-catching results, top teams/pairs/athletes during the week!

New this week, Cal's French Net Force Marilu Pally joins in her own segment, "Marilu's MPSF Memo" discussing the climate of the MPSF as one of the top conferences in the nation (since there is no longer a Pac-12)!

It's a "Coaches' Takeover" at College Volleyball Weekly as we recap most of the action of Week 9 in Division 1-2 Men's Volleyball. No. 4 Hawaii flexed their muscle all-around on then No, 2 UCI-- and made a STRONG case as to why they should be in the discussion for the post-season. In Week 9, the Battle for Chicago and Battle for Jersey all occurred to name a few. From there, they guys pick their players of the week and matches to watch in Week 10.

As promised, we run into our "Fan Questions" segment of the show-- one that can always go long. Tap in to see what was asked! We'll most likely cover the remainder in a later episode!

Thanks for listening and watching!

After one week of play the action did not disappoint!

Kylie and Sydney give an update of what their teams (Texas & Hawaii) did this last weekend competitively. From there we get into the nitty-gritty! Taking center stage was the Outrigger/Duke Kahanamoku Tournament that featured nothing but top 12 teams-- which brewed a handful of upsets! We then take a peak at other eye-catching results, top teams and top pairs for the week. As always, we pick a few tourneys and/or duals you fans may want to pay attention to in Week 2!

Week 8 of the NCAA Men’s D1-2 season brought about the emergence of the Bearcats of McKendree, the rejuvenated Bruins, and streaking Matadors! In addition to the teams that are grabbing the headlines, there is MIVA madness as the teams tussle in the first half of conference play. Then there is the EIVA– where teams are flipping the script on historic powerhouses while others are waiting to see how teams find their rhythm.

From there the guys pick their “Ballers of the Week” and matches to look out for in Week 9. The HOT MIC moment brought a great amount of discussion topics– that we ran out of time for. For the next episode, the panel wanted to entertain questions from Volleytalk and/or through Social Media! Send your thoughts/questions via DM if you want to drop a few!

Tap on the link in the profile for podcast and/or YouTube video, or type one of the URLs below!

Thanks for listening in and/or viewing!

And the 2025 NCAA Collegiate Beach season less than a few days away and the chatter and buzz are running HOT! College Volleyball Weekly Beach Top 20 brings some of the top athletes in the game to "talk shop" on their "Sandy Colleagues" across beach courts throughout the nation! One returner is back-- Kylie Wickley of Texas, whos program is starting out in the top 15, and newcomer Sydney Miller of No. 12 Hawaii.

The CVWBT20 crew discuss the Preseason AVCA Poll, and touch on the TruVolley Poll. From there Kylie, Syd and Rob discuss the top 15-ish players on rosters to start 2025, along with some top athletes to watch. As always, we end on "Whatcha Watching" in Week 1!

Week 7 has been one of the most intense weeks of the the 2025 season with 8 upsets and boatload of 5-setters. With those results we witnessed some teams levelling up while others stumbled. With that, the CVW panel discusses some of the top 20 results, teams and performers of Week 7!

The panel picks some matches to watch out for in Week 8 and only Jay decides to drop a "Hot Mic" thought!

Thanks for viewing/listening to College Volleyball Weekly!

As the season gears up in the next few days Rob chats with some of the players to watch during the 2025 season.

Sydney Miller of Hawaii chats about her beginnings in volleyball through her decision to play Collegiate Beach at Hawaii. We then discuss her first two seasons with Chandler Cowell and Anna Maidment through her two seasons so far. Sydney

An All-Big West honoree and 2024 AVCA Top Flight recipient Sydney is looking to help the Sand Bows get to another post-season appearance! Be sure to watch until the end for an announcement regarding College Volleyball Weekly, Beach Top 20!

The CVW Coaches' Panel recaps the play from Week 6 of the NCAA Men's Volleyball season that included SIX upsets, the start of some conferences' play and a lot of GREAT ACTION. The guys pick their players of the week as well as p Week 7 matches to be on the lookout for! Our shortage of time had us do a "shorter" "Hot Mic" segment, but we still "kinda" jump into the ESPN+ vs. B1G+ discussion. I'm sure there will be more in upcoming weeks!

As always, thanks for listening and watching!

Only the 2nd Commissioner ever to lead the MPSF, Foti Mellis joins CVW to discuss the status of the MPSF Conference in Men’s Volleyball. Episode 248 & 249 brought multiple questions from the Coaches’ panel and listeners/viewers regarding the competition format of MPSF conference play, the addition of DII teams in the conference and the utilization of the B1G for promotion, marketing, broadcast and streaming of Men’s Volleyball. Foti addresses each of these in detail in this episode of CVW!

In 2025 a new Collegiate Beach conference takes the sand-- and it's the MPSF. With 4-Peat Champions USC (6-time winner), 2-time winner UCLA, along with Cal, Stanford, Oregon, and GCU we're talking about a GAUNTLET of a conference!

Foti shares how the MPSF Beach Conference formed, its upcoming 1st-ever MPSF Beach Championship, the potential of adding more hardware and news that broke just hours before the posting of this episode! The addition of 4 more POWERHOUSE teams in the MPSF for 2026!

Week 5 of the NCAA Men's D1-2 season was a DOOZY! Great matchups in abundance and phenomenal battles occurred across different platforms and live in-arenas! This week we recap the 5 remaining undefeated teams and discuss where the top 20 teams are at as far as 2025 competition so far. Conference play is beginning in the Conference Carolinas, MIVA, and EIVA so the heat will be turned up!

As always, our CVW panel selects their eye-catching performers of the week, pick their "Whatcha Watchin'" matches in Week 6. Of course we close out with our "Hot Mic" Moment!

Second Men's Volleyball Episode in 3 days! It was a great opportunity to catch up with USC Head Coach Jeff Nygaard whose No. 6 USC Trojans are off to a fantastic start in 2025! The Men of Troy stand at 6-0 and have "bought in" to the team philosophy and mission!

Jeff shares about the Trojan's start and why they've clicked. As the Trojans await their first match in the Big 10 Challenge in Columbus, OH, Jeff talks about the remaining non-conference schedule and what we could expect to see in the MPSF.

From there, we chat about USC's and other MPSF teams' partnership with the Big 10 Conference and Network and how that could encourage growth in men's game. Additionally, we talk about the format for MPSF competition between the D1 and D2 teams and why the schedule worked out the way that it has for 2025.

To kick of the 2025 NCAA Beach season Rob brings in one of the top athletes in the last 7 seasons in Collegiate Beach Volleyball, Lindsey Sparks of Cal Poly. Lindsey has garnered Regional and State Championships indoor, but has also been an outstanding Beach player wherever and whomever she competes with!

From committing indoors, decommitting, then committing on the beach fulltime we discuss where her collegiate career has taken her. From the lows of battling an eating disorder to the highs of a National Championship at UCLA, then suffering a career-threatening injury, then finding physical and emotional healing with a PT who helped bring her body back to compete again. In a new role and school as the team “Grandma,” Lindsey is looking forward to what 2025 has in store—along with her freshman sister, Dani, who is also on the Todd Rogers coached Cal Poly Beach team!

Four weeks in and there are 6 remaining teams with unblemished records in D1-2 competition! The CVW Coaches' panel discusses what is making these teams successful early on in 2025. Prior to that discussion they discuss teams without conferences and why certain MPSF teams are not playing against other teams within their own conference.

From there, we go through our normal discussion of the week's results, players of the week and matches to watch in Week 5. Taking a risk on a new segment-- "The Hot Mic Moment" where our coaching panel sounds off on whatever they want to. We'll see how that goes-- all on this week's CVW Men's Top 20!

NOTE: For some reason this episode was "doubled-up" in length. Need to contact tech support. Will upload a "singled" episode in a few hours, and will keep this one up. Sorry for the inconvenience.

The CVW Coaches' Panel dives into Week 3 with another FULL week of Men's D1-2 Volleyball news from the Hawaiian Islands to ATX to the East Coast. We are in full effect!

Many great non-conference matches on tap with teams rising up early-- like the Cougars of BYU, while others are holding their own like Long Beach St.. While in the MIVA we are seeing a very competitive climate as they grind through early play with certain teams taking down top teams in ATX.

With that, we go into our normal recap, banter, players of the week and Week 4 matchups to watch! Somehow, we also dabble in the amount of foreign players on rosters-- which was totally impromptu and could be an entire episode of it's own!

In this "Big West Takeover" Episode the Big West Panel discusses the devastation and tragic results of the recent fires that plagued the Pacific Palisades, Eaton and Hurst communities in Southern California. 150,000+ people, with many in our volleyball community have been directly effected by total property loss and irreparable damage. As promised, here is a starting point for resources. I will update as needed: https://lafd.org/news/palisades-fire-0

As we headed into the 2nd week of the young NCAA D1-2 Men's Volleyball season there were 65+ matches to track with great battles and results to discuss. It's hard to say, "There were upsets" especially when the season is only 2 weeks old so let's just say it was an exciting week of competition, first wins for programs and A LOT of matches!

As always, the guys pick there top performers of the week and reveal matches they'll be keeping an eye on in Week 3!

Note: Hoping for a Part II of Week 2 with Dan & Jay later!

The CVW crew is back for 2025 and are ready to ROCK for the NCAA Men’s Volleyball season!

This week we discuss all the transitions and changes throughout USA Volleyball and Collegiate Men’s Volleyball— for which there were A LOT (you have to listen to find out)! We’ll touch on format of the NCAA Championship and its new format with the NEC now receiving the 7th automatic berth. From there we go into the opening weekend of competition discussing the Top 20 teams in action across the nation with a good portion of matches occurring against our Canadian neighbors to the north.

As always, we’ll discuss top performers and matches to watch out for in what will be a very HEAVY week of matches in Week 2! #NCAAMVB

Izzy Starck, freshman setter of Penn St. has had a remarkable rookie campaign in 2024. Izzy and her Nittany Lions went through a gamut of emotions to start off the season but found their inspiration in their mission: "Bigger than us." In it they were inspired by Coach Katie Schumacher-Cawley's perseverance in "the fight," and the legacy of the Penn St. Women's Volleyball program.

In this special Christmas/New Year's episode we chat about the regular season, the journey to the NCAA title match, the numerous individual recognitions she received as freshman, having her big sister alongside her on the team, the remarkable in-house crowd and viewership, ALL of the history that was made from the NCAA Championship, and other tidbits along the way!

Special guests Mark Pavlik of Penn St. and John Hawks of UCLA jump on this special, pre-2025 season episode as we gear up for the 2025 NCAA Men's Volleyball season after a historic, record-breaking 2024 NCAA Women's Volleyball Championship. In this episode we'll discuss various topics and potential impacts of the women's championship and how it could potentially benefit all aspects of volleyball-- including encouraging youth, high school competition and growth of NCAA Men's Indoor Volleyball. From there we discuss all the movement on the men's side from the USAV level and through all the conferences.

In only the 3rd time in program history the UCLA Men’s Volleyball team named their Head Coach—and they didn’t have to go far from the Bruin family. On October 9th, 2024, the former Loyola Head Coach and former UCLA Assistant Coach under John Speraw, John Hawks steps into the role to continue the Bruin Men’s Volleyball legacy. In his first interview since the announcement last week John sat down with Rob to chat about going through the news of Speraw’s new position at USAV, what that meant for UCLA, the interview/hiring process, and having to say “Goodbye” to the excellent team Hawks assembled n Chicago.

In the episode, John talks about a recent run in he had with a State Trooper driving the Midwest while potentially being interviewed!

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!

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.

(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.

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.

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 the 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, USA, 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 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!

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!

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

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!

The Coaches’ Panel prepares for the final season of regular season play, except for Dan of Lewis—who starts the MIVA Tournament on Saturday. As always, we discuss some of the eye-catching results from Week 14 and delve into AVCA poll voting. We then transition into postseason outlook and assessment by the guys.

Being that there will be MANY great matches this week, the guys try to pick just one to watch, then pick their Coaches’ Pick Player of the Week!

Rob also mentioned that the link to buy tickets for the 2023 NCAA Men’s Volleyball Championships is a little challenging to find. If you’re looking to buy visit:

https://bit.ly/3mj5Tg0

00:45 Eye-Catching results in Week 14

14:15 AVCA poll voting discussion

19:30 Big West matches for CSUN & UCSD

23:47 EIVA Recap

26:45 Stanford/Grand Canyon

33:10 Non-NCAA Berth Conferences

33:55 Conference Carolinas Playoffs

39:45 MIVA Conference Playoffs

45:45 EIVA Conference Playoffs

50:50 MPSF Conference Playoffs

57:17 Big West Conference Playoffs

The entire Beach crew is back-- after a Spring Break hiatus. Alan, Charlie, Kate and Rob discuss the tail end of the top 20 of both the CBVB and AVCA polls. LIterally a couple of votes separate the teams toward the back end of the top 20 and it's going to be a challenge which team will be worthy of an At-Large.

The crew also discusses the following topics of the week: TCU atop for the 4th week in a row, MoVR Ratings leaders, top performers, the East Meets West (along with top performers doing those duals), Rileigh Powers & Haley Hallgren-- UCLA's 4s who are flying below the radar!

As always, the crew finishes out with picking key duals to watch in Week 7!

Along with the "usual suspects" of CVW, we've got special guest, Larry Wraither, Head Coach of Ft. Valley St. to chime in on the following topics of the week:

1 Hawaii at #12 CSUN x2 - Theo confirms, "They're (Hawaii) good."
UR Princeton over #9 Loyola - Ben Harrington is THE REAL DEAL
UR CUI over #5 GCU - It wasn’t Yuri, but Gage!
BYU/Pepperdine Series in Provo - 37K Performance by Jasper, and The Miks Show
14 Ohio St. over #1 Penn St. - OSU followed up with a win vs. Lindenwood? (2-0 for the week) - Shane Wetzel on fire!

In addition, the guys all pick their players of the week, along with matches to watch in Week 13-- and there are going to be some BRAWLS! We'll also do a brief conference update to cover the nation. We're even going to tackle a couple fan questions to close out the episode!

This week we're invaded by FROGS! Sandy that is! Alana & Charlie were off the episode this week, but kindly stepping in is AVCA All-American and Spanish Olympic Team Hopeful, Dani Alvarez and mainstay Kate Privett of TCU. We briefly discuss the "March to May" Tournament in Gulf Shores and the "Surf and Turf" in Miami last weekend. We also chat about the little movements in the latter part of the CBVB and AVCA polls. Rob then hits the "Sandy Frogs" for the hot teams and athletes so far in 2023.

We close out Episode 188 asking the pair specifically about this year's success so far, team mentality and the new-look CCSA with Grand Canyon now in the mix!

This week the CVW crew opens up with the CVW Inter-Panel match of the week between UCSD (Brad Rostratter) and No. 12 CSUN (Theo Edwards). From there we look at some of the top-15 matches that the panel's eyes. Of course, there were some unexpected outcomes-- and it's going to come down to conference tournaments and who's hot when it counts. We'll also touch on conference standings as well!

As always, the crew closes out with the Coaches' Pick Player of the Week and matches to watch in Week 12 of the NCAA Men's Volleyball season!

Reminder: Hashtag your social media posts with #NCAAMVB

Week 3 saw a few hot teams rise closer to the top like LMU and Tulane, in the recent AVCA and CollegeBeachVB.com polls, while other teams have maintained a steady winning trend like the "top 4" of TCU, USC, UCLA and FSU, and Arizona. In the discussion you have Cal pressing upward while the Stanford Cardinal are finding their way! Alana Rennie of Arizona, Charlie Ekstrom of Stanford and Rob Espero chat some of the top items of Week 3 while giving us the lowdown on what's to come in Week 4!

One-third of the season is complete and the heat is turning up as we head into a weekend of intense play with multiple top-20 teams going at it from coast to coast!

This week the CVW crew discusses the Outrigger Invitational briefly and some other matches that caught their attention in week 10. Afterwards, they launch into the first “Fan Question” episode of the season—and there were some good ones we’ll have to address in upcoming episodes (Thanks, listeners!). Questions, from recruiting, great volleyball memories, changes in the game to Jay’s golf game and Theo’s Gatorade fridge.

As always, the guys do their, “Coaches Pick: Player of the Week.”

Alana Rennie (Arizona), Charlie Ekstrom (Stanford) and Kate Privett (TCU) along with Rob Espero (@therobonthemic) discuss some of the MANY big duals and matches Week 2 of the young Collegiate Beach season had to offer. The No. 1 gets taken down by No. 4 creating a new No. 1 team in the nation. We'll talk about some of the conferences' weekly pairs-of-the-week recipients and conclude with top duals to watch this upcoming week!

Be sure to follow their programs and social media accounts-- and share your thoughts on CVW-BEACH!

This week the CVW crew tries something new: "Coaches Pick," where are coaches' panel pick the topics/matches/issues to discuss. The topics range from CRS/video review system, the 'Bows, Charleston, talking through the net, the "Catch and Throw" phenomena happening in the men's game and 5th-set, walk-off, ace winners.

For next week's episode we're looking for fan questions! DM @robonthemic on Twitter or @therobonthemic on Instagram and the coaches' panel will take a stab at your inquiries!

And the 2023 Collegiate Beach season is ON! And there is no shortage of news, milestones, upsets and star performers!

This week, Charlie Ekstrom of Stanford Beach and Kate Privett of TCU Beach chime in on the new and buzz-stirring matches of the week and drop a few names of top performers. As always, the CVW crew identifies matches/duals/tournaments they'll be keeping an eye on as the heat is only getting started for 2023.

NOTE: I don't know what happened in the upload but for some reason Podbean only posted up to the 23:00 minute mark. This clip is from the 23:00-end (I hope)

This week on CVW Men's Top 15, they guys chat about recent news, "Splitsville City" with some big split matches during the week between #5 GCU/#7 Pepperdine, #15 Charleston/George Mason and #13 USC/#9 Stanford.

With the Week 8 results we are down to ONLY ONE undefeated team in the NCAA: Hawaii. The guys then pick their top performers of the week along with some top matches to watch in Week 9.

This week on CVW Men's Top 15, they guys chat about recent news, "Splitsville City" with some big split matches during the week between #5 GCU/#7 Pepperdine, #15 Charleston/George Mason and #13 USC/#9 Stanford.

With the Week 8 results we are down to ONLY ONE undefeated team in the NCAA: Hawaii. The guys then pick their top performers of the week along with some top matches to watch in Week 9.

NOTE: Highlights or the interview to be posted over at VolleyballMag.com for a FULL 2023 Collegiate Beach preview by Travis Mewhirter.

Full interview of UCLA Head Coach of Beach Volleyball, Stein Metzger, discussing recent growth and changes to the NCAA Collegiate Beach game, preview of the Pac-12 Conference teams and other top NCAA teams, along with top athletes to watch.

NOTE: Highlights or the interview to be posted over at VolleyballMag.com for a FULL 2023 Collegiate Beach preview by Travis Mewhirter.

Full interview of Cal Poly Head Coach of Beach Volleyball, Todd Rogers, discussing recent growth and changes to the NCAA Collegiate Beach game, preview of the Big West Conference teams and other top NCAA teams, along with top athletes to watch.

NOTE: Highlights or the interview to be posted over at VolleyballMag.com for a FULL 2023 Collegiate Beach preview by Travis Mewhirter.

Full interview of TCU Head Coach of Beach Volleyball, Hector Gutierrez, discussing recent growth and changes to the NCAA Collegiate Beach game, preview of the CCSA Conference teams and other top NCAA teams, along with top athletes to watch.

NOTE: Highlights or the interview to be posted over at VolleyballMag.com for a FULL 2023 Collegiate Beach preview by Travis Mewhirter.

Full interview of Stetson Head Coach of Beach Volleyball, Kristina Hernandez, discussing recent growth and changes to the NCAA Collegiate Beach game, preview of the A-Sun Conference teams and other top NCAA teams, along with top athletes to watch.

NOTE: Highlights or the interview to be posted over at VolleyballMag.com for a FULL 2023 Collegiate Beach preview by Travis Mewhirter.

Full interview of LSU Head Coach of Beach Volleyball, Russell Brock discussing recent growth and changes to the NCAA Collegiate Beach game, preview of the CCSA teams and other top NCAA teams, along with top athletes to watch.

NOTE: Highlights or the interview to be posted over at VolleyballMag.com for a FULL 2023 Collegiate Beach preview by Travis Mewhirter.

Full interview of Long Beach St. Head Coach of Beach Volleyball, Mike Campbell discussing recent growth and changes to the NCAA Collegiate Beach game, preview of his Long Beach St. and Big West, along with other top NCAA teams and athletes.

The CVW crew discusses a handful of top matches this week that include the still unbeaten teams of No. 1 Hawaii, No. 5 Grand Canyon and No. 15 Charleston. Also on the top items of the week are EIVA powerhouse No. 3 Penn St. and deep MPSF team, No. 2 UCLA. It's a pretty good-length discussion so the guys touch briefly on top teams in the conferences and quickly pick their players of the week-- which happen to be all setters (almost).

Also, Dan Friend of Lewis wanted to remind everyone that his matches this week will be Rae Strong Foundation matches where all proceeds benefit families managing pre-mature born babies.

NOTE: Highlights or the interview to be posted over at VolleyballMag.com for a FULL 2023 Collegiate Beach preview by Travis Mewhirter.

Full interview of Florida St. Head Coach of Beach Volleyball, Brooke Niles discussing recent growth and changes to the NCAA Collegiate Beach game, preview of the CCSA teams and other top NCAA teams, along with top athletes to watch-- and an anectdotal story of her playing days!

2023 is HERE and the CVW team is new and ready go!

This week we meet our Student-Athlete crew, Charlie Ekstrom of Stanford, Alana Rennie of Arizona and newly-added, Kate Privett of Florida St.-- wait, TCU :), to discuss the AVCA Preseason Poll, Fall Competition and NCAA Beach Championships format change. With collegebeachvb.com coming out with their preseason picks Rob thought it would be interesting to ask the Student-Athletes about their top Newcomer of the Year, blocker, defender, team and athlete pics to watch would be in the 2023 season! #ncaabeach

Be sure to support the teams, their athletes and coaches by following them on social media and clicking/tapping into their websites!

Week 6 proved to be an intensley newsworthy week as the CVW Crew discuss the departure of Miles Partain from UCLA, BYU’s surge, the Matadors’ “magic,” the Warriors awakened from rest and the start of conference play for some teams around the nation. Additionally, the NCAA is down to 3 undefeated teams—No. 1 Hawaii, No. 5 GCU and No. 15 Charleston. How long will these unblemished records stand? Without a doubt these teams are playing high quality ball regardless of who their opponents may be.

As always, the crew picks out a few matches in Week 7 to keep your eyes on! #NCAAMVB

I don't know what happened during the original upload but it only stored 16 minutes in the podcast version. If you've listened to the other one, move the slider to the 16:00 minute mark to hear the rest. Sorry everyone, didn't catch it until tonight (2/7/23)

Week 5 proved to be a week full of upsets-- or not-- according to coaches' panel on CVW. But one thing was evident. Jay's Patriots beat Dan's Flyers for his first win! Dan, Jay, Brad and Rob talk about the "(non) upsets" and the key performers of the matches, then discuss where the teams are at. We briefly discuss the 4 remaining undefeated teams of Hawaii, Long Beach St., Grand Canyon and Charleston. Will they remained unblemished after Week 6?

As always, the guys close out the episode with top matches they'll be watching in Week 6! #NCAAMVB

Week 5 proved to be a week full of upsets-- or not-- according to coaches' panel on CVW. But one thing was evident. Jay's Patriots beat Dan's Flyers for his first win! Dan, Jay, Brad and Rob talk about the "(non) upsets" and the key performers of the matches, then discuss where the teams are at. We briefly discuss the 4 remaining undefeated teams of Hawaii, Long Beach St., Grand Canyon and Charleston. Will they remained unblemished after Week 6?

As always, the guys close out the episode with top matches they'll be watching in Week 6! #NCAAMVB

In this week's episode we have a surprise guest joining the CVW crew in place of Jay Hosck: his former employer, Mark Pavlik of Penn St.!

As always, we discuss the previous week's results along with some of the top peformers, but we also delve into the following topics:

Long Beach St. Containing the Nittany Lions in Happy Valley. Is LBS the real deal?
Is Gianni back? If so, what difference will he make being that the 'Lopes are 6-0 and experiencing their best start in program history.
Only 5 undefeated teams remain in the Top 15: Hawaii, UCLA, Long Beach St., Grand Canyon, and Loyola. Still too early or is this telling of what we could see in the National Chapionship Tournament?
Just outside the top-15, Charleston is 7-0. What's happening in WV and what does that mean for the EIVA?

We finish out the episode by picking matches to watch in Week 5!

Theo Edwards of CSUN, Dan Friend of Lewis, Jay Hosack of George Mason and Brad Rostratter of UCSD jump on to talk about the week that was in results, top athlete performances and news related to National Championship volleyball. Key items: First Point Collegiate Challenge in Austin, TX; George Mason Tournament; Undefeated teams: good or bad indicators; top athletes of the week, "Unsung Heroes" as chosen by the coaching panel. Also discussed, how are panels' teams are doing so far.

As always, we end by asking the panel of guys what matches they'll be watcing out for in Week 4 of #NCAAVB!

Theo Edwards of CSUN, Dan Friend of Lewis, Jay Hosack of George Mason and Brad Rostratter of UCSD jump on to talk about the week that was in results, top athlete performances and news related to National Championship volleyball. Key items: Penn St. and GCU are both undefeated-- WITHOUT PLAYING THEIR BIG GO TO GUYS! How are they doing it?!?! Also, @VolleyVenue on Instagram posted a graphic that stated that MPSF teams are 23-1 vs. other conferences. Could we see a resurgence of the MPSF this year?

Other miscellaneous items include Lewis' new "signee" and how Theo hasn't aged since 2010!

Episode 166 brings about the start of the the NCAA Men's National Championship Volleyball season. Even with top teams not starting or playing exhibition matches there was still plenty of Men's Volleyball happening!

Theo Edwards of CSUN, Dan Friend of Lewis, Jay Hosack of George Mason and Brad Rostratter of UCSD jump on to talk about the week that was in results, top athlete performances and news related to National Championship volleyball. Key news item discussed is the NCAA choosing not to cover men's volleyball in 2023. What can be done? Listen in-- and tag your social media with #ncaamvb!

Jay Hosack of George Mason, and Dan Friend of Lewis are back for another run around the sun, while Brad Rosstratter of UCSD and Theo Edwards of CSUN join on! Part 2 will look at the recently completed 2022 NCAA Women's D1 Volleyball Championship vs. the Men's D1-2 Championship at UCLA in May of 2022.

The guys then roll into their 2023 NCAA Men's D1-2 preview-- picking out "dark horse" Natty Contenders, athletes to keep an eye on across the nation, and matches to watch in Week 1! And of course, a little plug for the First Point Collegiate Challenge in January!

Jay Hosack of George Mason, and Dan Friend of Lewis are back for another run around the sun with Rob! Part 1 focuses on meeting the new crew of Brad Rostratter of UCSD and Theo Edwards of CSUN, while at the same time a guest appearance from former Pepperdine Men's Volleyball Coach, David Hunt-- who is now a National Champion at Texas on the Women's side. The older coaches offer some wisdom for the young guys.

The guys all jump in to discuss ALL the coaching changes and what's happening in D1-2 Men's Volleyball, Queens University over to the MIVA, a handful of teams jumping grom the EIVA to the newly formed NEC, and what this all means for NCAA tournament expansion for the Men's side. Listen in and be sure to jump over to Part 2 in a few days.

This week's College Volleyball Weekly crew adds special guest, Jaden Whitmarsh of UCLA Beach and "Athlete Life By Jaden" to discuss the first-ever fall exhibitions/competitions in collegiate beach volleyball. Although the access to results and information was limited we try our best to evaluate the results, along with the "inside chatter" and fold in our actual on-site experience at the events that we were in-person. Topics include the East Coast Championships, West Coast Championships, AVCA Pairs Championships, Relentless Collegiate Beach Challenge and a few others in AZ, FL and in CA!

This week's episode of College Volleyball Weekly brings former Torrey Pines and Wave Volleyball standout, and current UCLA Beach star, Jaden Whitmarsh. Sure, she's got game and is known as "Ms. Clutch" when it come dual deciding matches, but she's also an aspiring sports journalist who recently started @athletelifebyjaden on Instagram.

The pieces will focus on the athlete and coach experience for collegiate athletes. So far, her guests include UCLA Men's Volleyball's, Merrick McHenry, and UCLA Beach's, Devon Newberry. She's got UCLA Beach Head Coach, Stein Metzger coming up as well!

The next few episodes of College Volleyball Weekly, Men's D1-2 Top 15 will be exploring the FOUR NCAA D1-2 Men's Volleyball teams with head coach changes. From former UCLA Assistant to Loyola Head Coach John Hawks, former women's Fresno St. Head Coach to now-Head Coach at Pepperdine, Jon Winder, to former Grand View Head Coach to current-Head Coach at Ball State, Donan Cruz, and finally to former Vanguard Head Coach to now-Head Coach at UCSD, Brad Rostratter.

In Episode 161, new Ball St. Men's Head Coach Donan Cruz discusses how his transition was in coming over from Grand View University, to Ball St., notching multiple quality wins, having his team win multiple weekly and post-season awards and heading to the NCAA D1-2 Tournament-- all in his first season. We can't fail to mention his receiving of AVCA Coach of the Year recognition! Donan ends by sharing his thoughts on the tightness of the collegiate coaching community.

The next few episodes of College Volleyball Weekly, Men's D1-2 Top 15 will be exploring the FOUR NCAA D1-2 Men's Volleyball teams with head coach changes. From former UCLA Assistant to Loyola Head Coach John Hawks, former women's Fresno St. Head Coach to now-Head Coach at Pepperdine, Jon Winder, to former Grand View Head Coach to current-Head Coach at Ball State, Donan Cruz, and finally to former Vanguard Head Coach to now-Head Coach at UCSD, Brad Rostratter.

In Episode 160, new Pepperdine Men's Head Coach Jon Winder jumps on CVW to talk about how his career journey has brought him back to Pepperdine, why he chose to accept the position and how his experience playing AND coaching along with why he wants to be a "good shepherd and steward" of the Wave Program.

After almost a 2-month hiatus, the Viral Volley Podcast is BACK!!!

The next few episodes of College Volleyball Weekly, Men's D1-2 Top 15 will be exploring the FOUR NCAA D1-2 Men's Volleyball teams with head coach changes. From former UCLA Assistant to Loyola Head Coach John Hawks, former women's Fresno St. Head Coach to now-Head Coach at Pepperdine, Jon Winder, to former Grand View Head Coach to current-Head Coach at Ball State, Donan Cruz, and finally to former Vanguard Head Coach to now-Head Coach at UCSD, Brad Rostratter.

John Hawks of Loyola discusses the process of coming to apply for the Loyola positiion, the impact of current-UCLA & USA Men's National Team Head Coach, John Speraw and others like Dr. Andrea Becker, and former UCLA Assistant, Spencer McLachlin. We'll talk about his journey throughout the MPSF (pre-Big West), going out to Ohio, coming back to UCLA, then accepting his current position at Loyola.

John then gives us a preview of his team, talks about Men's volleyball across the nation and upcoming fall competition.

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Rob-on-the-Mic sits down with the reigning AVCA AND Big West Player of the Year and Freshman of the Year, Alex Nikolov. In recent weeks, Alex announced his departure from Long Beach St., but not before garnering multiple awards from the Big West AND AVCA. With Alex, "The Beach" finished the season 21-6, and played in the NCAA D1-2 Championship match.

Alex takes the time to discuss his transition to Long Beach, CA, the new culture and his new teammates, battling through the NCAA Tournament, then unexpectedly playing in Volleyball Nations League for Bulgaria. The "unexpected" continued as he signed with AS Lube in Italy to play professional indoor volleyball, his childhood dream!

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Hailey Harward closed out her collegiate beach volleyball career with 2 National Championships, AVCA and Pac-12 Pair of the Year awards and has also garnered numerous All-Pac-12 Conference awards. Hear Hailey reflect on the 2022 Collegiate Beach season, the USC Beach team's culture and leadership and playing for Head Coach, Dain Blanton.

As we step into the last few weeks of life, Hailey and Tina Graudina did something remarkable in their 1st AVP Pro Beach event together-- win a championship in Ft. Lauderdale-- against roommate and USC teammate, Julia Scoles (playing with fellow USC alumna, Geena Urango). Hailey shares how it was like advancing to the championship match, playing against Julia/Geena, and coming to their shared home from an East Coast swing with TWO AVP Championships (with Julia winning in Atlanta)!

Recorded mid-July, I had the opportunity to virtually sit down with former-Pepperdine Men's Coach/current Texas Longhorn Associate Head Coach, David Hunt, and his wife, 3x Olympic Medalist (Bronze, Silver, Gold) and Longhorn Volunteer Coach, Jordan Larson.

They had a huge year with a lot of transition as a first-year married couple, so we delve on career changes, life and coaching. In Part 2, they mainly discuss coaching, influences and player-training dynamics.

Recorded mid-July, I wanted to virtually sit down with former-Pepperdine Men's Coach/current Texas Longhorn Associate Head Coach, David Hunt, and his wife, 3x Olympic Medalist (Bronze, Silver, Gold) and Longhorn Volunteer Coach, Jordan Larson.

They had a huge year with a lot of transition as a first-year married couple, so we delve on career changes, life and coaching. I still have some content to sift through in our interview so there will most likely be a Part 2.

SECOND of two episodes this week! Check out Episode 152 where Mads talks about her personal journey this last 2 seasons. It's a good one!

It took a couple of months but we were able to get together for the 2022 NCAA Collegiate Beach Season and Gulf Shores recap!

Charlie Ekstrom of Stanford, Mads Fitzpatrick of Florida St., and Alana Rennie of Arizona jump on to the CVW Collegiate Beach Finale to talk about news, teams and athletes during the 2022 season.

Closing out the finale the players chat about the the NCAA Collegiate Beach Championships in Gulf Shores and some of their "Players' Choice" awards!

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In the "Mega Mads" episode of College Volleyball Weekly, Rob has a familiar face on: CVW Beach Top-20's Mads Fitzpatrick of Florida St.

Mads talks about coming back from COVID to compete in 2021 only to have a shortened season due to injury. Mads was on a mission to "make things right" as she entered the 2022 season with one of the hottest winning streaks in the nation!

Mads then shares about her 2022 NCAA Collegiate Beach Volleyball experience in Gulf Shores. From almost being eliminated in the 1st Round, to the grinding battle with UCLA to advance into the Championships match.

Mads then shares her thoughts on winning her final match vs. USC in the National Championship match.

In this mega-episode finale, the CVW Crew takes on the PTI (CRS) format to discuss the happenings of the last 2 weeks in Conference Tournaments and the NCAA D1-2 Championships. Additionally the guys talk about a recurring phenomenon: Top quality Coaches and Assistants leaving the Men's game to pursue more beneficial circumstances of highly touted Women's programs.

It's time. The best in the nation square off after completion of the Conference Tournaments and the NCAA Selection Show. Charlie Ekstrom of Stanford Beach and Mads Fitzpatrick of Florida St. jump on to our 2nd-to-the-last episode of the season to break down what happened in Week 10 and what COULD happen as teams "Brawl in 'Bama" for the National Championship! Will USC repeat? Will a Cinderella team rise from anonymity?

One thing is for certain-- IT'S GOING TO BE GOOOOOOD!

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In this Special Episode of College Volleyball Weekly, Beach Top-20, Russell Brock, Head Coach of perennial powerhouse LSU jumps on the show to talk about the start of the 2022 season, the development and transformation of his team and how the Sandy Tigers finished-- all while having multiple, talented pieces to work with-- some who which have very limited beach volleyball experience.

Also, with the CCSA Beach Championships and goal of competing at the NCAA Collegiate Beach Championships in Gulf Shores, AL, we discuss the state of his team, their readiness for it and the mission of the Sandy Tigers!

Conference tourneys are in sight and teams are dialing up a level to compete! This week Charlie Ekstrom of Stanford and Rob Espero discuss the results in week 8 and peek at what could happen in week 9.

With the regular season coming to a close, based upon results to date Charlie and Rob project what the NCAA Tournament field COULD look like.

NOTE: Apologies to you all who were looking forward to a regular episode. Some times you have to work with what you have. We do have a special guest next week, and it's an individual whose info and data graphics are mindblowing in NCAA Men's Volleyball. The tournament teams willed be revealed and VolleyVenue will be churning out even more infographics!

The CVW Coaches are heading to their respective conference tournaments so we had to record asynchronously and combine them all into one episode. In addition, Rob-on-the-Mic has been working multiple conference finalies, Collegiate Beach Tournaments and fulfilling other USA Volleyball needs.

Given our circumstances above the guys talk about eye-catching results in Week 15 then take a sneak-peek at the upcoming conference tournament matchups!

In light of our crazy travel and work schedules this week, along with the final 10 days of HUGE regular season play Charlie, Mads and Rob throw down the top-11 results from last week while Mads, shares a little bit about her upcoming weekend at the Center of Effort Challenge at Cal Poly (San Luis Obispo, CA).

It's going to be a crazy ending to the 2022 Collegiate Beach Season here on College Volleyball Weekly!

Coming on over from the VolleyballMag.com's discussion on College Volleyball Weekly, Week 14 brought about a handful of upsets shaking up some of the conference races and seedings for conference tournaments. Today the CVW crew discusses the conference tournaments and some of the likely scenarios. From the Conference Carolinas, EIVA, MIVA, Big West and MPSF, Dan, Dave, and Jay will throw down nuggets (as they always do).

We're two-thirds way through the 2022 Collegiate Beach season and if anything has been evident it's that it's going to be a wild finish!

Guest Contributor, Alana Rennie of Arizona joins Charlie Ekstrom of Stanford and Rob-on-the-Mic to discuss the Week 6 action of the season highlighting the top teams, talents and play.

The CVW crew then selects some top duals/tournaments as we move closer to conference tournament time, and eventually the NCAA Beach Championship.

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As we've concluded Week 5 of the NCAA Collegiate Beach season it is pretty apparent as good as it has been so far, the best in yet to come.

In this episode, Mads summarizes the experience at the LSU Beach Invitational, top players and teams and her experience of being the dual-deciding-kill-for-match for #4 Florida St. vs. #6 LSU at Death Volley.

Charlie then describes her experience at the Pac-12 South Invitational, going 8-0 for the week as a pair, then receiving Pac-12 Player of the Week honors.

It's an OWL TAKEOVER! Conference-USA Pair of the Week Mackenzie Morris and Erica Brok of #10 jump into the digital bandwidth to break down Week 4 competition highlighting some of the big duals and matches that went down. As always, we'll drop some numbers, stats and awards as Charlie and Mads would, but from an "Owls'" perspective.

We end the episode discussing "The Watchlist"-- some of the top duals we'll be watching!

As we are two-thirds the way into the 2022 Men's D1-2 season, the CVW crew thought we should do a conference run-down "around the horn" style. With that we tried to break down the conferences' top teams and what COULD shake down come conference tournament time.

After 3 weeks of the young Collegiate Beach season Charlie, Mads and Rob take a peak at some of the top performing teams of the top 20, the top performing pairs at each of the 5 flights and upcoming tournaments/duals in week 4.

As an added bonus, the crew takes fan questions to help you discover each of the athletes' experiences, the life as a student-athlete and some other miscellaneous questions!

Penn St. still playing strong taking down MIVA powerhouse OSU, then St. Francis comes in to do the same, but is our panel convinced that the Nittany Lions can continue to flex their muscle?

Hawaii-- are they still a formidable top-5 team? Even amid the Hawaii/Lewis matchup, one thing is clear-- the SSC crowd and Hawaii fans make for an incredible experience.

The guys then tangent off to an "altitude vs. elevation" digression mentioning the conspiracy of altitude and serving problems.

Finally, the CVW crew then discusses the upset of the top 2 teams in the polls: First, UCI's upset of #2 Long Beach St., then Stanford's upset of #1 UCLA.

After 2 weekends of NCAA Collegiate Beach action 5 teams remain undefeated and a new #1 has been crowned each week so far. Charlie and Rob delve into the action in week 2 chatting about top performing teams and stellar team/pair/individual performances across the nation. Are FIU and Peppedine ready to jump into the mix? Can LSU keep pushing for the top? Is TCU going to "hop" all over their opponents in the Islands? And of course, is UCLA going to hold on to that top spot?

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As always, the CVW crew breaks down the top news of the Top-15 in this "shortened" episode over from VolleyballMag.com's College Volleyball Weekly!

And the 2022 NCAA Collegiate Beach season has launched and is in FULL EFFECT!

Charlie Ekstrom of Stanford, Mads Fitzpatrick of Florida St. and Rob-on-the-Mic, break down the Week 1 action in the Top-20 of the Colleigate Beach schedule highlighting top performances by teams, pairs and individuals. We'll also taka a look at the AVCA and CollegeBeachVB.com polls to what teams are hot-- and what teams are not. As always, we finish the episode with some of the top duals we'll be watching in Week 2!

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Week 8 brought us seven, 5-set decisions with five of those happening on Saturday night 2/26. Grand Canyon of the MPSF won their first ever match at Smith Fieldhouse, then did it again 2 nights later. #5 USC and #7 Pepperdine had great battles, and there is no doubt they will see each other in the Conference Tournament in a heated battle. The MIVA is well, getting complicated. Multiple teams are vying for the top spot while Penn St. was pressed by NJIT.

The guys end the episode taking on a couple of fan questions that don't involved the firing of Dan of Lewis. Yes, he had a tough week last week...

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This week the CVW crew discusses the happenings in Week 7 that including Ball St./MIVA, the (scrappy) winning ways of UCSB, Penn St. being alone at the top, and surging teams of the MPSF. As always, the guys pick their matches to watch during the week in a shortened segment to take on the re-introduction of "Fan Questions!'

Mads Fitzpatrick of Florida St. is BACK!

The Cal Poly Mustangs of the Big West Conference have established themselves as one of the top programs in the nation. The Mustangs have been to the NCAA Championships at Gulf Shores in back-to-back years (2019, 2021-- 2020 season cancelled). Sparking the fire in this program is none other than "The Professor," Todd Rogers, who is a 2-time Big West Coach of the Year.

Along with Todd, is All-Conference returnee, Tia Miric who has been an incredible talent and leader for Cal Poly. They both discuss the 2019 season, COVID, coming back in 2021 and what to expect in 2022.

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In our 3rd preseason interview we rock a new intro and look east to Boca Raton, home of the FAU Owls and chat with the winningest pair in their program, Erica Brok and Mackenzie Morris.

In this episode they discuss their 2021 season, their 4.5 year career together, off-season training and a preview of the 2022 season.

Expect another great season from this pair as they take the Owls to new heights!

YouTube: https://youtu.be/u_0SDbJna_w

Big week for underdog teams across the nation! A continued conversation from VolleyballMag.com. USC and Ball St. are shaking things up at the top and Week 6 of the season is showing anything but more upsets as a contender has anonymously risen to the top!

Long Beach St. is rolling and made a statement this last week while other teams who are traditionally "powerhouses" are trying to adjust their lineups trying to find the magic combination to get wins.

The guys chat about Week 6 results and pick matches to watch in Week 7.

In this week's pre-season episode special, Charlie Ekstrom of Stanford and Rob Espero of the Viral Volley Podcast chat with up-and-coming talent from the Arizona Wildcats, Defender, Alana Rennie, and Blocker, Alex Parkhurst. In this episode they share about their first couple of seasons, coming out of COVID, the 2021 season and the dynamic of their Arizona team.

From there we discuss fall training, individual and team outlook, the competition in the Pac-12 in 2022, then close out the episode with top teams and players to watch!

The CVW Crew discusses the action in Week 5 focusing on the top performing teams of the week like Ball St., Concordia, UC Santa Barbara, Long Beach St. and UCLA. From there we get some insight to the first-ever First Point Organization Collegiate Challenge that was held in Austin, TX that featured, Fairleigh Dickinson, Queen's, Stanford and National Champion, Hawaii.

The guys close out the episode with matches to keep an eye (or two) on during Week 6 of the NCAA D1-2 Men's Volleyball season.

We are just shy of 20 days before the 2022 Collegiate Beach season takes the sand (and yes, we are excited)! It was an exciting end to the 2021 re-crowning USC as the National Champion, but what we discovered is that other programs are rising in talent and will not go down without a fight!

One of those programs is the history making team in the CCSA, TCU-- a team that made it to Gulf Shores for the first time in program history in 2021. That Horned Frog team was lead by then-Freshman Phenoms (or current Sophomore Super Ballers), Dani Alvarez and Tania Moreno who played at the No. 1 spot for TCU. These Spanish National Team members are the inaugural guests on this episode with Charlie Ekstrom (Stanford Beach) and Rob Espero, to discuss the 2021 season, the last 7 months and what the Horned Frogs will look like in the 2022 season!

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In a carry-over conversation from College Volleyball Weekly on VolleyballMag.com, the CVW crew discusses one of the most upset-ridden weeks in the 2022 season where the top-3 AVCA/Off-the-Block-Blog Media Poll teams took losses, while teams like UCSB, Penn St., Ball St. and USC are rising with big victories and strong records so far.

The guys finish out the episode with some of the top matches to be on the lookout for in Week 5 of the NCAA Men's D1-2 Volleyball season!

Week 3 of the NCAA D1-2 season has concluded and only 3 unbeaten teams remain in the Top 15. Long Beach St. is on the rise while COVID is still keeping a few teams from playing their first match in 2022.

The CVW crew looks at Week 3 results and picks out some of matches to watch in Week 4!

The College Volleyball Weekly Crew breaks down the Week 2 NCAA D1-2 Men's Volleyball Top-15 along with some other notable tidbits and news. In reviewing the week's action they may even drop some top performers as well.

In addition, the CVW Crew will also identify some of the Top-15 matches coming up in Week 3!

As we kick off the 2022 Men's D1-2 season we saw two-thirds of matches cancelled or rescheduled due to COVID protocols BUT we were still able to get a few matches off with the defending National Champs, Hawaii going 2-0, while Stanford took court again after being on the chopping block.

We're back! College Volleyball Weekly on the Viral Volley Podcast! As we kick off the 2022 Men's D1-2 season we saw two-thirds of matches cancelled or rescheduled due to COVID protocols we were still able to get a few matches off with the defending National Champs, Hawaii going 2-0, while Stanford took court again after being on the chopping block. Lewis' Dan Friend, George Mason's Jay Hosack and Pepperdine's David Hunt join Rob Espero for another season of College Volleyball Weekly to discuss the previous week's results and pick out some key matches in the upcoming week!

Lewis' Dan Friend, George Mason's Jay Hosack and Pepperdine's David Hunt join Rob Espero for another season of College Volleyball Weekly to discuss the previous week's results and pick out some key matches in the upcoming week!

Episode 124 brings back UCLA Sr. Libero, Zoe Fleck who discusses the Fall 2021 Pac-12 Conference season for the Bruins, her All-Conference honoree teammates along with Pac-12 Player of the Year, Mac May, her back-to-back Pac-12 Libero of the Year Award as well as Coach Mike Sealy receiving Co-Coach of the Year honors. We also chat about the NCAA Tournament and the Bruins' mindset as they begin their quest on Friday night!

In this episode of the Viral Volley Podcast, the crew from No. 16 Oregon makes an appearane on College Volleyball Weekly, Pac-12 Race Edition! Head Coach Matt Ullmer, and standouts MB Karson Bacon and Super OH Brooke Nuneviller. The three discuss their big weekend matches vs. USC and UCLA and how the Ducks were able to contain the hot-hitting hand of Mac May en route to a 3-0 sweep-- after grinding out a 5-set win vs. the Trojans.

From there we look at this upcoming weekend's matchup aginst the Washington schools-- WSU and UW, and the importance of the final 4 matches for an NCAA Tournament berth.

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In this episode of the Viral Volley Podcast, No. 12 Washington Head Coach Keegan Cook and Huskie standouts Claire Hoffman and Sam Drechsel jump on the show to discuss last weekend's NorCal victories vs. Stanford and Cal. The crew then looks to this weekend's matchups vs. Oregon St. and Oregon and what it could mean for the Pac-12 race and an NCAA Tournament berth.

Oregon Ducks Head Coach Matt Ulmer jumps on the Viral Volley Podcast: Pac-12 Race Edition to discuss thoughts on the 2021 team, their strong start out of the gate, some of his top performers like Brooke Nuneviller and Karson Bacon, as well as thoughts about the Pac-12 competition.

Matt shares his thoughts about what Pac-12 teams could be in the NCAA Tournament at this point in time.

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This week features the No. 13 UCLA Bruins’ Graduate OH, Mac May and Senior Libero Zoe Fleck as they discuss coming into the 2021 season, their early team outlook and coming out of COVID.

Mac and Zoe talk about some early bumps in the season and how the Bruins have grown and learned from those bumps going into last weekend’s battle with then-#22 Washington St. and then-#8 Washington.

The ladies end by sharing their perspective on the state of the PAC-12 Conference and what teams could be vying for an NCAA Tournament berth.

Brad Keller comes on this week’s episode to briefly discuss coming onto the Trojan staff at the start of the pandemic and the challenges he faced as the new head coach of the storied USC program.

Brad then also discusses the team and where their development is at the midpoint of Pac-12 Conference play, some of his commendable performers on the team and what we should expect to see at the second half—along with some of the teams that could be vying for NCAA Tournament berths.

On this special episode of College Volleyball Weekly on The Viral Volley Podcast Rob Espero speaks with the former No. 1 pair in 2021 for LSU to reflect on the 2021 Collegiate Beach season, how they came together, their 1st-ever AVP season, and the McKibbin Brothers'/SharpVision TX 4-Man this coming weekend.

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After a 2-month hiatus Rob decided to come back into the Podcast-o-sphere-- this time doing an episode on one of his digital projects involving the No. 10-ranked Washington Huskies. It just happens the Huskies went up against No. 13-ranked NW rival Oregon on 10/14/21 and it was a 5-set thriller. What better time than to put an episode out-- this time a D1 NCAA Women's Volleyball episode.

In this episode are Head Coach Keegan Cook, DS/OH Shannon Crenshaw and Setter Ella May Powell. They share about their teams propensity to like the number "5." Keegan I'm sure would enjoy a different number, but I'm sure he's okay as long as his team wins matches!

Emily, Salima and Jenny are definitely "the source," but we're here just to grow exposure! Don't worry all. Rob will still be focusing on Men's D1-2 and Collegiate Beach when the time comes!

Dan Friend of Lewis University, Jay Hosack of George Mason, Dave Hunt of Pepperdine discuss the USA Men's and Women's Indoor teams' performance in Tokyo.

It's after the Olympics and we've got a College Volleyball Weekly, or "CVW Beach Edition Episode!" This week: UCLA Beach AVCA 2x All-American Lexy Denaburg!

Lexy sits down with Rob Espero for USAV Beach Olympic women's breakdown and thoughts on what we saw with former and current NCAA phenoms on the world's biggest stage in Tokyo. We then jump into an overview of her 2021 season with topics ranging from regular season to the championships at Gulf Shores. We then venture into what she's been doing since finals finished at UCLA.

And finally, the big news of the week: Lexy is partnering up with AVP superstar, Maria Salgado for AVP ATL!

USA MNT Team Captain comes back into the Viral Volley Podcast to look back at his Polish PlusLiga season with PGE Skra and Volleyball Nations League during this pandemic season.

The BYU alumnus then discusses playing alongside “little bro," Brenden during VNL, the new faces of USA Volleyball like TJ DeFalco, Josh Tuaniga and Kyle Ensing, a little about USA's Tokyo roster and potential starting lineups.

After 5 intensely competitive weeks of FIVB Volleyball Nations League (VNL), USA Women's National Team Captain and 3x Olympian OH, Jordan Larson reflects on preliminary round play, the finals and winning the THIRD consecutive VNL gold. Jordan discusses some of the key performers, but acknowledges that everyone within the 23-person roster has played the largest part in the USA's success. Jordan briefly discusses the next 3 weeks as the Olympics quickly approach.

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robonthemic.com

In our Preliminary Round 4 (Week 4) update we bring the new faces to the 2021 Tokyo Olympics roster, Chiaka Ogbogu (Texas | Coppell, TX) and Justine Wong-Orantes (Nebraska | Cypress, CA) to break down the USA Women's National Team's performance, their play as the "rookies" and the upcoming week's matchup vs. Russia, Poland and China!

In this special episode of the Viral Volley Podcast, the now-3x Olympian, David Smith, who was named to his 3rd Olympic roster this morning, shares his thoughts on the roster, the coaching staffs' decision-making challenges and the youngsters who were named.

Big news items this week on the USA Volleyball Women's National Team/Volleyball Nations League Update: With Head Coach Karch Kiraly naming the 12-person roster for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics Jordan and Kelsey share their thoughts on being repeat Olympians, the roster and the newcomers to start off this week's episode.

As the VNL competition continued the USA WNT has amassed a 9-0 start in dominating fashion. KRob and The Gov discuss the USA's success but also mention that there is still a lot of work to be done. There are still tough matches ahead as rosters update, change and rotate for other teams as we love closer to the "knockout stages" and have the Olympics in sight.

Former Long Beach St. back-to-back National Champions and All-Americans, Kyle Ensing, Josh Tuaniga and TJ DeFalco playing for the USA Men's National Team in Rimini, Italy for FIVB Volleyball Nations League discuss their time in the "Rimini Bubble" and their experience playing with some of the biggest names in the game.

2016 Olympic Bronze Medalists Micah Christenson and David Smith jump on to this mini-sode of the Viral Volley Podcast to talk about quarantining in Rimini, Italy, Week 1 of VNL and give some insight to some of their Week 2 opponents. Featured interview (primary content) is located on VolleyballMag.com and should be posted by 6/2/21!

In our Volleyball Nations League (VNL) Week 1 recap former Nebraska "Huskers" Kelsey Robinson and Jordan Larson tag-team on sharing what it's like in the "Rimini Bubble" in Italy for Volleyball Nations League. We then delve into the 3-0 start by the USA, it's new faces and combination of lineups. We even chat about the big news for the week: Foluke Akinradewo-Gunderson's first time back on the playing court since 2018!

We end by discussing the Week 2 matchups of VNL!

In this special episode of College Volleyball Weekly, Beach Edition we've got a "Roomie Recap" of USC's 2021 season. Roomates Tina Graudina, Hailey Harward and Julia Scoles reflect on the 2021 season, sharing there experiences through the NCAA Collegiate Beach Championship in Gulf Shores, AL. They give insight to COVID, training, Olympics and what's next for the ladies next season.

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With a new Collegiate Beach National Championed crowned at Gulf Shores last weekend, the CVW Beach Crew discusses their experience, some of the matches that stuck out during the Natty-Weekend and some of the top pairs and athletes. We also briefly mentioned the AVCA All-America recipients, the polls and end with a crowd favorite-- Fan Questions!

This week, UCSD Head Coach Kevin Ring jumps into the mix with the usual suspects, David Hunt of Pepperdine, Jay Hosack of George Mason and Dan Friend of Lewis. The CVW crew recaps UCSD's standout accomplishment of handing National Champion Hawaii their only loss of the season, the NCAA D1-2 Tournament week as well as the NCAA Championship match that crowned Hawaii the 2021 National Champion.

Additionally, the guys discuss takeaways from the 2021 season and what to expect in the 2022 season-- and a trending discussion on social media-- the unequal coverage of Men's Volleyball during the Championships.

This week on College Volleyball Weekly Charlie Ekstrom of Stanford, Mads Fitzpatrick of Florida St. and Rob Espero discuss the AVCA Top Flight recipients, the latest AVCA and CollegeBeachVB.com polls and of course, the grand finale of the Collegiate Beach season-- Gulf Shores, AL-- for the NCAA Collegiate Beach Championship weekend to award a Natty!

No fluff or flair (graphics, backgrounds). Just talk about the AVCA Men's D1-2 All-America teams with 3 of the All-America Committee members, Chair Dan Friend (Lewis), Jay Hosack (George Mason) and David Hunt (Pepperdine).

Although the matches already happened you can hear how the coaches approached their matchups.

As the Viral Volley Podcast breaks the century mark we bring Coach of one of the hottest teams in the last few years, Rick McLaughlin of the UCSB Gauchos. Rick along with Dan, Dave, Jay and Rob break down conference tournament play teams and athletes. They guys then delve into the NCAA Men's Volleyball Championship Tournament matchups and the NCAA Selection Committees' seedings and the challenge of this COVID-era season.

In this 100th episode of College Volleyball Weekly on the Viral Volley Podcast is honored to have legendary Head Coach Mark Pavlik on the show! Over 600 wins, 2 National Championships, innumerable NCAA Tournament appearances and EIVA titles, Mark talks about the 2021 Tournament, teams and the NCAA Selection Committee.

On College Volleyball Weekly, Beach Edition this week we're outnumbered by SEMINOLES! This week Kate Privett joins teammate Mads Fitzpatrick of Florida St. along with Charlie Ekstrom of Stanford and Rob Espero to discuss the action in Week 8 of the Collegiate Beach season. They'll then look forward to the end of regular season play with key matches and conference tournament action.

The ladies then close it out by answering fan questions!

The College Volleyball Weekly or "CVW" Crew recaps Week 14 of the NCAA D1-2 Men's Volleyball season. Highlighting the discussion are conference tournaments-- some already in their Semfinals or Finals, like the EIVA and MIVA accordingly, while other have just started. Belmont Abbey of the Conference Carolinas-- who received their first-ever NCAA Tournament berth will be waiting to find out who'll be in the rest of the field!

The College Volleyball Weekly Crew drops in to chat about the top matches of Week 13 with some conferences tournaments commencing, All-Conference honors and Conference Coaches of the Year.

They guys also chat about some of the top performers of Week 13 and what we can expect to see in Week 14 with the NCAA Men's D1-2 Volleyball Championships in view.

Available where ever you get your podcasts!

2 weeks out from Conference Tournaments and teams have been making pushes to make cases to be in Gulf Shores, AL for the NCAA Collegiate Beach Championships!

Mads Fitzpatrick of Florida St. and Charlie Ekstrom of Stanford along with Rob Espero recap the action in Week 7, discuss top pairs/performers and pick their matches of the week in Week 8. Intertwined in the conversation they talk about remaining undefeated teams and top 1st Year/COVID Freshman/Newcomers.

In this Special Episode of the Viral Volley Podcast, former Pepperdine Beach standout and current Wisconsin Badger, Deahna Kraft jumps onto the show with Rob.

Together they talk about Deahna's Beach career at Pepperdine, why she chose to play beach instead of indoor (being a talented MH/Opp), going back to indoor with a top-5 program in Wisconsin, and the opportunity as a Badger to play for a National Championship!

We end the episode by discussing her connection to the Pepperdine program and an uncertain future-- at least for now-- and the possibilities of playing volleyball on either surface, and beyond!

This week on College Volleyball Weekly, Beach Edition in Mads Fitzpatrick of FSU's school responsibilities filling in will be #10 Grand Canyon's Teagan DeFalco (the best VB player in the DeFalco family), along with the usual suspects of Charlie Ekstrom of #6 Stanford and Rob Espero. Together, they'll jump into a Week 6 Recap and a Week 7 Preview with some of the top athletes of the week in the AVCA Top 15 in Collegiate Beach Volleyball!

This week the College Volleyball Weekly Crew with Big West Representative, Alan Knipe, Head Coach of Long Beach St. discuss the big happenings in Week 12 as we get closer to Conference Tournament time. David Hunt of Pepperdine (in quarantine status) and Jay Hosack of George Mason share potential impacts of their conferences' late COVID cancelations, while Al discusses the "incident" in the Long Beach St./Hawaii match this last weekend regarding artificial fan noise. We close out the episode taking on fan questions relevant to the men's game solicited from social media and Volleytalk!

Week 5 of the NCAA Collegiate Beach season has just completed and with it a lot of movers and shakers across the nation! The "Furious Four" of USC, FSU, LSU and UCLA will be battling this weekend in Los Angeles, Cal Poly is rising to the occasion, FAU and Stanford are catching the eyes of the nation. Charlie Ekstrom of Stanford and Mads Fitzpatrick of Florida St. break down week 5 action, preview week 6 and discuss potential at-large teams with Rob Espero!

BIG WEST IN THE HOUSE!

Stepping in to represent the Big West Conference is UCI Head Coach David "Kniff" Kniffin. He and the usual suspects of Dan Friend of Lewis University, Jay Hosack of Pepperdine, Jay Hosack of George Mason discuss the happenings in NCAA D1-2 Men's Volleyball during week 11 of the season.

With some conferences wrapping up regular season play we delve into conference tournaments, NCAA Tournament selection criteria and how the challenges the Selection Committee may face.

Additionally, the crew takes on some fan questions solicited from fanboards and social media!

This week Charlie Ekstrom of Stanford Beach, Mads Fitzpatrick of Florida St. and host, Rob Espero discuss the eye-catching matches of Week 4 of the NCAA Collegiate Beach season, identify some of the top players and teams, and select the matches they'll be keeping an eye on in Week 5.

In our discussion the then-#19 Stanford upset of then-#6 Hawaii, Cal Poly getting into gear and "Riding High," and the AVCA and CollegeBeachVB.com polls. The crew even discusses some of the pairs of the week.

Today the CVW crew looks back at the NCAA D1-2 Men's Volleyball action in Week 10 as teams begin to assert themselves at the top of their conferences-- except for the Big West-- the conference where teams only have 2 BWC matches under their belts.

The crew then runs through all the conferences analyzing the standings, top teams and news across the nation and addresses some of fan questions relevant to the game today!

This week Charlie Ekstrom of Stanford Beach, Mads Fitzpatrick of Florida St. and host, Rob Espero discuss the eye-catching matches of Week 3 of the NCAA Collegiate Beach season, identify some of the top players and teams, and select the matches they'll be keeping an eye on in Week 4.

Also in this episode is an interview with #3/#3 LSU's newly named AVCA/CollegeBeachVB.com National Pair of the Week, Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss, who discuss their unexpected partnerships together, Taryn's naivete in identifying who they've been defeating at AVPNext events, competitiveness and their success with a 13-0 start in the 2021 season-- all while only dropping one set.

Today the CVW crew looks back at the NCAA D1-2 Men's Volleyball action in Week 9 as we officially move past the mid-point of the 2021 COVID season.

The crew then runs through all the conferences analyzing the standings, top teams and news across the nation and addresses some of fan questions relevant to the game today!

It's a "Tree Takeover!"

In the absence of Florida St.'s Mads Fitzpatrick, Charlie Ekstrom of Stanford Beach went to someone she could trust-- partner and defender, Sunny Villapondo!

The Stanford duo, along with Rob recap Week 2 of the Collegiate Beach season, pick out some top pairs and athletes and look forward to some big duals-- like the #2 FSU vs. #3 LSU at the "March to May" Tournament in Gulf Shores, AL.

We meander into a few other topics and end with a few fan questions.

This week the Consortium of College Coaching Intelligence recap Week 8 of the NCAA D1-2 Men's Volleyball season as they talk break down their eye-catching matches, identify top performers of the week and tantalize you with the top matches they'll be watching in Week 9.

NOTE: Apologies from Rob. No "Fan Questions" this week. He dropped the ball and got benched.

The 2021 NCAA Collegiate Beach season is in full gear after the first week of competitive action. Charlie Ekstrom of Stanford, Mads Fitzpatrick of Florida St. and Rob Espero (aka "Rob-on-the-Mic") discuss the week 1 highlights, top teams/athletes and the AVCA Top 20 poll released today. The crew then takes a look at top week 2 matches with the top teams and address fan questions regarding Collegiate Beach Volleyball!

It’s the weekly chat about NCAA men’s Division I-II volleyball with George Mason coach Jay Hosack, whose Patriots play in the EIVA; David Hunt of Pepperdine, whose Waves are in the MPSF; and Dan Friend of Lewis, whose Flyers are in the MIVA:

The guys discuss the happenings in the Coastal Carolinas, EIVA, MIVA, MPSF and the Big West! The Consortium of Collegiate Coaching Intelligence, Dan, Jay and David tackle some fan-user questions!

This week the "Consortium of Collegiate Coaching Intelligence" weighs in on the Week 6 results and checks in with the top-20 Men's D1-2 indoor teams now all playing in the 2021 season. UMO loses, the MIVA is stacking up, the EIVA is a tight race, the MPSF is a one-pony show-- at the moment, and the Big West is heavily favored by the crew!

We close out the episode with a "lightning round" of user solicited questions! You don't want to miss this one!

It is an exciting week for Collegiate Beach Volleyball because the season is officially ON!

Charlie Ekstrom of Stanford and Mads Fitzpatrick of Florida St. throw down their thoughts on the CollegeBeachVB.com preseason awards and discuss the upcoming "matches of interest of the first week of the 2021 season of the top 20 teams!

The College Volleyball Weekly (CVW) crew discuss the news, names, teams and topics of Week 5 of the NCAA D1-2 season across the nation.

COVID cancelled matches still occurring in all the conferences while the Big West Conferences top teams drop their schedules. USC, NJIT and McKendree letting teams know that they're cracking the top 15 in the AVCA poll by taking down top teams, as we conclude the episode with an around-the-nation rundown.

The CVW crew discusses the some of the top D1-2 news of the week like the upset of both #1 BYU and #3 Lewis by #8 UCLA and NR Ohio St. this last week. The guys talk about the effects of COVID affecting game readiness as well as the impacts on lineups. And yes, the Big West is still undefeated, along with Pepperdine and Loyola.

Jay discusses the "Sports Illustrated Curse" as his #1 picks in the AVCA poll the last 2 weeks have been upset. Is it good for Jay to deem you with the #1 ranking? We find out here on the show!

This week the Consortium of Collegiate Coaching Intelligence (C3I) go head on to the NVA/AVCA D1-2 Men's Coaches' Poll #2 breaking down who belongs where, whether teams are playing or not, and Jay's rationale for voting Lewis as #1 in our young, post-COVID-Cancelled season. We then look into a week of 5-set thrillers, extended sets and the "Beast of the East," NJIT and how Dan and his Flyers got out of PA with an unblemished record.

Additionally, we discuss the Big West Conference news and what the schedule is looking like and why. And of course we end with some fan questions gathered from the "inquiry minds who want to know!"

As we stand approximately 1 month out for the 2021 Collegiate Beach season to kick into gear there is no doubt there is great excitement and anticipation. Adding to that is the AVCA Preseason Coaches' Poll which came out January 27th. With that, it was time to bring together the CVW Beach Crew of Mads Fitzpatrick of Florida St. and Charlie Ekstrom of Stanford to break down the top 20.

Tap or click into this Episode as our student-athletes break down the poll, teams and individual athletes on the Viral Volley Podcast!

As NCAA Men's D1-2 Volleyball enters Week 3 after 300+ days without competition the "Consortium of Collegiate Coaching Intelligence," Pepperdine Head Coach David Hunt, Lewis Head Coach Dan Friend and George Mason Head Coach Jay Hosack discuss the top 15 teams of the NCAA D1-2 Men's Volleyball season.

This week's topics include teams' adaptations to lineups with additions, returning players, absent players and adjustments due to COVID. The crew also discusses the darkhorse "Beast of the East," NJIT and what the status is of the Big West Men's Volleyball season and schedule.

From there we jump into the top matches and performers of Week 2, and what the guys will be watching in Week 3.

After 16 years UC Irvine Assistant Coach Mark Presho is retiring from NCAA Men's Volleyball. In those years UCI has become known as a volleyball powerhouse with 4 National Championships, 24 All-Americans, 35 and All-Conference honorees-- all under Coach Presho's watch.

In this episode, "Presh" discusses his reason for retiring now, the impacts he has had on the UCI program and his ability to do well in a significantly lesser amount of time from a traditional assistant. Even after a head coaching change in 2012, he stayed on board to add the 4th National Championship in 2013. To close out the episode we look at some of his memorable players, what others who know "Presh" have said on social media and a mashup of former coaching staff members' well wishes and/or memories with Presh.

In this episode UCLA Beach and 2019 Pac-12 All-Freshman Team honoree Abby Van Winkle joins Rob Espero to discuss her success with her collegiate career partners her first two years, playing at the No. 3 spot behind names like Megan & Nicole McNamara, and Sarah Sponcil & Lily Justine-- along with playing with fiery partner, Zana Muno, while chipping in time in a few duals with long-time friend, Lindsey Sparks.

Abby then talks about hers (and Zana's) part in winning the backend of back-to-back National Championships in Gulf Shores in their dual-clinching match. Also in this episode Abby takes on some Volleytalk fan questions, and takes a stab at an "NCAA Sisters Ranking"-- as she ranks all the sister pairs between the McNamaras, Nourses, Hallgrens and Van Winkles.

Paige Tapp joins Rob Espero in a continued conversation from VolleyballMag.com (https://bit.ly/3nKGCFX) to discuss the upcoming oppotunity to compete in the United States in a women's professional league, Athletes Unlimited. Paige discusses the "Minnesota Middle" connection, playing with a high-caliber program, which will result in matchups vs. MANY former Golden Gopher Middles, athletes and friends.

Paige then discusses the scoring methodology and discusses the opportunity to play with and against some some of the top volley-ballers in the the world. She closes out the episode by "drafting" who she would want in Week 1 of the competition (if she was a team captain) and who she would consult to help build her team-- citing that Hugh McCutcheon's and Karch Kiraly's phones would blow up from text messages from former athletes in the competition!

On this inaugural episode of College Volleyball Weekly: Coast 2 Coast Collegiate Beach edition, standouts and contributors Charlie Ekstrom of Stanford and Mads Fitzpatrick of Florida St. discuss COVID impacts, 2020 season recaps, 2021 team outlooks and 2021 athlete/team watchlists. In addition, Rob discusses some of the social media tidbits and semi-recent news regarding collegiate beach volleyball.

The CVW crew (aka the Collegiate Consortium of Coaching Intelligence) welcomes aboard Pepperdine Men's Volleyball Head Coach, David Hunt as a contributor to the show! Jay Hosack of George Mason and Dan Friend of Lewis chime in with Rob Espero to discuss some heavy topics that occurred this last year like the cancellation of Stanford Men's Volleyball after the 2021 season, the NCAA FBS minimum sports waiver request, training during COVID, status of the 2021 season, and schedules.

We finish the show on some positive notes with team outlooks, players to watch, and top 2020 moments for each contributor. We also delve into David Hunt's "Knee Injury" in front of USA WNT OH and Team Captain, Jordan Larson.

Easily the two of the most dominant athletes in the world of women’s volleyball representing the National Teams of the USA and Germany, Jordan Larson, Louisa Lippmann and Rob Espero virtually gather for this week’s Viral Volley chat.

Jordan and Louisa are fresh off of winning the bronze medal in the Chinese Volleyball Association professional league after 22 matches in 35 days. They share how they spent their unplanned time off due to the “p-word or c-word” (I just don’t like typing them out anymore), their journey to playing this year in China and doing so in a time of multiple adaptations due to the “p-word.”

We close out by talking about their performances during the bronze medal round and their reflections during this time in history.

We slowly edge closer to the NCAA Collegiate Beach season—assuming COVID doesn’t wreak any more havoc. In this episode of the Viral Volley Podcast, we bring in College Volleyball Weekly and chat with Seminole Team Captain, Madison “Mads” Fitzpatrick.

Mads talks about the Seminole team that had only one dual loss in the 2020 season— which came in her dual-deciding, nail-biting 15-13 3rd-set-match vs. USC at the Hilton Head Invitational. Although that loss came early in the season Mads pulled off an excellent season playing in the No. 2 spot with Alice Zeimann and Maddie Anderson before the abbreviated pandemic season.

Mads is an influential leader who works hard, plays hard and embodies the encouraging and mentoring characteristics that Coach Brooke Niles infuses in her program.

We close out the episode discussing the Seminoles’ acquisitions of some pretty big “Bigs” in indoor All-American Torrey Van Winden (6’3” Cal Poly) and Sydney Wetterstrom (6’4” Michigan), talented first-years as well as an arsenal of returnees from last season.

In this episode of the Viral Volley Podcast former Big West rivals put aside their differences to “colab” in the Italian professional league with Tonno Calippo Calabria Vibo-Valentia (yes, that is the FULL name of the team they’re on)!

4x AVCA All-American and 2x National Champion TJ DeFalco of Long Beach St. and All Big West honoree Dante Chakravorti of UCI share their current experience in Italy with competition during COVID times, their careers so far and their thoughts on the situation for all NCAA athletes, particularly their former teammates, coaches and programs.

We end the episode with the release of a special toy for the Christmas 2020 season behind the creative spark of TJ’s sister, Teagan DeFalco (Indoor/Beach Grand Canyon University).

After the shortened 2020 Collegiate Beach Volleyball season an unexpected partnership formed between AVCA Beach and Indoor All-Americans Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth. From it we saw 12 tournament finals with victories, with 2 of them being AVPNext tournaments with highly reputable names in the game.

In this episode Kristen and Taryn share about the 2020 season, how they came to play in tournaments during the pandemic, how they trained during this time and what to expect to see come the 2021 season in the CCSA and the LSU Sandy Tigers!

In this episode of the Viral Volley Podcast USA Men’s National Team Middle Blocker David Smith drops in to talk about his Zaksa team and how they are 8-0 to kick off the Plusliga season. With the team not having to go to a single 5th-set this season so far it would seem they are unstoppable, however living in pandemic times means that there is another opponent hovering about—COVID.

With leagues and sports teams attempting to maintain safety protocols worldwide nobody is invulnerable to the detrimental effects of an outbreak. David shares his experience with being the last team in Plusliga to experience a COVID outbreak with 10 of 14 teammates contracting the coronavirus.

Professional Men's Volleyball is planting seeds in the USA! The NVA, or National Volleyball League now fields 8 teams across the United States with former NCAA athletes that played in D1-2 to NAIA institutions, and American professionals and Olympians with a few international athletes from Puerto Rico and Canada in the mix.

This last weekend in Salt Lake City, UT, the NVA Showcase took place with all 8 teams combating in 20 matches over 4 days to win the NVA Showcase Cup. In episode 65 of The Viral Volley Podcast courtside reporter, Olivia Phelps and Play-by-Play Commentator and Las Vegas Rambler, Nick England took the time to discuss the competition, top teams and top performers of the NVA Showcase.

Nick shares the official All-Showcase team while both hand-pick their favorite athletes and stories of the weekend as well as what's next for the NVA.

Bret Almazan-Cezar had over 20 years of coaching high school and club volleyball. In that time he has amassed 7 National Championships, 6 California Teams of the Year, 11 California State Championships and almost 900 career wins. Even with this resume, he has decided to step away from the reigns.

Bret discusses why he decided to retire from coaching national high school volleyball powerhouse Archbishop Mitty (San Jose, CA) and what his future possibilities may hold in the game.

Bret then reflects on some of the standout players he has coached like 2-time Olympian, Nicole Davis, and current AVP athlete, Allie Wheeler, but he also discusses having to face Newport Harbor Coach Dan Glenn, and other opponents like April Ross, Jennifer Carey (Dorr) and Alex Klineman as memorable moments in his coaching career.

On this episode of The Viral Volley Podcast, Rob Espero talks with AVCA All-Americans (although Canadians 😊 ) and 2-time Collegiate Beach National Champions Megan and Nicole McNamara.

After graduating from UCLA with back-to-back Collegiate Beach National Championships Megan and Nicole are now playing professionally on the FIVB tour internationally as representatives of Volleyball Canada in Beach Volleyball.

In our discussion we dive into how COVID had them adapt and adjust their plans for their rookie season, and playing in their pair of events in the Netherlands, the DELA Breda Open and the King of the Court in Utrecht.

In this mini-pod episode, USC Beach graduate student Hailey Harward discusses her's and partner, Julia Scoles' success in a couple of big tournaments this last summer: Waupaca, and the AVP America in Myrtle Beach, SC. Their extremely "fresh" partnership has resulted in 2 tournament championships in 2 attempts.

Additionally, being back on campus means having roommates, one of them being summer-partner, Julia, but also having a 2021 Olympian for Latvia and international super star, Tina Graudina, who tested false-positive for COVID for the King of the Beach Tournament in Utrecht, Netherlands. Hailey gives us a little insight of what the 2021 Trojan Collegiate Beach team's potential given a vast array of talent.

NOTE: I was asked to be interviewed for a "School Assignment" for Hailey and I turned it into an impromptu mini-interview.

In Episode 61, The Viral Volley Podcast is honored to have 2016 Rio Olympics Bronze Medalist, former USC All-American Setter, USA Men’s National Team member and one of the top setters in the world, Micah Christenson on the show.

After the VollyeballMag.com segment, Micah talks about his current team Modena Volley, the Italian Superlega and connecting with fellow Americans in Italy. He then discusses how his young family lives abroad and how American teammates are in “… the same stage of life.”

In addition he talks about his passion to let youth know that there can be a professional career in volleyball after college and how he finds his inspiration to play from the 2008 Beijing Olympics Gold Medal Men’s National Team. All this and more on the Viral Volley Podcast!

In the 2nd episode of the Viral Volley Podcast this week, 4-time AVCA All-American and Wisconsin Badger alumna Lauren Carlini drops into the show to continue the conversation from the VolleyballMag.com piece.

Here she talks about where she was when the global pandemic broke out, making it back to the United States to train the USA Women’s National Team, and find out she contracted COVID while in Southern California.

From there we dig into being part of the roster that qualified the USA for the now-2021 Tokyo Olympics, but knowing that the competition for a spot on the 12-member roster is gong to be a grind.

We then end on a light note discussing her true appreciation of electronic/techno music (right) and her limited ability to learn foreign languages!

In this episode of the Viral Volley Podcast, Penn St. 3x AVCA All-American joins host Rob Espero to continue the conversation from VolleyballMag.com. Haleigh discusses her desire to be a football player but playing volleyball, succeeding at an early level and watching the success continue through her Penn St. days, the USA Women’s National Team and now internationally in Italy.

Haleigh also shares her experience in Italy where the pandemic broke out in Italy, trying to come home to the USA during this chaotic time. On the lighter side of things she talks about her interest in philosophy and her unique ability to make other laugh—but we focus on her tweeting as of late!

In this "College Volleyball Weekly"-type episode of the Viral Volley Podcast, the show welcomes back for a return visit 2-time AVCA All-American, 2019 European Champion and representative of Team Latvia for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, Tina Graudina.

Tina comes online to discuss what has been happening so far in 2019—like winning her 3rd straight Latvian championship, testing positive for COVID prior to the King of the Court event in Utrecht, Netherlands, and defending her title at the 2020 European Championships in her hometown of Jurmala, Latvia.

Tina closes out the show by discusses coming back to USC to a loaded roster of talent and preparing for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.

This week AVP/FIVB standout and 2021 Tokyo Olympic hopeful, Emily Stockman “transitions” into the Viral Volley Podcast from a VolleyballMag.com interview.

We delve into the last few months of news and events in this 2x All-American (indoor) from Wichita St. (aka, “The Shockers”), the landmark 2019 season, post-AVP Champions Cup series recap and the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. In addition, we touch on some of her off-court interests at Mira Costa High School, mountain biking and motocross!

This week on The Viral Volley Podcast is the Journalist & Media Roundtable with ESPN Honolulu's Tiff Wells and Off the Block Blog Associate Editor Jonathan Bates to do discuss their experience of the last 6 months since the breakout of the pandemic, recap the shortened 2019 season, news that could effect Collegiate Men's Volleyball, discuss what we could possibly be seeing in the 2021 season, USA Men's National Team and the likelihood of collegiate sports coming back by January 1, 2021.

Lots of topics touched upon with even more to watch in the upcoming weeks and months!

This week on The Viral Volley Podcast is long-time sportswriter for University of Hawaii Athletics-- with a keen interest in volleyball-- is Cindy Luis, who just recently retired from the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

Almost 40-years of covering volleyball, and having one of the top blogs in Hawaii and volleyball, Cindy discusses her beginnings, memorable players and walking along her son, Tiff Wells of ESPN Honolulu and CBS Sports Hawaii covering basketball, UH Men's and Women's Volleyball and the USA National Teams.

4-time AVCA All-American at Stanford. 5-time Olympian. 3-time Olympic Gold Medalist. Unsurpassed victories with Misty May-Treanor on the AVP and FIVB tours. Throw in inspiration, idol, motivator and one of the GOATs.

Kerri Walsh-Jennings joins Rob Espero on this episode of the Viral Volley Podcast/Vodcast to discuss what makers her aspire to greatness, the 2019 FIVB season, her new partnership with Brooke Sweat, 2021 Tokyo Olympic Qualification and her off-court pursuits.

Melissa Humana-Paredes checks in on the Viral Volley Podcast this week to discuss her beginnings in volleyball, transitioning to beach and how her early success has come about not only on the FIVB World Tour but also more recently in the AVP, garnering the 2019 Best Defensive Player and Newcomer of the Year Awards.

We also discuss the AVP Champions Cup Series presented by Acer and the 3 results she received along with thoughts on her play. In addition we discuss what teams will be making a push for the medal stand in 2021 while having to navigate our COVID culture and adapted way of life.

In the finale of the AVP Champions Cup Series, Porsche Cup the Men's side saw a team come in with shock and awe, while the Women's side saw a team go back-to-back-to-back for the Cup win.

In this final episode of the AVP Champions Cup Series, AVP Commentator, Santa Clara University Beach Head Coach and former Olympic Beach Volleyball Coach Jeff Alzina and Rob Espero discuss some of the highlights and athletes that caught our eyes during the Monster Hydro Cup, Wilson Cup and the Porsche Cup.

The AVP Champions Cup Series presented by Acer has seen some incredible talent emerge on the court, but one of the talents has come through the livestream on Court #2: Santa Clara Women's Volleyball Associate Head Coach and Beach Volleyball Head Coach, Jeff Alzina!

Jeff joins The Viral Volley Podcast (an extension of the VolleyballMag.com piece on him) as he recaps the Wilson Cup weekend and previews the upcoming Porsche Cup and scenarios that can play out for the overall AVP Champions Cup Series!

Prime Video Commentator for the the AVP Champions Cup presented by Acer, Monster Hydro Cup recap and Wilson Cup (7/24-7/26/20) preview by volley sage and all-time AVP victory holder, Jeff Alzina.

In a HEAVY news week in volleyball USC Beach transfers and standouts Hailey Harward and Julia Scoles talk about their volleyball journeys from USA Volleyball tryouts to indoor to Beach Volleyball at USC.

By happenstance, Hailey and Julia happened to partner up for the annual Waupaca Boatride AVPnext tournament in Wisconsin-- AND WON IT without ever playing together before!

(NOTE: Previous upload cut off at approximately 30:00 on the clip. If you already listened, slide to the 30 minute mark to hear the final 15 minutes-- sorry for the confusion. Technical issue was not discovered until moments ago. Thank you for listening.)

In this special episode, Rob Espero sits down with Stanford Junior Middle Blocker, Kyler Presho to discuss his story of enjoying volleyball and how it led him to pursue his education and volleyball career at Stanford for Coach John Kosty. Unfortunately, with the COVID pandemic Stanford University made the devastating announcement to discontinue Men's Volleyball along with 10 other sports after the 2021-22 season.

Kyler discusses how the news was presented to the Cardinal team, the handling by Stanford Administrators and the efforts to get volleyball reinstated.

In this special episode, Rob Espero sits down with Stanford Junior Middle Blocker, Kyler Presho to discuss his story of enjoying volleyball and how it led him to pursue his education and volleyball career at Stanford for Coach John Kosty. Unfortunately, with the COVID pandemic Stanford University made the devastating announcement to discontinue Men's Volleyball along with 10 other sports after the 2021-22 season.

Kyler discusses how the news was presented to the Cardinal team, the handling by Stanford Administrators and the efforts to get volleyball reinstated.

Brandie Wilkerson is one of the rising stars on the world stage of beach Volleyball-- and she's only been playing Beach since 2013!

This week Brandie and Rob discuss upcoming AVP Champions Cup Series, her AVP/USA partnership with Sara Hughes, her Volleyball Canada partner, Heather Bansley, Tokyo 2021 Olympic Qualification and some of her off-court life with music, unknown blogs and tattoos.

This week Rob speaks with CUI standout and AVP athlete Traci Callahan. The first segment will also be featured over at VolleyballMag.com as we talk about her new partnership with up-and-comer Crissy Jones and the approaching AVP Champions Cup Series in Long Beach, her AVP career so far and her switch from blocker to defender.

AVP/FIVB professional athlete and 2x National Collegiate Beach Champion at USC Kelly Claes joins Rob Espero on The Viral Volley Podcast this week.

Kelly reflects on her High School career, potentially going to Long Beach St. for indoor and committing to Beach Volleyball with Sara Hughes. Her time as a Trojan saw Kelly write the history books for USC Beach Volleyball as she saw success at the collegiate level, but early success at the professional level.

We then venture into her partnerships, winning, and her singing career with Sarah Sponcil-- who according to Kelly, "...is tone deaf." Their unique musical gifting landed them as the current-FIVB Beach Team of the Week!

2-time NCAA Men's D1-2 National Champion and AVCA Player of the Year Josh Tuaniga jumps on The Viral Volley Podcast to reflect on his humble beginnings, the early TJ DeFalco years and beach volleyball.

We also delve into his Huntington Beach HS 80-0 repeat CIF-SS and State Championship teams and the evolution of the Long Beach St. program into back-to-back National Champions. Josh also shares about his USA Men's National Team experience and playing his first professional season abroad in Poland.

These two athletes had an incredible 2019-- and their 2020 was ramping up to be a continuation. BVCA Champions. AVP Hermosa Beach Quarterfinalists. CIF San Diego City Champions. CIF State Champions. National High School Champions. 4th Place finish in their 1st FIVB event. Did I mention that they are only 17 and 18 years old?

Torrey Pines HS graduates and USC Beach commits Delaynie Maple and Megan Kraft sit down on The Viral Volley Podcast to reflect on the 2019 season, their first FIVB event and playing for Dain Blanton at USC.

Former Cal Beach Volleyball standout and current LMU transfer, Iya Lindahl (San Diego, CA) drops in on The Viral Volley Podcast this week.

With the recent loosening of COVID restrictions in California, Iya shares firsthand experience of how it's like coaching, training and playing at Wave Beach in Del Mar, CA.

Iya also reflects on her Cal career and shares how she decided to transfer to LMU to play for John Mayer and Betsi Flint. During our discussion we dabble in the wealth of talent that's coming from the San Diego area in both indoor and beach.

Iya shares on how she is using her marketing skills for CollegeBeachVB.com and Mike Placek, and her future in beach volleyball.

The BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN! George Mason Head Coach, Jay Hosack and Lewis University Head Coach, Dan Friend, join Rob Espero in the DEEP QUARANTINE episode of College Volleyball Weekly.

This week they discuss the NCAA Division 1 minimum program waiver, re-acquisition of VolleyballMag.com by Co-editors Lee Feinswog and Ed Chan, 2020's top recruiting classes and the HUGE good by University of Hawaii's All-American Middle Blocker, Pat Gasman.

USA Men's National Team Middle Blocker and UC Irvine alumnus (you know I had to sneak that in there) David Smith jumps on The Viral Volley Podcast this week.

We reminisce about the UCI days, the "Lights Out" incident in Happy Valley and how he was part of UCI's first National Championship team.

David then talks about his season in Poland with ZAKSA-- until the COVID pandemic broke out. From there it was a chaotic journey to get back to the United States, where he, as well as other USA athletes have started training with COVID protocols at American Sports Center.

David also talks about the challenges of being hard of hearing/deaf and having to be in social settings in this COVID-Culture with Social Distancing.

He then finishes off by offering some encouragement to give us perspective through this time in history.

In this episode, Carli Lloyd drops into The Viral Volley Podcast to share her love and passion for the game, the "ups and downs," and her internal journey to finding wholeness.

We venture back to how she first played, becoming the 2010 AVCA All-American Player of the Year, becoming an international standout to representing the USA in Rio and winning the Bronze Medal.

Finally we look at her international volleyball career and discuss a very powerful resource-- her new website, showupwithme.com, that invites others to not only develop their volleyball skills, but to also explore the inner side of life's journey.

This week the USA Men's National Team OH, Taylor Sander drops in on The Viral Volley Podcast (since we didn't get to meet for a surf today) to discuss "life" in the last year after FIVB VNL 2019, shoulder rehabilitation, the COVID postponement of FIVB VNL and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

We also reminisce on the Norco HS and BYU days, battles with Taylor Crabb and how he and brother Brenden are taking on TCrabb and Jake Gibb at the HB Pier!

Sports Journalist and ESPN Sideline Reporter Olivia "Livvy" Phelps joins Rob on this episode to share how she started working in Sports Journalism and how she developed a love of covering sports, volleyball and athletic personalities.

Emerging from her passion for sports came an interest in Collegiate Beach and Men's and Women's Indoor Volleyball resulting in her first docu-series, capturing Long Beach St. Men's Volleyball team in their National Championship title defense year (2019) as they experienced training, coaching, victories, defeats and the quest for back-to-back National Championships!

As always, we close out with our "Run Down" segment to find out about the inner-workings of Liv-- all on this week's episode of The Viral Volley Podcast!

The "Fiery Freshmen" Class of UCLA Beach sits down with Rob Espero to discuss the 2020 NCAA Collegiate Beach season, their connection as the rookies in the Bruin program, their first-year experience and being in quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rob then closes out the episode with an interesting and funny inside look of our guests on "The Rundown."

Kathy DeBoer, AVCA Executive Director and John Speraw, Head Coach of UCLA Men's Volleyball and the USA Men's National Team give a very urgent update on the state of NCAA legislation that is being proposed by FBS schools, aka "The Power 5 Conferences" that could impact Men's/Women's indoor and Collegiate Beach volleyball.

If you want to continue to have Men's/Women's indoor and Collegiate Beach volleyball sign the petition at http://www.saveoursports.com, post on ALL your social media and encourage ALL your friends and family to do the same!

In our special (and last College Volleyball Weekly for 2020) Quarantine Episode of The Viral Volley Podcast, Dan, Jay and Rob enlist the services of the living "Collegiate Men's Volleyball Almanac", Vinnie Lopes of Off-The-Block Blog!

The guys discuss the AVCA All-America Team and Honorable Mentions that were released on 4/21/20. In addition, the Off-The-Block Blog National Awards are down to their finalists. They guys take a stab at who will take each of the coveted awards!

Finally, Dan brings to light a proposal by the "Big 5 Conference" schools that could eliminate Olympic sports at D1-2 schools.

Freshman Beach Volleyball phenoms Audrey & Nicole Nourse join Rob this week on The Viral Volley Podcast. The Nourses finish the abbreviated season 9-2-- with their only losses being to South Carolina and Florida St. on the road.

In this episode, they discuss their experience at USC, their development, and how the pandemic impacted their first season. Additionally, they talk about their pursuit of the beach game and offer hints on how to distinguish them on/off the court.

All Big West Conference 1st Team Honoree, Kyle McCauley of UCSD (Huntington Beach, CA | Edison HS | Orange Coast College) jumped into NCAA D1-2 Men's Volleyball by storm leading the Tritons to their best ever program finish of 14-5 and their highest-ever AVCA ranking at #6.

Kyle reflects on the shortened 2020 season, what his expectations were for the team, what he did to elevate his game, the influence of OCC/Balboa Bay Club Coach Travis Turner and Mike D'Alessandro, and his transition from community college to NCAA D1-2 volleyball at the highest level.