Oso planning to go pro
No. The same MPSF school won the title twice. So one MPSF school has won a national title in the past 6 years, which is exactly what I said.
As far as high school national rankings, when you consider that there are probably single digit schools in FL, MO, and OH and then maybe 40? Teams from IL that are considered in these rankings (WI, TX, and NY high school seasons are in the fall so don't get ranked) then it makes complete sense that very few teams outside of CA get ranked...there are probably 60 teams total outside of CA that have varsity boys high school volleyball programs. There are hundreds of teams in CA alone. Once again, just makes the competitiveness of the MIVA recently to be incredible.
Confused by that paragraph Wade. You say Illinois has 40 schools in the national rankings but there are only 60 total men's varsity teams outside Cali? Just looking for some clarification not an argument because I know there are at least 150 teams in Illinois.
I meant 40 total teams in the state of IL, not in the national rankings. Total stab in the dark guess there. My overall point is that if you take just southern CA alone and combine all the rest of the country (even giving northern CA to "the rest of the country") the number of high school teams in SoCal would still FAR outweigh the number of high school teams in "the rest of the country."
End of the day, there have been 45 NCAA champions. 87% went to MPSF schools. When you factor in the Final Fours, it is closer to 95%In the last 6 years, 3 to MPSF, 3 elsewhere. I would call last night a big upset and most of the experts in college volleyball would, too. UCLA should have beaten OSU, but the didn't. BYU has owned UCLA all year. Kudos to OSU, they played well last night, but I honestly felt it was more BYU playing poorly than the other way around. The first set was fantastic volleyball by both sides. The last two....eh.
You might want to check the last 6 years. OSU, UCI, UCI, Loyola, Loyola, OSU (in order of oldest to newest) are the last 6 national titles. 4 to the MIVA (2 Loyola, 2 OSU = 4 total), 2 to the MPSF (2 UCI = 2 total), 0 elsewhere.People thought that BYU was better because BYU owned what everyone thought was the best conference in the country, but maybe it wasn't.Ohio State lost 2 matches all season. They played each of the top 3 teams in the MPSF, 2 on neutral courts and 1 as a true road match. They went 3-0. Both their losses came to MIVA teams. They swept BYU. To claim BYU was better is just flat out ignorant, especially when the 3rd set was 25-17. That's like a high school team beating a team 25-7. Ohio State ended the season on what, a 21 match winning streak or something? And again, 3 of those were against the teams that finished 1-3 in the MPSF. Clearly one team was the best in the country, and for the 3rd straight year that team was from the MIVA.
Thank you for the correction. OSU, with California dominated players, won this year. Last 22 years, that's 15 for the MPSF, and 5 for everyone else, and two vacancies. Winning a tournament doesn't always mean you are the best. MU beat #1 Denver yesterday in LaCrosse. Those teams play 10 times, Denver wins 8 or 9 of them. That's the beauty of college sports and one match games. OSU's losses this year were to whom? UCLA was one of them. I think Ball State the other. One could argue UCLA screwed the pooch against them in the semis, but OSU won in 5 sets. BYU was considered the best team in the country, and there was nothing ignorant about it. As for which league was better....really? I look at the top 8 teams and 7 are from the MPSF. I look at the RPI, and 5 of the top 6 from the MPSF. Maybe we should have a NCAA tournament in the future we don't have 6 teams playing, but actually have 16. That would be fun. I wonder which league would dominate?
Standard SoCal. Can't face the fact that someone outside of the epicenter of volleyball in the country is having success.
Just 5 to 10 years ago you would NEVER see top level talent LEAVE the great old Southern California to go play VOLLEYBALL, of all sports, in the Midwest. And the only top level talent that would be produced in the Midwest would ALWAYS head west to play their college volleyball. The gap has been drastically closed in a very quick time period.
For those in this thread who follow NCAA volleyball much more closely, what has lead to the gap between MPSF and non-MPSF schools being closed. Sure, some of these non-MPSF schools may have a lot of California transplants, but something has to convince those kids to head East. I've been a casual fan of NCAA volleyball since I attended the 2008 Pepperdine vs. Penn State championship @ UCI's Bren Events Center. At the time I thought the Penn State win was a fluke, but watching the non-MPSF teams the last few years, MPSF dominance may be more perception than reality now.
Just 5 to 10 years ago you would NEVER see top level talent LEAVE the great old Southern California to go play VOLLEYBALL, of all sports, in the Midwest. Not exactly true, I can think of several that come to mind.No, there was nothing ignorant about thinking BYU was the best team in the country going into the national championship. But there certainly is in saying that BYU just didn't play well and it really wasn't to OSU's credit that they won the match. When you get swept, you can't claim, "We're really better, we just played a bad match." Sure you can and there are examples of it in sports all the time. Earlier this year, Oklahoma beat Villanova in basketball by 30. Then the rematch Villanova beat Oklahoma by 40+. In volleyball, same thing...teams that lost 3-0 and come back to beat the same team later. Kind of silly to suggest otherwise.Put almost 50% of the entire NCAA into the NCAA Tournament field? No thanks.There are some amazing teams that could do some significant damage and make a run, that are kept out. Of course, it would be mostly MPSF schools that would make up those spots.
It's definitely not perception, and that is silly. The non-MPSF has had a few good teams each year, but not the top to bottom strenght that the MPSF has. If you look at the power ratings every year about 80% of the top 10 are MPSF schools. Often, the schools that slip in from outside have a heavy California presence of players. Not always...Lewis is an example where that wasn't the case.As for kids wanting to leave, not surprised. I have a 17 year old in my house that is applying to one California school and 10 non-California schools. A LOT of issues in this state that people aren't crazy with, plus a chance to try something new, etc. So no surprise there.
Ohio State started 2 California kids out of 6. I get it, you love your SoCal, but the facts here don't add up.The previous 2 champions started 1 kid from SoCal, and he was the worst player in their starting lineup. Again, you love your SoCal, but you're making up a narrative that simply isn't there.I stated Lewis was an exception. Not true on Ohio State throughout the year. Funny thing is since the NCAA Tournament went to 6 teams this is the first year that the MPSF got more at large bids than the MIVA. So once again, you can pretend that the MPSF dominates the MIVA and top to bottom is so much stronger and it's not even comparable, but once again, you'd be making up a narrative that simply isn't true. The all time great Quincy University, who went 4-12 in the MIVA, took your beloved LBSU, a top 3 finisher in the regular season and tournament in the MPSF, to 5 sets at LBSU. They also took UCSB, the 5th place finisher and semifinalist in the MPSF Tournament, to 5 sets on the road. This same Quincy team lost to almighty Division THREE teams in Carthage College and St. Ambrose...TWICE! And none of those matches even made it to 5 sets!I said power rankings. I also said if we went to 16, the MPSF would dominate most of those positions. Are you truly arguing against that? The MIVA has had some very good teams, but top to bottom if you went to 16 teams most of those positions are going to be filled by the Pepperdines, Stanfords, Hawaii, UCSB of the world. Sure, Lewis, Loyola, PSU or someone like Erksine, Barton, others would slot in. Ohio State lost to McMaster this year. It happens. That's volleyball. I don't know why you keep going on about the 3 vs 5 sets thing. It by no means is the all inclusive measure of a team's ability. Sure, it can mean how well or poorly they played THAT DAY, but you seem to want to define that way beyond. I don't get it.The way the tournament is constructed now with how small it is, a George Mason bid takes away a spot from a very good team. The tournament is too small, IMHO. The almighty MPSF is no longer untouchable, despite what the Southern California people want to tell you.Would love to hear all these top level players who left Southern California to play in the Midwest or on the East Coast that you have in mind prior to Cody Caldwell leaving SoCal to come to Loyola 5 years ago...and he turned out to be a complimentary player. Weird, he was supposed to be a volleyball prodigy out in SoCal...and then gets to the Midwest and gets passed up by a bunch of cheeseheads and FIBS.And sure. OU was better than Nova and just got unlucky, and BYU was better than OSU and just got unlucky. Probably just like Hawaii was better than PSU and got unlucky and UCI was better than Loyola and got unlucky last year, and Stanford was better than Loyola 2 years ago but got unlucky. The Midwest could never ACTUALLY produce better teams than SoCal. It's just pure luck. Heck, it even dates back to when this senior group was in high school. No way a team from little, dirty West Allis, WI could ever actually compete with the big boys of Southern California. Those 3 National Titles in 3 years for that club were clearly just flukes. 3 lucky tournaments in a 3 year span. Crazy how lucky that little city is. Crapshoots all around, ai'na?If your almighty MPSF teams want their shot, then do their job throughout the regular season, get a good seed in the MPSF Tournament, and finish well in the MPSF Tournament. Can't do that then don't complain that they didn't let 16 of 35ish total NCAA teams into the field. There is always a separation between the top teams in the MPSF and the 2nd tier (teams like UCSB this season). If the top tier teams aren't winning it all, the 2nd tier teams that are crying that half the NCAA field doesn't make the tournament certainly wouldn't.To each their own.....I expect the US National team will be mostly from the MIVA and EIVA then.....
But it's pure luck that the MPSF (okay, west coast schools, since there was no MPSF for a long time) won like 37 straight titles.
It is all down hill after Al Scates.
I guess I'm also curious where I said OSU was lucky. I certainly didn't. OSU is a very good team, I just think most experts believed BYU on most days is better. That doesn't mean OSU is lucky.The 3-0 sweep is immaterial in judging the quality of their team for the same reason I gave you the Nova and OU examples. First game went 32-30. Teams sometimes don't have it on givens days.