The Viral Volley Podcast

Episode 230, College Volleyball Weekly Beach Top 20, Week 4/29/24

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!

Episode 229, College Volleyball Weekly Men's Top 20, Week 18 4/29/24

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!

Episode 228, College Volleyball Weekly Men's Top 20, Week 17, 4-22-24

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."

Episode 227, College Volleyball Weekly Beach Top 20, Week 4/17/24

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.

Episode 226: College Volleyball Weekly Men’s Top 20, Week 16.2, 4/15/24

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 😊.

Episode 225: College Volleyball Weekly Men’s Top 20, Week 16, 4/15/24

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!

Episode 224: College Volleyball Weekly Men's Top 20, Week 14 Recap/Week 15 Preview, 4/8/24

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! 

Episode 223: College Volleyball Weekly Beach Top 20, Week 6 Recap/Week 7 Preview, 4/2/24

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! 

Episode 222: College Volleyball Weekly Men's Top 20, Week 13 Recap/Week 14 Preview, 4/1/24

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!

Episode 221: College Volleyball Weekly Beach Top 20, Week 5 Recap/Week 5 Preview, 3/26/24

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!