The Net Set's 2013 NCAA conference previews (new thread)

[thenetset]

I have, regrettably, not been able to focus much over the last few weeks on writing about our great sport. But I found the time for a Summit League piece. It's up.

[jb]

Hey, wow, tns!  I only just found your blog today (looking for any decent NCAA preseason info), and I am in awe. Your enthusiasm and dedication to the NCAA preseason preview is amazing. I don't think I've ever seen such a level of effort from someone not making (or hoping to make) significant $$$ from it.  That's a Fan, with a capital F. I am a semi-pro photographer but just as much a fan [oops, I don't mean just as much a fan as you, I mean I'm as much a fan as I am a photographer], and have actually been hoping for several years to start a very similar project with commentary and analysis, but also photos for NCAA gymnastics (a sport I know much better and have been following for much, much longer than volleyball; I actually took up volleyball a year ago as a fall-season warmup for gymnastics season; turns out volleyball is much harder to photograph, and shooting it has taught me a great deal about sports photography, in addition to cultivating a genuine enthusiasm for the sport), and your blog and NCAA preview are a real inspiration that sheer fan enthusiasm and modest knowledge are enough to make for a site some people will find valuable.

I'll be contacting you privately, but I'll say here I hope I might be able to provide you with at least a little help in your efforts. I'm willing to try to write, though my level of knowledge is far, far below what you and your readers are looking for so my contributions would be pretty rudimentary without quite a bit of tutoring and collaboration. I might be of some value as a local "stringer" in my region, gathering what info I can from the school's web sites and also what I might be able to pick up from the odd conversation at matches with a coach, player, parent, AD, or whatever; on that front, an association with your weblog might help open the door to such conversations. But besides all that, however, if you want pictures to illustrate your site, I'm happy to share any you want, and I've already got a fistful that would add a bit of visual variety. I am not in a position to see any of the really top teams in Division I, but at least for my region, I can provide pics of some teams local to me (and the opponents they face at home), such as Delaware, Towson (CAA), Maryland (ACC), Penn (Ivy), Villanova (Big East), Temple (AAC).  Within the next week, I hope to have a revamped website with tons of 2012 pics from matches of these and some other Div II schools in the area, but I won't publicly post my site's address just yet here because the pics I've managed to post so far are pretty pathetic. But I've gotten pretty far in a complete redesign of the site and should have a decent amount of material ready for a relaunch very shortly. I'll try to include a few photo samples, though, just to show it's not blurry crap from a camera phone. I'm not a pro (yet), but I'm getting close.  I'll throw in a 2013 NCAA gymnastics photo (West Chester U.) just to show where I hope to get with volleyball soon enough.

Even though the number of matches and teams I may be able to shoot in any given season is quite finite, my aim with gymnastics (and now with volleyball, as well) is to accumulate an inventory of decent pictures of as many teams as possible, so that any time a certain team is mentioned in pre-, mid- or post-season in whatever context, I'll have a picture of a competitor on that team from some time in recent memory with which to illustrate it (as newspapers and magazines do when they illustrate a story with a "file photo").  Even in a region with very few nationally competitive teams in gymnastics, I've managed to get photos of a number of teams that made nationals or even the Super Six when they occasionally pass through (such as when Georgia and Michigan were in Regionals hosted not too far away), and hope eventually assemble at least a few shots of a majority of the 90-some teams in all three divisions.

Though I'm not an expert on volleyball and don't know too much even about the teams local to me, I would be happy to try to learn and to contribute whatever I can to your efforts.  I hope you will continue in your efforts as you are able; even though the season is just about upon us, even when it is several weeks or more into the season, the kind of information you provide will still be very valuable. I'm excited to see AAC and Ivy are coming up on your list very soon, and look forward to your report. 

Cheers,
JB

[thenetset]

Atlantic Sun preview is up.

This series will continue to its conclusion. I am going to try like heck to get the bigger conferences done before conference play begins. I had a few personal issues this month that kept me from devoting as much attention to the blog as I would have liked. I'm now as past them as I'm going to be, and I'm going to try to follow the original schedule I set out for these. The next 16 pieces may have a slightly different motif than the first 16 did, but I *will* write them all and I promise they'll start coming out faster. There's no reason now that they shouldn't.

[thenetset]

Saw your PM JB. I'd like to think we can help each other out

[mclvbdad]

I have really enjoyed your posts on the conference previews. Its always my first read of the morning when a new article is released. I really appreciate all the effort you have put into this series and am looking forward to reading it to its conclusion.

[thenetset]

New post added.

And thanks for the kind words directly above