2010 USA NCAA Division I

    Season has started. Here are some stories I read recently:


    Foreign Influence: Polish-born and French-raised Anna Szerszen has made a big impact on the Ohio State volleyball squad.
    http://www.bigten.org/sports/w…y/spec-rel/092409aaa.html


    A Long Path: Juliana Paz came to Michigan all the way from Brazil.
    http://www.bigten.org/sports/w…y/spec-rel/121009aac.html


    Tulane University has player from Poland and two from Serbia:
    http://www.tulanegreenwave.com…y/spec-rel/082010aaa.html

    Stanford (Ranked No.2) won 28-26, 25-12, 25-18 vs Penn State. Alix Klineman with 16 kills on top of two aces. Cassidy Lichtman had a good game. Penn State lost a lot of firepower with the departure of Hodge. Didn't help too that Glass graduated.

    Texas seems to be in similar situation since Destinee Hooker graduated.


    I thought best match yesterday was Nebraska (#7) over Illinois (#3) 21-25, 21-25, 25-22, 25-14, 16-14 in front of 12 thousand Nebraska fans.
    Illinois best player was out sick and they lost another player to injury in set 3. When healthy they will be hard to stop.

    The new site ! I don't understand the system of competition but I saw that Florida is very strong. In the individual statistics One Person is very good in attack.

    Ahh I forgot about this thread. :)


    Well, season is over. Penn State won title for fourth year in a row.
    http://www.ncaa.com/sports/volleyball-women/d1
    "Bracket" link on above shows tournament results and information.


    University of California setter Carli Lloyd was named "Player of the Year"


    The best players are selected to "All-American Teams" which are not actual teams that play matches, just lists of best players.
    Those are listed here:
    http://www.avca.org/awards/all-america/division-one/


    2011 season should start next August.

    Rankings are from before championship tournament. Florida lost to Purdue University in this tournament. Unfortunately the entire ncaa.com site seems to be down right now... and is not very good site even when working. If I have time later I will try and explain the whole system, but ultimately there is 64 team tournament to decide championship, won by Penn State.

    I am not expert but here is what I know about NCAA volleyball...


    There is no US professional league, so university/college volleyball is the top level. There are many schools that play and some have very dedicated fans, but overall is not high profile sport. College men's football (american version) and basketball are very popular and bring lots of money to schools (tickets, merchandise, television rights). Since schools are not allowed to pay players, big profit. But law says they must give equal chances for women's sports. Therefore schools have women's volleyball teams. Game is played similar to international except for two main things: Liberos can serve and there are lots of substitutions.


    Biggest schools are in NCAA Division I. There are hundreds of teams that compete at this level. I have not been able to find exact number. Schools divide themselves into "conferences" (for reasons not related to volleyball.) Each conference is sort of like own league. For example Florida is part of SEC (SouthEast Conference) and Penn State is part of Big 10 (which has 11 teams and next year will have 12.) Conference makes basic schedule for their teams, then schools add extra matches or tournaments with teams from other conferences. Each team plays around 30 matches per season. Season starts in August and goes to end of November.


    Each conference has its own standings table. But since there are dozen of conferences, it is hard during season to determine which teams are really the best. So AVCA (coach's association) conducts opinion poll of coaches, leading to "Top 20" list each week. Other people have other systems with computer rankings and such. But ultimately these rankings are just opinions.


    At end of season, each conference decides conference champion. Some conferences just use top team in standing table. Others hold conference tournament. Once this is all decided, NCAA holds 64 team championship tournament to decide overall NCAA Division I champion. This year bracket looked like this:



    (Click image enough times and it should be readable)


    How this bracket is created is big mystery and controversy. NCAA meets and decides which teams get into tournament and where they should play. Some teams get in automatically by winning conference, others are like wildcards. There is no drawing of lots or other typical system... NCAA assigns "seed" number to top 16 teams but no one seems to know how. For example from bracket it can be seen that Florida was #1 seed... no one complained because they were also #1 in "Top 20" poll. But lower left of bracket has Penn State as #4, so they should play slightly tougher teams in tournament than Nebraska (#2). But Nebraska in lower right with Washington, Hawaii, and California... all teams considered to be contenders for championship. Penn State had Duke (never in "Top 20" poll) plus two seeded teams that could not make it out of first round... so there were lots of critics of this.


    But anyway, Florida and Nebraska were both upset in third round, and final four teams were Texas, Penn State, Southern California (USC), and California. With Penn State winning championship.


    I do not know much about these teams current players, but here are some former players who are well known:


    (Destinee Hooker, Alicia Glass, Asia Kaczor... and current California libero because I do not know any famous California players and I already had picture.)

    osuwisko made a very good description of the NCAA system. I'll give some detail about things osuwisko didn't cover.


    In 2010 there were 328 volleyball teams in Division 1 broken into 31 conferences (leagues). There were 12 teams who were not members of any conference (independent). There are usually some small changes in this from year to year.


    Most of the players in Division 1 volleyball are paid for their cost of attending the university (tuition, housing, meals). The cost of these things is different at each university, so at each university the "student/athletes" get paid a different amount - but never more than the cost of attendance at the university. A player playing at a state-supported (inexpensive tuition) university in an inexpensive place to live might get paid $18,000/year. A player playing at a private university (very expensive tuition) in an expensive place to live might get paid $60,000/year. Because the players are only allowed to receive enough money for expenses both players net income is zero. Each volleyball team is allowed to pay exactly 12 players in this manner. Most universities pay 12 players the maximum allowed. A handful of universities play less (pay fewer than 12 players, or pay 12 players less than the max allowed) due to their economic status.


    The universities join together to form conferences based on several factors. The most important factors are overall athletic department budget, and the strength of their football (American football) team. Location of the universities is usually another factor, but not always. A conference must have at least 6 universities, and there is no upper limit. A 16 university conference seems to be about the maximum that is practical. 9-12 universities in a conference is most common.


    Volleyball teams usually play two games each week. The players must have one day off every calender week (teams can travel on their off day). When school is in session from August to December players can only have sport related activities for 20 hours each week (includes games, practice, weight training, video/meetings). When school is in session from January to May teams have a 6 week block where they can use 20 hours/week. Outside of that block players can only have 6 hours of sports activity/week and only two of those can use volleyballs. With the exception of August (pre-season training, very intense), teams cannot practice when school is not in session.


    Players in the NCAA must take (and pass) the minimum number of credit hours to be considered a "full-time" student at their university. Most volleyball players take more than the minimum. A "full-time" student in the USA almost always means taking at least 4 classes per term. The player must remain on track to graduate in 5 years. Players have 5 calendar years to compete in 4 seasons. They may practice during the season they do not play.


    I'm happy to answer any questions anyone might have about NCAA and United States volleyball in general.

    Hi Murina,


    1. If you could compare NCAA Division I's top 5-10 teams to a professional league, what country would it be comparable to? Would Penn State be competitive in a league (A2?) in Europe or Asia?


    2. Does USA Volleyball have any influence on participation of student athletes in the National team program while they are in College? Is it mainly the student athlete's choice?


    3. If a student athlete wants to play for the National Team, can the University prohibit this as part of the scholarship?

    Hi Murina,


    I read this year that AVCA had a project to creat a professional volleyball league in US. There was even a video with Sykora talking about it and everything, but after that I didnt hear anything anymore, do you know how is that going? do you think is possible we see a professional league in USA soon?

    1. It's hard to say for sure, but I suspect that the NCAA's top 10 might fit in Spanish Superliga 2 range. I think this was a little bit of a weak year in the NCAA, compared to the last two years. It seems to be a bit of a weak year in Spain also, so maybe this analogy would hold in other years also.


    2 & 3. USA Volleyball can only invite athletes to participate in national teams. It is up to the university and the player to decide if she wants to play in the NT program while she is in college. The university can prevent it if they choose.

    Quote from joanamss

    Hi Murina,


    I read this year that AVCA had a project to creat a professional volleyball league in US. There was even a video with Sykora talking about it and everything, but after that I didnt hear anything anymore, do you know how is that going? do you think is possible we see a professional league in USA soon?

    I don't think it will be ready to go soon. They are still trying to generate fan interest. I think they are up to almost 20,000 facebook fans. There is very little news outside of that. I doubt much will get done until the economy gets a lot better.