Sunday Musings

I’ve got a moment so I thought I would write some stuff that is new and expound on some thoughts that I had written in the Match Day articles.

First off, I really enjoyed the Fantasy Volleyball League. I think we can make some improvements and do it again next year. Heck, it would be interesting to do this on a grander scale during the season where you can make moves week-to-week. We’d have to do a web interface or app, I think. Again, I’m the idea man around here and I rely on others to do the heavy lifting. Oh, and the standings have been updated this morning.

I was sad to miss the Emory and Trinity final but would have been really mad if Trinity had won. Crazy that Trinity was the only team to win a set in a losing effort yesterday. They are never out of anything regardless of who they play.

In a tournament full of highlights at Emory, I think I’ll always remember Jenna Rodriguez (Trinity) laying in pain with (probably) a separated shoulder only to get it right and pop back up like nothing had happened. She then played out of her mind the rest of the way. DIII athletes are a special breed.

I loved meeting in person Berry Coach Caitlyn Moriarty and Transy Coach Amy Barmore. Two people that are very nice via messaging but nicer in person.

Crazy meeting up with Katie Whitehead who is a Southwestern granddaughter who is now attending Emory and got to see her sister’s team (Berry) play. Volleyball is a small world.

Streaming the Elite 8 matches and seeing the different gyms was interesting. The facility at Emory is world class. Some of the other gyms don’t measure up to a Texas High School gym. That’s not a criticism. It’s just strange how money is allocated differently at different places. Texas is also nuts about sports so there is that.

I hadn’t really looked at the All-Region team much since it dropped in the middle of my Atlanta trip. One thing I’ll point out is that this committee seems to really value performance against elite teams. Yes, there are some players that I might have tried to add and yes, I might have some questions on others, but it’s such a difficult job because we have so many great players. It would really be a sad region if it was an easy process.

As a reminder, every All-Region 1^st team player will be an All-American. Just have to wait to see which team. I believe those awards will come out this week. Typically, it’s on a Wednesday.

I had a brief article on Concordia’s Coach Nicole Dalby stepping down this week. Unfortunately, it’s that time of the season when we see open coaching positions. It’s also the season of players entering the transfer portal. I again warn all recruits that you should pick where you attend college based on the college and the college experience. Hopefully, you have a list of great colleges and can then make the best volleyball decision, but if volleyball doesn’t work out you will enjoy being where you are at.

Last year, during the championship, I had a number of coaches chime in on things to watch in the match. I want to do that again. Maybe something for all eight but laziness might get to me, too. I definitely would love to have coaches that are watching the Elite 8 message me with anything they see so I can put it in print (can be anonymously). Remember, I’m good a faking and am certainly no expert. I think it makes for better viewing when people can watch for what the coaches are seeing unfold. If you have my phone number, then text! Reach out if you want the number. I’ll be reaching out, as well, but I like volunteers instead of the draft.  

I do not like NPI. I think it’s flawed but credit to the NCAA for quickly updating the selection version and the Elite 8 version. Again, the biggest benefit to NPI is that it makes the NCAA’s job so much easier. For that reason, I don’t think it’s going away unless the coaches revolt.

I’ve said it in the past but it’s worth saying every time I get a chance; thanks to the Latvians and Ned for their great work with NPI this year.

I struggle with scouting the libero position, but when a libero is having a great game, they stand out. I saw a lot of great liberoes play this weekend. Taylor Miche, Jenna Rodriguez, Ava Beltsos, Dede Carranza and Deborah Hong were all great.

I’ve updated the 2024 Awards Page, but here were the All-Tournament team members from our region:

Emory Regional

Jenna Rodriguez (Trinity) Maddie Fate (Trinity) Georgia McGovern (CMS)

MIT Regional

Mya Ray (La Verne) – MVP Malia Capistrano (La Verne) Lauren Gott (La Verne)

Christopher Newport Regional

Graycee Mosley (ETBU)

I enjoyed the Berry Vikings “ROW” chants. Simple. To the point. Loud.

Since I’ve been asked a number of times, I am trying to make every attempt to go to the Elite 8. I have already submitted my media credentials application with the NCAA. If I’m not there, it’s because something unfortunate happened.

Shoutout to Will Thornhill from Covenant (SID). Nice guy and the only person other than someone from Emory that sat on the media table with me at Emory. At the Elite 8 last year, I think half of the teams had their SID (or someone) there. I’m a little surprised more aren’t at the tournament but these folks have a lot of championships going on around the same time so they probably have to pick and choose.

In addition to the Berry crowd, I thought the Transy group was also very fun. Shoutout to the Transy Grandma with the suckers. Love you! Trinity was also out in force and very loud.

I had a dad (of a first-year) ask if I had a granddaughter at Southwestern so maybe I should cover the story again. My daughter graduated in 2017 (last season was the 2016 Final Four run). We had the beautiful Kate Mitchell playing one more year and we adopted her during her time at Southwestern so for that season, we still had a daughter playing. With no more daughters, I had the brilliant idea of just adopting every Southwestern player as a granddaughter from there on out. That way my (hot) wife couldn’t complain if I wanted to go watch them play. I highly recommend everyone adopting as many granddaughters as you can so when your daughter stops playing you don’t have to stop fan-ing. (Side note – I’ve had non-Southwestern granddaughters, too. The application process is basically just telling me you love the site and you get adopted.)

What was the best match of the NCAA Tournament so far? I’m going with CMS/Transy. The best one at Emory and better than the one’s I saw yesterday on the stream. I’m sure there were some challengers the first two days.

There have been only four 5-set matches so far and all occurred the first day. So, not many challengers.

We have our Elite 8, but how many are in the Top 11 of Hitting Percentage? (Remember, that only the Top 11 can win the championship based on history.) That would be Johns Hopkins (1), Juniata (2), UW-Whitewater (3), Hope (5) and Emory (10). That’s our top 4 teams per NPI plus Whitewater (ranked 6^th). As for the others, W&L is 13^th, Oshkosh is 35^th and La Verne is 27^th. Not sure if the NCAA will try to save money and just uninvite these three teams or what?

A Kurt Vlasich (CMS) timeout is like having a pet mosquito. Non-existent and if it occurs something bloody happened.

In our Fantasy game there were two #1 seeds that didn’t have a player selected. Both are in the Elite 8. Emory and Oshkosh. As it turned out, the only wrong answer was MIT.

So, as you all know, I don’t make any money off this wonderful site. Where I do get paid is when I write out stuff and get an immediate response. Katie Whitehead coming down to see me was payment. Getting a sucker from Transy is payment. Having the Platteville comment after talking about their dads was payment. Let it be known that I never asked for a Trinity sticker and that was NOT payment. (But, thank you.)

Of the teams in the Elite 8, half didn’t drop a set. The others (La Verne, Emory, Oshkosh and W&L) only dropped one. For most of the year, there have been 8 teams that I thought were a cut above. Two didn’t make it in MIT and Millikin. Credit to W&L and La Verne for crashing the party but only ULV had to crash it beating one of those 8.

My daughter works for American Airlines and parents get flight benefits (standby flying). The way it works is that if there is a seat open on a flight, they will give it to a standby passenger at a reduced cost. The costs vary as does the priority levels. We are very low in the pecking order. Yesterday, they assigned seats to the standby passengers and stopped at me. I was Babson. First team out. It wasn’t even caused by Smith. At a certain time, if a confirmed passenger doesn’t show up then their seat is released. That’s what happened yesterday and how I ended up with a bulkhead seat when the other standby passengers got assigned middle earlier. As it turned out, I was Centre.

Oh!!!! I want a shirt from every Elite 8 team. Men’s XL. Coaches, make this happen. This is payment. (I set the over/under on getting shirts at 0.5.)

I think the Juniata parents must really party hard after wins since our fantasy stats didn’t come in until this morning. With all of their wins, we probably need to get their jersey’s sponsored by Uber or Lyft so we get them home in one piece.  

That’s all I got. I was going to add some championship stats to this but the NCAA site went down. I’ll do an article this week on that. (The stats…not why their site gets overloaded.)