In this special post-season episode of CVW Beach T20, Rob connects with a first-time National Champion, Ashley Pater, who was one of only two freshman starting for Head Coach Dain Blanton's 4x National Champions USC Beach Volleyball. During Ashley's pre-collegiate career she had an enormous amount of success on the beach with multiple first place/g…

As we enter the summer Viral Volley Media will be doing episodes for relevant news for athletes, teams, coaches and/or other volleyball personalities from the National Teams (the "Road to Paris 2024"), Pro Volleyball Federation, Athletes Unlimited, NCAA Men's/Women's/Beach, and/or etc. Who knows, we may even throw in a couple AVP/FIVB athletes, top…

The CVW Coaching Panel wanted to get this Q&A Episode together because it's what our listeners wanted! Today we explore the expansion of the MIVA, formation of the GLVC, new teams and Division 1 & 2 expansion. Naturally, we flow into the rise of the portal and how coaches/teams view some of the different perspectives of it's availability to the ath…

In this 2024 season finale, Kelly Belardi of Stanford Beach Volleyball and Kylie Wickley of Texas Beach Volleyball with Rob Espero discuss the AVCA All-America team honorees, along with the AVCA Top Flight recipients. In addition, the CVW crew discusses the happenings at the 2024 NCAA Beach Volleyball Championship in Gulf Shores (that moves to Hunt…

The entire CVW crew of Brad Rostratter of UCSD, Dan Friend of Lewis, Jay Hosack of George Mason and Theo Edwards of CSUN talk all things National Collegiate Volleyball Championship week! From the opening quarterfinals, All-America Social, semis to the finals. The guys break it down for all volleyball fans alike! They guys talk about A LOT in this m…

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…

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 Geo…

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…

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 …

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…

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? W…

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,…

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-…

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, Confe…

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 th…

In Week 12 it seems March Mayhem has re-entered the scene with the MIVA Conference seeing a handful of unexpected results! With only 2-3 weeks remaining in the regular season and conference tournaments around the corner, expect more mayhem! Not excluded from the mayhem is the Big West Conference—with only one matchup during the week that resulted i…

Week 4 of the NCAA Collegiate Beach season and East Meets West in Manhattan Beach, CA along with the FAU Invite in Pompano Beach, FL took center stage as a lot of top 20 teams went at it. Kelly Belardi of Stanford, Jaden Whitmarsh of UCLA and Kylie Wickley of Texas gathered to chat on what we saw in Week 4 as well as through the mid-point of the se…

Week 11 brought another 1 vs. 2 matchup resulting in what will most likely be new No. 1-- again. With that we discuss a handful of the top matches of the week but try a new piece for our Coaches' Panel: "If You Were on the NCAA Committee" segment! The coaches discuss what the 20243 NCAA Tournament would look like today given the 8-team scenario and…

This week we jump into our first special episode with the East Meets West in Manhattan Beach this weekend. With that, the Seminoles of Florida St. "take over" the show to talk about their start to 2024, how deep and talented the 'Noles squad is as they've been hovering at No. 4 in the AVCA and CollegeBeachVB.com polls. They're chomping at the bit t…

Week 10 saw another No. 1 team go down not just once, but twice at the Outrigger Invitational in Hawaii. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles the Big 12/Pac-12 Challenge brought in a battle of 4 of the top 12 teams in the nation. In Northern California, two top-10 teams duked it out for split. The Big West got heated as Long Beach St. and UCSB squared off wit…

Episode 215: College Volleyball Weekly Beach Top 20, 3/5/24 This week Jaden Whitmarsh of UCLA, Alli Hansen of Florida St. and Kylie Wickley of Texas jump into the show (missing Kelly Belardi of Stanford) talking about what they as athletes have seen so far 1/4th into the season (aka, 2 weeks). What's the talent like, what teams are playing well and…

This week didn't see a whole lot of shakeups around the nation, however we're discovering the MIVA is getting very interesting with Ball St., and Ohio St. sitting at the top. There was an LA rivalry matchup, GCU dominance, Long Beach St. on a winning streak and Hawaii rolling along, however the guys talk "chirping and chippiness" in the game. The g…

While Alli of Florida St. tends to homework, Jaden Whitmarsh of UCLA, Kelly Belardi of Stanford and Kylie Wickley of Texas join Rob on recapping the Week 1 action of the NEW Collegiate Beach Volleyball season! We try our best to talk about the CollegeBeachVB.com Top 20 teams and top athletes. Contributor Kelly garnered Most Oustanding Pair (with As…

In Week 8 of the the NCAA Men's season we are still seeing intense parity as multiple teams visit "Splitsville"-- splitting their pairs of matches during the week. Along with that we're seeing changes in lineups, some intentional, some not. One thing is for sure-- the competitive levels REMAIN. As always, the guys discuss the results, pick their to…

Continuation from Episode 209, CVW Beach Top 20 Intro show with the Beach Top 20's new Student-Athlete Contributors! UCLA's Jaden Whitmarsh gets her own episode because of a schedule conflict with the Beach team when we recorded Episode 209 however, it works out perfectly so that we can find out about her Volleyball/Beach Volleyball career from WAV…

The CVW panel dives quickly into the recap with "The Elephant in the Room" segment that features our Coaches' matches during week 7. Lindenwood got the better end of a match vs. Dan's Flyers, Brad and the Tritons were at the SIAC/Big West Invite in Long Beach, and we discuss Jay's and Theo's wins for the week as well. It was another solid week of a…

Note: We recorded this episode pre-AVCA Beach Top 20 Poll and pre-CollegeBeachVB.com's poll and player/team awards. The 2024 NCAA Collegiate Beach Volleyball Season is just days away! With that, we thought it would be a great idea to do an "Introduction Episode" for most of our contributors (Jaden Whitmarsh of UCLA had a team dinner) to find out th…

More lower AVCA-ranked-teams have taken down higher-ranked teams, but the pane all agree that these are not upsets! No. 1 Long Beach St. dueled No. 4 UCLA with a split leaving only one remaining undefeated team-- Grand Canyon! Strong performances by Grant Sloane of UCLA, Hilir Henno of UCI, Mason Briggs of Long Beach St. and Kevin Schuele of PFW to…

Episode 207, College Volleyball Weekly, Men’s Top 20, Week 5 Recap & Week 6 Preview, 2/5/24 With the play that transpired in Week 5 of the 2024 D1-2 Men's Volleyball season we have to call this "The Tumultuous Top 20!" There were many good battles discussed from this last week along with our Coaching Panel's insights. Too much to write in a descrip…

This last week brought more than a handful of upsets and a multitude of stellar play in the young 2024 NCAA Men's Volleyball season. From Penn St.'s TWO upsets of Ohio St., the remaining undefeated teams of GCU, Stanford and Long Beach St. it has been pure intensity and excitement from week to week. The share their thoughts on Week 4 action, their …

It’s the Dan Friend Birthday Episode! In this week’s episode Dan Friend shares some information on the recent approval of Division 2 Championships and how it could be implemented in the next few years. Obviously growth in the men’s game is being seen throughout D1 as well with the addition of Menlo College, Vanguard and now William Jessup Universit…

NOTE: Interviewed Jacob, before the MIVA weekly awards came out. Congrats, Jacob on being selected MIVA Offensive Player of the Week! Interview with Senior OH, Jacob Pasteur of the current No, 4 Ohio St. Buckeyes, who are off to a stupendous 4-0 start for the 2024 season. A lot of the success has been due to the play of Jacob as he gears up for the…

This week’s episode starts out my remembering and honoring Tom Tait, the founder of Penn St. Men’s and Women’s Volleyball who passed late last week. He was the catalyst of volleyball in Pennsylvania, the East Coast and EIVA. Coach Tait invested his life into volleyball and the people who were around him—including Russ Rose (PSU WVB) and Mark Pavlik…

This week our coaching panel of Brad Rostratter of UCSD, Dan Friend of Lewis, Jay Hosack of George Mason and Theo Edwards of CSUN along with host, Rob-on-the-Mic, discuss the following news items of the week: Allowance of “The Double” from VolleyballMag.com The AVCA Preseason Pol, going to a Top 20 for the first time (hence the name change on the s…

Happy New Year! Tonight teams begin to take court for the first time in 2024 Men's D1-2 Volleyball season-- and with that HUGE EXCITEMENT! It was IMPERATIVE we at least get some matches we're watching out for this week, but as things would go some great news items have broken so we discuss those also! We start off with the renaming of the MIVA Cham…

The BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN... or at least on the CVW Men's Top 15! This week, the guys shout out to a former colleague, David Hunt, who received his 2nd consecutive National Championship as an Associate Head Coach for the Texas Longhorns. From the weeks of NCAA Women's Volleyball Tournament action we saw significant viewership and attendance. The CV…

College Volleyball Weekly, Beach Top 20, 11/7/23: In this special AVCA Fall Pairs Championship the newly crowned Pairs National Champions, TCU’s Lina Khmil and Hailey Hamlett share their experience at John Hunt (not Dave Hunt, like Rob “Freudian slipped” for former Men’s Top 15 contributor) Memorial Sports Complex in Huntsville, AL on their road to…

With the 2023 NCAA Men's Volleyball Championship in Fairfax, VA, a new champion has been crowned-- the UCLA Bruins, however, there was no shortage of excellent play from the opening rounds until the finals. With that, the CVW crew reviews the matches and All-America reception (video available on @robonthemic YouTube), and discusses their thoughts o…

From Tucson, Arizona, to Gulf Shores, Alabama to Fairfax, Virginia, the CVW crew makes due with what they've got to discuss final week of Collegiate Beach Volleyball tournaments, the NCAA selection show, and what to expect at Gulf Shores-- all while on the road! Listen in由Viral Volley Media

The home of the 2023 Men's Volleyball National Championship is at George Mason University's Eagle Bank Arena, so in this bonus episode of College Volleyball Weekly Jay (since Jay was doing NCAA business) shares his thoughts on the conference tournaments that happened this last week, as we go into even more detail of HOW GOOD THIS BRACKET IS (HUGE K…

NOTE: Due to technical difficulties I'm working through there are no intros/bumpers. Hopefully they'll be back soon! Instead, we jump right into the nitty-gritty. Timestamps MAY become available but my tech issues have usurped A LOT of time. Sorry. First of all, thank you to all the listeners who came up and introduced themselves to Rob at the Big …

NOTE: You'll notice some differences in this week's episode. Had some technical difficulties producing. Hopefully normal format episodes will be back out next week! Thanks for listening! This week, the CVW crew looks to the trees! The trees of Stanford in special guest and Freshman standout, Kelly Belardi and usual suspect, Charlie Ekstrom. This we…

Week 15 of the NCAA Men's Volleyball season has concluded and the remaining conference tournaments (outside of the MIVA) will be in full effect! This week the CVW Coaches' panel share there thoughts on each of the conferences' regular seasons and what to look for in their conferences' tournaments. The MIVA already featured one conference tournament…

As we move closer to the postseason we discuss Top-20 results that included some top-10 upsets, and how they've affected voters' analysis in the CollegeBeachVolleyball.com and AVCA polls. Then the CVW Beach crew discusses the conference scenarios for the AQ berth and the 13 potential teams that will be vying for 8 At-Large berths. As always, we dis…

The Coaches’ Panel prepares for the final season of regular season play, except for Dan of Lewis—who starts the MIVA Tournament on Saturday. As always, we discuss some of the eye-catching results from Week 14 and delve into AVCA poll voting. We then transition into postseason outlook and assessment by the guys. Being that there will be MANY great m…

The entire Beach crew is back-- after a Spring Break hiatus. Alan, Charlie, Kate and Rob discuss the tail end of the top 20 of both the CBVB and AVCA polls. LIterally a couple of votes separate the teams toward the back end of the top 20 and it's going to be a challenge which team will be worthy of an At-Large. The crew also discusses the following…

Along with the "usual suspects" of CVW, we've got special guest, Larry Wraither, Head Coach of Ft. Valley St. to chime in on the following topics of the week: #1 Hawaii at #12 CSUN x2 - Theo confirms, "They're (Hawaii) good." UR Princeton over #9 Loyola - Ben Harrington is THE REAL DEAL UR CUI over #5 GCU - It wasn’t Yuri, but Gage! BYU/Pepperdine …

This week we're invaded by FROGS! Sandy that is! Alana & Charlie were off the episode this week, but kindly stepping in is AVCA All-American and Spanish Olympic Team Hopeful, Dani Alvarez and mainstay Kate Privett of TCU. We briefly discuss the "March to May" Tournament in Gulf Shores and the "Surf and Turf" in Miami last weekend. We also chat abou…

This week the CVW crew opens up with the CVW Inter-Panel match of the week between UCSD (Brad Rostratter) and No. 12 CSUN (Theo Edwards). From there we look at some of the top-15 matches that the panel's eyes. Of course, there were some unexpected outcomes-- and it's going to come down to conference tournaments and who's hot when it counts. We'll a…

Week 3 saw a few hot teams rise closer to the top like LMU and Tulane, in the recent AVCA and CollegeBeachVB.com polls, while other teams have maintained a steady winning trend like the "top 4" of TCU, USC, UCLA and FSU, and Arizona. In the discussion you have Cal pressing upward while the Stanford Cardinal are finding their way! Alana Rennie of Ar…