The Viral Volley Podcast

Episode 311, College Volleyball Weekly, National Championship Episode 5-11-2026

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! 

Episode 310, College Volleyball Weekly Men's Top 20, National Championship Recap, 5-4-26

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!

Episode 309, College Volleyball Weekly, Beach Top 20, NCAA Championship Week, 4/29/26

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!

Episode 308, College Volleyball Weekly Men's Top 20, Pre-Championship Episode 04-27-2026

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!

 

Episode 307, College Volleyball Weekly, Men’s Top 20, Week 15 Recap, 04-13-2026

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!

Episode 306, College Volleyball Weekly Men's Top 20, Week 14 Recap, 04-06-26

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. 

Episode 305, College Volleyball Weekly Beach Top 10-ish, Week 6 Recap with Kelly Belardi

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. 

 

Episode 304, College Volleyball Weekly, Men’s Top 20 Week 13 Recap, 3-30-2026

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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Episode 303, College Volleyball Weekly Beach Top 10-ish, Week 5 Recap, 3-24-2026

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!

 

Episode 302, College Volleyball Weekly, Men’s Top 20 Week 12 Recap, 3-23-2026

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.