Rebuilding at Oxy

As part of the schedule analysis series, I wanted to include a team on the other end of the spectrum. A team that’s not going for an at-large bid this season and, in fact, one that other teams may shy away from playing due to their low NCAA Power Index (NPI) in 2024. The more I thought about it, however, the less interest I had. Yes, these teams are going to struggle to schedule because NPI is the end-all be-all right now. I also didn’t see a lot of these teams really trying to travel out of their region. In a number of cases, the problem is that their goals both short and long term really don’t involve the NCAA Tournament, which is perfectly fine, but it’s just not something I find interesting. Still, I wanted to do an article around a rebuilding team so I started looking for programs that have excelled in the past but have struggled of late. Programs that seem to have taken steps to improve. All of that thinking brought me to Occidental College or, as they are known locally, Oxy. Oxy went 3-20 last year and finished with a 43.55 NPI.

Oxy’s last winning record in volleyball was the 2017 season where they went 13-12. Prior to that, their next winning record was the 2013 season where they went 17-10. They last went to the NCAA Tournament in 2011 when they also beat Cal Lutheran for the SCIAC Tournament title. Unless you are old as dirt (like me), these dates are way in the past but Oxy has a volleyball pedigree. They made the first four NCAA Tournaments and had a three-year run in the mid-90s for a total of 8 tournament appearances. This is a school that has had top-notch volleyball programs and which exists in the center of club volleyball nirvana (Los Angeles). There is no reason that Oxy can’t reclaim past glory assuming they have the support of the athletic department and the right person at the helm.

I mentioned trying to find a school that is taking steps to become NCAA Tournament relevant and Oxy made a big step in that direction in hiring Emily Foster away from St Olaf last year. Coach Foster came to St Olaf in 2016 after the program had suffered three straight seasons of single-digit wins. In her first year, she took the program to 10-wins and then took the team to the MIAC Tournament in every year she was there. In two of those years, the team earned an NCAA Tournament at-large bid. There is no reason to think that she cannot have the same success with Occidental. Without a doubt, Oxy has the right person at the helm.

I reached out to Coach Foster about this story idea and she was happy to help. We discussed a number of topics on her 2-mile, 60-minute trip in Los Angeles where I could act as a distraction. (I, of course, joke about LA traffic. It’s not that bad unless you just want to drive some place.)

One of the first topics we touched on was her 2025 recruits. I have Oxy with 8 recruits. There is some height in this group and they come from 4 different states. I asked Coach Foster what her goal was in recruiting this group. Her response was, “I wanted to recruit as many pins as I could. That’s where the highest percentage of sets go.” I then asked what is still a concern and she replied, “We lost two defensive specialist due to financial aid issues and I’d love to have, at least, one of them back.”

One common problem for a new coach into a rebuilding program is how do they go about ensuring they are getting the best players from the area. Coach Foster mentioned that she is now coaching at SG Elite so that helps her see players in her club and those they play. It also helps with their school budget because the club can offset certain activities that would overlap with her program. Coach Foster also said, “Word of mouth is huge. I feel that really good culture that has integrity goes a long way. Coaching club (both her and her assistant) also gives us visibility.”

I then asked about selling Occidental to recruits. What are the selling points to potential student athletes (PSA) when the program hasn’t been successful in a while. She replied, “Getting on campus is unbelievable. The academics and the support for post-graduate is outstanding as are the internship possibilities.” It should be pointed out that Occidental is the only DIII school in Los Angeles proper so there is no shortage of opportunities that come with that. Coach Foster also went on and talked about how the campus is really a community and that she feels her team has a great culture going.

I pressed Coach Foster a bit on the conversations that occur with recruits that are concerned about their recent performance and she replied that a lot of PSAs aren’t concerned with that. They are concerned with connecting with the current team (making relationships) and the high academic standards of Oxy. She then went on to say, “My goal since I was 18-years-old is to win a national championship. I’ve never done it but if that’s not my goal then I should quit.” For those recruits that share that goal, and want to have that conversation, they have the right coach.

This led to some further discussion on goals for this 2025 team. “My goal this year is to make the conference tournament.” (5-teams qualify in the SCIAC) Coach Foster then went on, “As a coach at St Olaf we rebuilt. I’ll figure it out.” She then discussed some very specific goals that she has that will then lead to that ultimate goal of making the conference tournament.

Our conversation then turned towards scheduling as that was my original concept for this article. We discussed that Oxy is hampered by two major issues right now in that teams are more reluctant to come out to Southern California (SoCal) for tournaments and teams are hesitant to play low NPI opponents. SoCal has three major tournaments those first three weeks of the season. The first is the Pacific Coast Classic, which is hosted by Pomona-Pitzer, CMS and La Verne. The second week there is the Whittier Tournament and the third week is the Cal Lu Fornia Tournament hosted by…take a guess…Cal Lutheran. In past years, you could get enough teams to fly in that a SCIAC team could stay home (although I don’t recommend it) if they were allowed to play in all three tournaments and still come away with a nice NPI bump. In our schedule analysis series, we’ve already heard from CMS and Whittier about how difficult it was to get teams to fly in. The offshoot of this is that the fewer teams that come in means that fewer SCIAC teams can participate. This definitely impacted Oxy’s ability to schedule this season. I’m not sure what percentage of “blame” you could put on the fact that fewer teams could fly down. I think the main issue is the lack of finances since the pandemic. Another factor, however, is that you have both CMS and La Verne as possible opponents, which may not look appealing for teams that are concerned about a loss against those higher NPI teams.

I don’t want to get too off-topic here but the lack of teams coming into SoCal has the potential to be a really big issue to the SCIAC. If it’s not being done already, coordination between the SCIAC members and how to best utilize the existing tournaments with everyone’s travel budget to ensure that every member gets quality DIII opponents those first three weeks would be a huge priority for me. To get multiple at-large bids in the future, the SCIAC needs to be deeper, which, to me, should be the overall goal for the conference. Turning away SCIAC teams from those tournaments hurts those teams and hinders their chances to increase their NPI. That, in turn, hurts every other SCIAC team that has to play them twice in conference. Those tournaments can’t be thought of in a vacuum but as a collective, which I don’t believe is the current approach. (Remember, SCIAC, my consulting fees are very reasonable.)

Back to Oxy and Coach Foster, and when talking about the schedule, she said, “I’m incredibly worried about Strength of Schedule (SOS) issues. It may not matter this year [for my team]. I just want to get as many opportunities to play as possible and hopefully get winning experience.” She also went on to say that she is worried about the lack of teams that wanted to come into SoCal this year. (No worries, I’ve already partially fixed that problem above.)

To tie this a bit into the schedule analysis, I did go through my methodology to see how it stacks up. Oxy is playing 24 DIII opponents over the maximum 22 play dates. Included in those dates are 3 matches against non-DIII teams. They also have one exhibition match scheduled. Their maximum NPI is 69.14. If you assume losses to all teams above the 2024 at-large cut-line then their NPI becomes 60.59. (This is their “Loss n” number from that series.)

The Oxy schedule is very dependent on the SCIAC as they play three conference opponents (Whittier, Chapman and Redlands) out-of-conference. This is a really strange scheduling quirk that we are seeing more with the move to NPI as that formula doesn’t care about the opponent…only the opponent’s NPI number. The quirk was needed because finding opponents to fly in to play a low NPI team is nearly impossible. With the lack of teams coming into the three SoCal tournaments, Oxy was shutout.

Back to the schedule and going down the teams a bit, if we assume losses to Whittier (next highest NPI team on their schedule) then their NPI drops to 58.10. Losses to UC Santa Cruz and Pomona-Pitzer drops them to 54.01. They drop below 50 if you factor in losses to Cal Lutheran and Chapman. For 2025, however, it’s about stacking wins against whomever they can.

Assuming Oxy can increase their NPI, the solution is traveling, which is a very easy thing to write. Coach Foster mentioned, “We can probably do one travel trip a year but we can’t afford two.” Since Oxy was shutout of the PCC that first week, they are busing up to UC Santa Cruz for their tournament. The lack of opponents was also the reason for the three non-DIII matches. “We just needed to get our young kids matches. I think it’s dumb [to schedule non-DIII] but we needed matches. We have such a young team and I need to get them playing as many teams as I can.”

So, to sum all this up. You have a program that literally sits in the middle of a ton of talent and a school that is beautiful with a great academic reputation. You have an excellent coach that has just signed her first real recruiting class but a team that faces a ton of scheduling headaches to improve their NPI. The headaches lessen with each point added to their NPI in 2025 and if the financial restraints ease and more teams decide to make use of those three SoCal tournaments. Still, you can see how difficult it is to rebuild a program and it’s even harder with our island conferences in the West Region. I give a ton of credit to Redlands, Chapman and Whittier for scheduling that third match with Occidental, and I urge the member schools of the SCIAC to think of the collective instead of only their own program as it will reap benefits in the future. Failing that last part, it will be interesting to see if the Occidental athletic department can allocate more funds for two trips a season, which may be required in the short-term. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to hire a coach like Emily Foster and then not give her all of the tools to make that program a success again.

Special thanks to Coach Foster for taking the time to answer my questions. I look forward to their upcoming season and seeing the improvements from 2024.