Volleyball Thread

[Galway Eagle]

Can someone explain the spring games to me?

[wadesworld]

Can someone explain the spring games to me?

Basically scrimmages.  They take on all different forms.  Some of them are at local club teams' practice facilities to get those teams interested in the college team and/or as a recruiting tool.  Some are mini tournaments where you'll have 4 schools come together at one location and play a round robin or play 2 of the 3 other teams.  Some are played at a neutral site.  Most will have no official scorebook or stat keeping, some will be best of 3 (more when there are multiple teams playing multiple matches), some best of 5.  Some will have coaches stopping play and coaching in the middle of the match.  Etc.

Basically "secret scrimmages" that aren't as much of a secret as Marquette makes them.  I believe all teams get 4 spring dates to play, and you can only travel a certain amount of miles from your campus (so Marquette couldn't just play Stanford for the fun of it...although Wisconsin just played 2 at Hawaii so not sure if that's considered Wisconsin's "foreign trip" since teams also get that every 4 years if they choose to, or if Hawaii gets an exception since they're outside of the mileage radius for everyone).

Most teams get most of their roster playing time, mix up lineups, etc.  Basically what you see from basketball's secret scrimmages.  Just because an Owens is Marquette's 3rd best player in a secret scrimmage doesn't mean he'll be a highly effective player as a freshman at Marquette.  Same deal with most of these spring matches.

[Galway Eagle]

Basically scrimmages.  They take on all different forms.  Some of them are at local club teams' practice facilities to get those teams interested in the college team and/or as a recruiting tool.  Some are mini tournaments where you'll have 4 schools come together at one location and play a round robin or play 2 of the 3 other teams.  Some are played at a neutral site.  Most will have no official scorebook or stat keeping, some will be best of 3 (more when there are multiple teams playing multiple matches), some best of 5.  Some will have coaches stopping play and coaching in the middle of the match.  Etc.

Basically "secret scrimmages" that aren't as much of a secret as Marquette makes them.  I believe all teams get 4 spring dates to play, and you can only travel a certain amount of miles from your campus (so Marquette couldn't just play Stanford for the fun of it...although Wisconsin just played 2 at Hawaii so not sure if that's considered Wisconsin's "foreign trip" since teams also get that every 4 years if they choose to, or if Hawaii gets an exception since they're outside of the mileage radius for everyone).

Most teams get most of their roster playing time, mix up lineups, etc.  Basically what you see from basketball's secret scrimmages.  Just because an Owens is Marquette's 3rd best player in a secret scrimmage doesn't mean he'll be a highly effective player as a freshman at Marquette.  Same deal with most of these spring matches.

Gotcha thanks. So looking at roster for these games isn't going to give me much of indication of whether players stay or leave. Or if the couple transfers in are going to be legit. Darn.

[wadesworld]

Gotcha thanks. So looking at roster for these games isn't going to give me much of indication of whether players stay or leave. Or if the couple transfers in are going to be legit. Darn.

Yeah pretty much not.  A lot of women's volleyball transfers do happen between the fall and spring semesters for the reason that there is a spring season and they can get into their new programs and develop, grow chemistry as a team, etc.  But with coaching changes and being in the gym and maybe seeing a player's role, there are transfers in the summer.

[Galway Eagle]

Creightons coach stepping down

[wadesworld]

For any volleyball fans out there, this podcast just had Marv Dunphy on as their guest.  I could listen to him tell stories all day.

Over a 3 or 4 year period we were fortunate enough to have some combination of John Speraw, Chris and Karl McGown, Marv, and Marv's assistants at Pepperdine at the time (his daughter Alex was his grad assistant, David Hunt, and Jonathan Windor) come out and put on Gold Medal Squared clinics for our club when I was coaching.  Leading up to the one that Marv and his assistants were running, along with Chris McGown, I had heard Marv was kind of standoffish.  Turned out, it couldn't be further from the truth.  I'm guessing it was because Pepperdine was extremely expensive, a dry campus, and you only had 4.5 scholarships to work with so Marv knew he just didn't have a chance to land certain kids when recruiting, so he didn't even bother recruiting a number of players who were good enough to play at that level.

At any rate, they came out and did the clinic and that could have very easily just been the end of the story.  Not with Marv (or Chris).  A couple of our players had made an unexpected run to the Final Four their freshman year at Loyola so some of the coaches were going out to UCLA, where it was being hosted.  Marv got wind of this and called our club director, who worked in sales at Burghardt Sporting Goods, and he called Burghardt's front desk where some high school kid working the register answered and called back to her saying, "There's a Marv Dunphy on the phone for you?"  She of course said go ahead and transfer that, and he invited us to visit them at Pepperdine on the Friday between the Semifinals and Finals.  We spent a couple hours in his office with him and the assistants and were planning to get lunch with them, but there were wildfires going on and he finally gave in to his daughter giving him updates on their home when the retired Malibu fire chief called and told him he needed to get back to his house.

Years later when they named the court after him, his daughter, who I've stayed in touch with, said Marv wanted to know my address.  A week or so later I had a package from him with a hat they were giving out at the match and a hand written note about gratitude and how I have been a part of his journey and he is grateful for our relationship.  Just a great guy with some amazing stories.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjxB2WFRGi0&list=PLcce6zgwXGMIUFBfbvMru3bKu2SiGSYTK