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Post by larry on May 4, 2016 13:12:17 GMT -5
It's pretty clear that the NCAA doesn't give much of a hoot about its men's volleyball national championship. The quarterfinal matches, which, after all, are part of the tournament, were such a low priority that they not even streamed on the NCAA.com site.
A truly sad aspect is that the athletes participating in the so-called play-in matches deserve better than playing in a deserted gym.
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Post by Deleted on May 4, 2016 13:13:40 GMT -5
+1 Larry...+1
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Post by timduckforlife on May 4, 2016 18:51:06 GMT -5
Granted, that kind of attendence is really really bad, but as said, they are play in games with LBSU and Erskine.
That said though, I agree that the tournament needs to expand to at least 8 teams. Play-in games are just bad form, especially when that makes it go up to a whooping 6 teams.... Go 8 or 4.
And to be fair to Penn State, they are a good volleyball school. Just this year was a bad year for them. Had PSU had a better year, thre would have been more interest. That said too though, do people honestly expect that if there was a neutral site play-in game that it would draw a bigger crowd?
And with volleyball, especially mens volleyball, there is a fine line between watchability and non-watchability. Meaning that so much is put on the server to make a tough serve to get the other team out of system that missing a lot of serves is somehow acceptable. That doesnt make for good television.
Out of curiosity, do we know who the announcers for the championship match are going to be?
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Post by Deleted on May 4, 2016 19:11:51 GMT -5
Granted, that kind of attendence is really really bad, but as said, they are play in games with LBSU and Erskine. That said though, I agree that the tournament needs to expand to at least 8 teams. Play-in games are just bad form, especially when that makes it go up to a whooping 6 teams.... Go 8 or 4. And to be fair to Penn State, they are a good volleyball school. Just this year was a bad year for them. Had PSU had a better year, thre would have been more interest. That said too though, do people honestly expect that if there was a neutral site play-in game that it would draw a bigger crowd? And with volleyball, especially mens volleyball, there is a fine line between watchability and non-watchability. Meaning that so much is put on the server to make a tough serve to get the other team out of system that missing a lot of serves is somehow acceptable. That doesnt make for good television. Out of curiosity, do we know who the announcers for the championship match are going to be? George Mason in the tournament is a good thing for the PSU-EIVA and NCAA Volleyball. Why does it have to be that the host school needs to be in the event? That is irrelevant.
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Post by timduckforlife on May 5, 2016 3:52:56 GMT -5
Granted, that kind of attendence is really really bad, but as said, they are play in games with LBSU and Erskine. That said though, I agree that the tournament needs to expand to at least 8 teams. Play-in games are just bad form, especially when that makes it go up to a whooping 6 teams.... Go 8 or 4. And to be fair to Penn State, they are a good volleyball school. Just this year was a bad year for them. Had PSU had a better year, thre would have been more interest. That said too though, do people honestly expect that if there was a neutral site play-in game that it would draw a bigger crowd? And with volleyball, especially mens volleyball, there is a fine line between watchability and non-watchability. Meaning that so much is put on the server to make a tough serve to get the other team out of system that missing a lot of serves is somehow acceptable. That doesnt make for good television. Out of curiosity, do we know who the announcers for the championship match are going to be? George Mason in the tournament is a good thing for the PSU-EIVA and NCAA Volleyball. Why does it have to be that the host school needs to be in the event? That is irrelevant. I'm definitely not saying that a host team should be in the field, just that this is what happened and it has obviously affected attendance, esp for a finals week week. All I meant by it is that PSU is a traditional powerhouse program and that is why they got selected to host, most likely with the expectation that they would be in the field and as thus generate buzz and attendance. Having George Mason in the field is a good thing just as Ohio State and Loyola winning championships has been as well. But volleyball, esp Mens Volleyball just isn't a popular enough sport to draw a lot of big crowds in most of the country. If there are neutral spots around the country that can draw good crowds, then we really need to go to find those places and have them host, esp if you can find 4 or 5 and rotate them. Places that come to mind: LA, Chicago, New York, Nebraska, Florida, and Utah. But until volleyball becomes a more popular sport, then we can and should expect low attended crowds for non-area teams. And again, as mentioned in my previous post in regards to mens volleyball, it needs more watchability, meaning rallies. And that straight away falls on the serving game.
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Post by Deleted on May 5, 2016 9:37:28 GMT -5
Does the NCAA want big crowds and popularity for men's volleyball? Right now, you theoretically have two main men's sports (BB/FB) and two for women (VB/BB)...if another men's sport were to grow (and you could argue for baseball or whatever as well...)...what then? They would be "Title IX" paranoid and be forced to put revenue into softball (or some other activity)... I just don't see football coaches/ADs allowing that to happen.
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Post by Deleted on May 5, 2016 11:00:28 GMT -5
NCAA Volleyball Facebook page: www.facebook.com/NCAAvolleyball/?fref=tsIn 1 week: 35 posts 1 post on Men's Volleyball (Elite 90 Award) 34 posts on Beach Championships. Men's game a priority - Grow the Game...right?
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Post by c4ndlelight on May 5, 2016 11:44:21 GMT -5
You need Goliaths before you can cheer the Davids. Men's volleyball needs big-time schools (unfortunately, that limits it to OSU/PSU/USC/UCLA/STANFORD) to be winning big. When a D-II school or some midmajor whose mascot is unknown to most college sports fans dominates, it just makes the men's game look like small-time sidebar that nobody cares about.
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Post by Deleted on May 5, 2016 11:55:22 GMT -5
You need Goliaths before you can cheer the Davids. Men's volleyball needs big-time schools (unfortunately, that limits it to OSU/PSU/USC/UCLA/STANFORD) to be winning big. When a D-II school or some midmajor whose mascot is unknown to most college sports fans dominates, it just makes the men's game look like small-time sidebar that nobody cares about. Well that philosophy has worked well over the past 4+ decades.
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Post by c4ndlelight on May 5, 2016 12:03:11 GMT -5
You need Goliaths before you can cheer the Davids. Men's volleyball needs big-time schools (unfortunately, that limits it to OSU/PSU/USC/UCLA/STANFORD) to be winning big. When a D-II school or some midmajor whose mascot is unknown to most college sports fans dominates, it just makes the men's game look like small-time sidebar that nobody cares about. Well that philosophy has worked well over the past 4+ decades.
Was it ever in place? UCLA, Pepperdine and USC splitting everything didn't legitimize the sport either. We need Power 5 schools to be adding men's volleyball and investing in it to move the needle.
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Post by vboldschool on May 5, 2016 13:44:00 GMT -5
And with volleyball, especially mens volleyball, there is a fine line between watchability and non-watchability. Meaning that so much is put on the server to make a tough serve to get the other team out of system that missing a lot of serves is somehow acceptable. That doesnt make for good television. <rant> Serving aces has become too big of a part of the men's game. If a server can bomb one ace and miss his next serve, he will be encouraged to do so at any high level program. That makes for a really boring game as timduckforlife mentioned. Various ideas have been suggested to address this. Why not simply go back to making ball contact with the net on the serve a fault? That may increase the error rate enough to slow those boys down a little. To continue the rant, the 10-foot line is a joke in today's game. Front row attackers often take off at 8 or 9 feet, so the 10-foot line is no longer doing what it was designed to do, which was to prevent back row players from becoming part of the offense. Why not simpy make attacks by back row players completely illegal? That would lead to longer rallies, and would make it way less important to bang out aces. I like watching a well timed bic as much as the next guy, but it's simply too easy to side out with so many options available. </rant>
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Post by timduckforlife on May 5, 2016 16:51:29 GMT -5
And with volleyball, especially mens volleyball, there is a fine line between watchability and non-watchability. Meaning that so much is put on the server to make a tough serve to get the other team out of system that missing a lot of serves is somehow acceptable. That doesnt make for good television. <rant> Serving aces has become too big of a part of the men's game. If a server can bomb one ace and miss his next serve, he will be encouraged to do so at any high level program. That makes for a really boring game as timduckforlife mentioned. Various ideas have been suggested to address this. Why not simply go back to making ball contact with the net on the serve a fault? That may increase the error rate enough to slow those boys down a little. To continue the rant, the 10-foot line is a joke in today's game. Front row attackers often take off at 8 or 9 feet, so the 10-foot line is no longer doing what it was designed to do, which was to prevent back row players from becoming part of the offense. Why not simpy make attacks by back row players completely illegal? That would lead to longer rallies, and would make it way less important to bang out aces. I like watching a well timed bic as much as the next guy, but it's simply too easy to side out with so many options available. </rant> Therein lies the challenge with Mens Volleyball, serve easy, and its an easy kill for the other team, or do the higher risk serves for out of system rallies but vastly increase serving errors. I remember meeting a 16s girl and her mom at a restaurant one night because I saw her wearing a vball shirt from a good club team. She commented on the purity of the mens game. I asked her what she meant by it, and she said it was all about pass, set, kill. 3 contacts and done. Personally I always thought the opposite was true, and the womens game was the purer of the 2 because you get amazing rallies with great defesne. But I guess both men and women have different perspectives on the game.
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Post by donneyp on May 6, 2016 13:08:16 GMT -5
The NCAA is trying to run a 6 team tournament for as little money as possible. The revenue raised by tickets is not that significant compared to the travel for the teams and other costs.
If Erskine went to LBSU that's a round trip flight and a few nights in the hotel for one team, plus a full NCAA signage package, net pads, balls and carts, NCAA staff, etc for Long Beach. They'd still need to fly LBSU to State College for the finals.
Had Mason gone to OSU - well is the flight limit 400 or 500 miles? Mason is 403 miles from OSU so they may have been required to fly to Columbus. If not, and they only had to do one bus and one set of rooms, that could have been marginally cheaper, but again the signage/balls and NCAA staff for Ohio State and again, they'd still need to outfit the Rec Hall at Penn State.
Tickets for tomorrow night's championship are $15. Tickets for the women's finals are like $35. Tickets for basketball's first four in Dayton next year are $334 for all-sessions right now. What tickets do you think they are trying to sell?
Using NCAA math I think they are 6 schools short of being able to go to 8 teams. Middlehitter has a link for Lincoln Memorial, so its just 5 to go. You want an 8 team tournament, get some D1/D2 schools in the game.
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