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)!