College Volleyball Talk

CVT Staff                                                                                   CollegeVolleyballTalk.com

Twelve players were invited to the USAV Women’s training block for competition to be placed on or put in consideration for placement on the US Women’s National Team.

Among the top players invited were Stanford’s Cassidy Lichtman, National Player of the Year, Carli Lloyd, and fellow 1^st Team All-American, Indiana’s Ashley Benson.

Also joining the cast of players Jenna Hagglund (Washington), Lauren Gibbemeyer (Minnesota), Naomi Johnson (Northwestern), Lexi Zimmerman (Michigan), Becky Perry (Washington), Kari Pestolesi (UC-Irvine), Juliane Piggot (UCLA), Kaitlin Sather (UCLA), Kindra Carlson (Washington), and Kayla Banwarth (Nebraska).

These players will compete and train with the National Team through mid-April and be trained by the WNT staff for three months. The staff consisting of head coach, Hugh McCutcheon, and assistant coaches, Karch Kiraly and Paula Weishoff will train the squad allowing them to not only improve the games of the players, but also get a better understanding of the players’ abilities.

With six All-Americans and a National Player of the Year, the only thing missing may be a National Champion; which considering one school has won each title all but one of these players were in school for jut means one thing. While the current National Team roster does have, this training block roster does not have a single former Nittany Lion.

The University of Washington leads all schools with three former players on the roster in Hagglund, Carlson, and Perry. The Pac 10 Conference leads all conferences with seven players invited where the Big Ten comes in second with only four.

The training started last month and again will continue through mid-April. The experience should be great for both the players and the staff. CVT wishes all young women training in Colorado Springs luck over the next few months.

CVT Staff                                                                                           CollegeVolleyballTalk.com

In a time that usually sees very little excitement in the college volleyball world, these winter months have contained quite a bit of it.

It is not so much the mere amount of job openings that is creating the amount of buzz, though it is a large amount, it is more the amount of high profile, head coaching jobs that is sparking a fire of speculation across the country.

From the first announcements in the SEC and Big 12 (Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Texas Tech) to the long-tenured retirings at Minnesota and Louisville, doors were opened nationwide for hot coaches to jump ship and swim to bigger and better places.

Though ESPN doesn’t have an ongoing chronicle of the openings and speculation for volleyball, the sport has its own devices to spread rumors, toss out names, and share “insider information”. Between forums and blogs, volleyball gets its own “Adam Shefter with the BlackBerry” effect.

As it stands, Ed Allen taking over the land of Roll Tide and Ann Kordes heading back home to Louisville to take over the Cardinal program after a quiet exit from international sensation, Leonid Yelin, on top of Lizzy Stemke leaving John Cook’s side to head to Georgia and Don Flora’s small move to Texas Tech are the only major job fillings, but more are certain to come.

It’s this impending certainty that keeps the masses talking. As one job opens and is filled, the domino effect begins. Tulsa and Saint Louis are now also searching for new head coaches, and they won’t be the only ones to be put in the unexpected situation, just the lucky ones for being in it early.

Before the season starts, many more jobs will open and they all will be filled, but not without much more speculation and buzz resounding from the world of college volleyball.

Kordes (Left), Allen (Center), and Hebert (Right) have all had a large effect on the coaching carousel this season.

Courtesy: American Volleyball Coaches Association

The Trojans of SoCal nabbed all 16 first-place votes in today’s AVCA DI-II Poll keeping them at the #1 spot for the fourth straight week. Bill Ferguson’s gang has a tough road ahead of them now as they start to hit the main stretch of the MPSF season. UCSB, UCLA, Pepperdine, and Stanford line up the next four bouts for USC and guarantee to be good ones. At this stage of the season, these matches can do one of two things for the Trojans and for the volleyball world. Either USC can take these four matches and make a statement to prove that they are a step above the rest, or we’ll find out that there really isn’t much separation at all. Either way, the next couple weeks should give us a great indicator on the Men of Troy and the rest of the country.

Welcome to CollegeVolleyballTalk.com! Stay tuned to this Home page for updates, articles, and media each day. Check out both the Men’s and Women’s pages as more and more information will continue to become available.  The Message Board will be up and running very soon, but for now feel free to use the comment boxes to voice your volleyball opinions. Volleyball Forever!