The Coaches Group Chat
Grab a drink and a seat at the table with hosts Matt Houlihan, Arielle Houlihan and Chad Gordon as we chat about the world of volleyball, coaching, business, and whatever else Arielle feels like!
The Coaches Group Chat
S2E3: SoCal Cup Roundup, AVCA Rankings, and NCAA Champ Picks
In this episode, we explore:
• SoCal Cup roundup
• Game results and reflections on tournament performances
• Insights into coaching strategies and player growth
• Discussion on AVCA rankings and predictions for upcoming matches
• Anecdotes from tournament chaos and life in volleyball
• National Champion predictions
Someone was asking how's life going and I was like, well, I'm coaching, we're doing this AI business in volleyball. All volleyball we have a podcast that I drive down to Morgan Hill for once a week. It's about volleyball.
Arielle Houlihan:To talk about mostly volleyball.
Chad Gordon:My girlfriend also coaches volleyball and then some afternoons I go play some beach volleyball.
Matt Houlihan:Can I eat volleyball for dinner, bob, can I eat volleyball for dinner?
Chad Gordon:Bob.
Arielle Houlihan:Welcome back to the coaches group chat. We all have lost our voices.
Chad Gordon:I'm doing okay.
Arielle Houlihan:Oh yeah, but your better half is. She took one for the team Bobby is home, not able to speak right now. I'm getting closer as we speak. I'm feeling it for sure. This is the first tournament that I didn't double duty like AM wave, PM wave, but still my but it was my voice is a struggle. Pm. Wave is a killer.
Arielle Houlihan:Yeah, pm wave stinks, it's the worst PM wave to PM wave and then, like, we were there till like eight or 9 o'clock in the gym and then you have an 8 am match. Yeah, it's a crazy turnaround.
Matt Houlihan:Yeah, it's not. It's not ideal Usually. That's why most of the open divisions are in the am.
Arielle Houlihan:Chad's. Like I've been in pm every single weekend Just keeping my mouth shut. This is his first time that he wasn't. He wasn't. P's a beautiful thing 15 open. We were in pm every single tournament yeah, we, we've been am the whole time. This is our first time, so, and I hated it should we hop into our docket?
Matt Houlihan:we have many things to discuss. Chad's on a tight schedule here. He's got to be up for polish, polish happy hour and four hours is that hour?
Chad Gordon:That's not how time works 8 am. You never know.
Arielle Houlihan:Polish happy hour Is that 8 am.
Chad Gordon:Polish happy hours. It's not a lifestyle.
Matt Houlihan:Let's hop into a little SoCal Cup action. Let's talk about some finishes. You want to start us off? You had the best finish so you can. I guess you can go first. You want to start at the?
Chad Gordon:top.
Arielle Houlihan:I first. You want to start at the top of the bottom? Hey, easy, uh, yeah, we got third it. I mean, I don't know, for us it doesn't feel great, but we, uh, we were close. We played balboa in the semis. We had a great match against sports performance in the uh quarters.
Matt Houlihan:Um, or, we played great I saw that you guys look. You guys looked sharp in that one.
Arielle Houlihan:Yeah, we looked sharp in that game. We were battling with our own selves the entire weekend. I think it was. We missed 52 serves on day one. It was a nice little. We just started trying to figure out exactly what we're doing, Hoping that the aggression on the serve is paying off by the end. But really we got beat on the serve at the end.
Matt Houlihan:Yeah, Um you got beat by your opponent's serve yeah.
Arielle Houlihan:Like they.
Arielle Houlihan:They were cracking serves at us and they were aggressive in and yeah, and so, um, we're trying to get to that point, I think, and we weren't there yet and we were still close to them, I think. Our just numbers wise, we weren't even. We were not there at all. So, like, I'm actually glad that we were that close and didn't play really close to our potential, but had some really good moments with my team this weekend. So I'm I'm actually pretty satisfied with where we are at at this point in the year, um, and very excited about the summer with this group.
Matt Houlihan:So, yeah, 18s group going into high school season, last high school round. The loyal listeners are gonna remember this well. But last time, one year ago to this day, to that event, uh, the 15s I was coaching last year, we finished ninth loss in the first round of gold. It was one of those matches where, like, the chain was just like wasn't fully off the bicycle, but it was. It was like kind of off, yeah, and you're trying to get it going and just keeps on.
Arielle Houlihan:That's not clicking. We felt that last tournament.
Matt Houlihan:That was a. That was a little bit of the 15s again this weekend in the struggle. So, kyle Chamberlain my, it's been my sister the past two seasons. We see this, the court we get scheduled on for the final day of play for soaking up. It's the same exact court. Oh, and we were like bad omen. Bad omen right here redemption arc. Uh, yeah, a little bit of redemption we did. We won the playing game so we didn't finish ninth, but we did end up losing. Uh to 630 15s. Uh, we just yeah, they just beat us.
Matt Houlihan:We did not play our best game and we certainly had a little bit of the uh, the chain off the bicycle syndrome yeah um, but yeah, like, uh, like we talked about last year very similar to this year as well was a lot of really cool progress. This is a team. I asked them all at the end of like where, literally where were you last year? This time, our 14 ones guys were. They lost in the finals of the bronze division.
Matt Houlihan:Last year at this event, three of my guys were playing in the ncva girls power league kickoff tournament at san jose, this is an improvement yeah, all right hi one of them was playing in a girls tournament in washington, that's wild, definitely redemption and one of them wasn't playing volleyball at all.
Arielle Houlihan:Yeah.
Matt Houlihan:And so it was like a a yeah, a huge variety of where these kids have been at and what they were doing now.
Arielle Houlihan:Um, it's so funny how that conversation keeps going at each level of like. I had the same conversation with Rafa of like we're devastated after these losses because it hurts so bad. And then you're like, okay, let's talk about where you're at a year and a half ago. Like you're like the, the, the climb in this like trajectory of these kids. It happens so quickly when they get to a next level and the next level and then it almost hurts worse at the next level and it keeps becoming like something that they're reaching for and it's just like a cool. It's cool that we all are kind of having those conversations of like where were you at?
Matt Houlihan:yeah, Jackson's ready.
Arielle Houlihan:He's telling Chad it's your turn and emotional support animal with you when we talk about come on down how we doing.
Chad Gordon:Okay, I need you to lay down. That'd be great. All right, I'm moving the feet, yeah no okay impose your will full butt slam, all right we thought this was chad cam. This is actually jackson's camera I can't wait to cut to this where he's just like I don't care what you need right now. Hello, welcome, yeah, 17s. Uh, good, tournament won the silver division for us. Um, it's not too bad right now. Played a really strong match against 949 in our day two pool that yeah, we were up.
Chad Gordon:We were up really big in the first, like a lot of people there for that yeah, no, we were playing good ball, um, you know, we had played our, our premier team, our twos team, right before um, and got a good win against them, because that's a really talented team. And then, yeah, I mean, we're just, things were kind of going our way against nine, four, nine, and then all of a sudden kind of death by a thousand cuts. Yeah, um, they chipped, they started chipping, yeah, yeah, and you know, end up on the new on the podiums. So, no, it was, it was good. I mean, we finished out the tournament. Two wins, two, three setters. So, parents, you got your money's worth.
Chad Gordon:And you know, I thought the best thing for us was, like the last point, to win the third. You know, whatever, 1512 against a breaking was, you know, setter digs, great communication, like slower steps in such this great high ball and Miguel, like rips high, high, flat off the hands, it goes over the middle backside and we're like the exact shit we've been like trying to work on. Yeah, I'm like guy digs, great communication, here's this ball, here's how you hit this thing, like for that to like be that last point, it was like oh okay, better we're getting better you know, and of course for our guys it's just, and you know, for for alex and I too, right it's just.
Chad Gordon:It's frustrating because you see the success of everybody else in the club and you know those guys want part of that too yeah yeah so, but it was a. It was a great step, for sure, yeah so in due time, boys, in due time.
Matt Houlihan:That's how it goes, that's good. I mean soca cup on the on the hole, obviously a lot of like. There's some tension coming into the event with all of the wildfires and things going on around. There were a few teams that dropped across the event. None of our teams dropped. We had a few families that did opt out Not a ton.
Arielle Houlihan:I think that a lot of the teams that did drop were all some teams from out flying in.
Matt Houlihan:There's definitely more to lose for them if something did go wrong.
Arielle Houlihan:So it was kind of more of a situation there, um, but overall packed convention center, nothing. There was nothing about downtown that I felt was much different than normal.
Matt Houlihan:No, yeah, it was its own normal, crazy los angeles so let's talk about los angeles man, oh man, yes, let's get in Los Angeles. Man, oh man, yes, let's get in that. But real quick. Let me give you one thing here on just this general event. We've been there. Now what four or five?
Arielle Houlihan:times, yeah, it's been about four or five times, yeah, last couple years.
Chad Gordon:Five times yeah.
Matt Houlihan:I love me some Anaheim Convention Center, like probably my favorite place of all time.
Arielle Houlihan:It's just nostalgic. You've played there.
Matt Houlihan:The size the hotels all the stuff that's around. It's also just very family friendly Disneyland.
Arielle Houlihan:You got Disneyland right there.
Matt Houlihan:Even Vegas, vegas, at least hotels. You know you're going to have a ton of hotels.
Arielle Houlihan:People feel split on Vegas, though I get that yes.
Matt Houlihan:Everyone's flying in, but it's honestly, it's a little. It's cheaper than people feel split on vegas in general of like bringing youth sporting events into vegas like yeah, yeah, whatever well, downtown la was the worst city it was wild, not not because of wildfires, not because it was just wild, because it was like. It was like an apocalyptic place for three days.
Arielle Houlihan:It's like somebody took a bunch of things in Sims and just dropped them all on the same place. It's like I'm going to add 57 billboards on one building and it's going to be extra, extra, extra large and there's going to be a little bit of space and we're going to forget that we have to clean it. Extra, extra, extra large and there's gonna be a little bit of space and it's just gonna like, and we're gonna forget that we have to clean it. Yeah.
Chad Gordon:I know I guess some homeless lady was outside the hotel like was banging on one of the doors with the hammer security kind of shoes. Her away goes around to the other side because, like like, the AC and the mox are kind of like two things ends up coming back to the middle and, just like again from our producer bobby, just smashes this hammer into like I don't know, it's a 20 foot piece of like glass, glass like so you know, people are like walking out of the hotel in the morning it's all like taped up and whatever.
Chad Gordon:Like what happened here points to those guys. It was up and fixed by the end of the day, but they got a good glass guy down the home. The homeless hammer was coming in hot at like midnight or something like that.
Matt Houlihan:The homeless hammer was crazy. We're walking out, I mean it's also. Did you get this on film when we were walking out? Yes, I was filming a video. I screamed. I was filming a video of the hot dog cart vendors, of that's a dog.
Arielle Houlihan:Hot dog hot dog, hot dog, hot dog.
Matt Houlihan:Just getting berated for for hot dogs Also, the smells of that make me want to vomit. Every single time the 7.15 am bacon hot dog and there's always someone buying one.
Chad Gordon:That's what's crazy. The smells of that make me want to buy one. What are you talking?
Arielle Houlihan:about?
Chad Gordon:No, not me I don't know which camera I need to look at, but they're wrong, I haven't purchased one yet, but I'm overdue. You're overdue for for food poisoning? Yeah, but was a hot dog for halloween, as we'll all remember I love a hot dog.
Arielle Houlihan:I just something about the smells of that at seven in the morning when we've been drinking till three in the morning you gotta want it not for me. Up your commitment, it was, it's hilarious.
Matt Houlihan:I think it's very funny, so I was filming a video of it. When we're walking out on day three and as I'm filming that video of everyone yelling hot dog, hot dog, hot dog at us and literal explosion goes off right outside the convention center, I look over the sky and there's just stuff like plume of smoke there's a plume of smoke and there's these like bags just drifting through the air and we look over and there's this whole like group of adults on bikes.
Arielle Houlihan:They just start like adults is a strong word yeah, but they word.
Matt Houlihan:It wasn't like 12-year-olds.
Chad Gordon:It was like.
Matt Houlihan:They're 20-year-olds-ish and they all just start scattering.
Arielle Houlihan:Everyone's going. Don't be suspicious. Don't be suspicious.
Matt Houlihan:You look over, there's a concrete trash can that has been blown up. There was a literal explosive device inside of this trash can. They blew up.
Arielle Houlihan:It must have been a firework or something.
Matt Houlihan:And it was the loudest bang of all time. It was just a spectacle.
Arielle Houlihan:If that would have happened somewhere else, it would have been potentially national news.
Matt Houlihan:DC yeah, like Washington DC yeah 100%, if that would have happened.
Chad Gordon:That was business as usual down there. We had to break the news on our podcast, like that's how normal that is down there.
Arielle Houlihan:It was actually like if that would have happened and there was like a major event going on like uh the grammys, the emmys, all that stuff set the peacock theater right there. That would have been right there I really do think that that's like national news, when something like it could have killed somebody. Yeah, for sure, 100% could have killed somebody.
Matt Houlihan:The massive concrete trash can was crumbled Like that thing was put to abyss.
Arielle Houlihan:So all these stories short, this place is not a tourism place anymore.
Matt Houlihan:It's definitely not my top choice, is it? In your bottom choice oh yeah, I would, I would take me to anaheim san diego las vegas in the country to be fair, I would rather fly to la than connect pretty much anywhere. Okay, that's okay that I do. I do understand, okay okay, I do.
Arielle Houlihan:I do agree with that, because the indiana thing was like ridiculous about how long it took.
Matt Houlihan:Yeah, yeah, it just takes forever yeah.
Chad Gordon:I agree with that.
Arielle Houlihan:I'll deal with it, but like there, we have got to get out of.
Matt Houlihan:LA. They're not. They're not going anywhere out of LA. We didn't even finish the last of the stories. The last night, the go-kart roundup was.
Chad Gordon:Oh my gosh, the go-kart roundup. Yeah, We've been there a few times, right. And so we have these guys that are on like regular, like bikes not bikes, but like motorcycles, right and it's like a group of maybe like 50 or 80 of them and they'll just take over the street and they'll be going blowing past red lights whatever they're loud, but it's kind of fun and like they're hitting wheelies. That's cool. I'm used to that. We've done this before this time.
Chad Gordon:Little solo like Mario cart kind of size go-kart like little go-kart things, yeah, like you're like flat on the ground and there are these guys is doing these burnouts, I don't know 50 or 80 people kind of in that. In that mix the cops come on in. They try to kind of box them in their go-karts. They're faster than the little Ford escapes and so they're trying to round them up. They're like fleeing out the backside. They're going like under the little metal things Like cause the arm doesn't need to go up if you're in a go-kart.
Arielle Houlihan:It's like Mad Max meets Mario Kart.
Chad Gordon:Basically, yeah, and you know now. They're like blocking traffic on a pretty busy street, like the cops are trying little go-karts, flipping them off and then going the other way because they're just maneuverable. Yeah, it was what was the Joker? It was like the PG-13. I thought it was the R-rated version of Mario.
Matt Houlihan:Kart.
Chad Gordon:It's like Grand Theft Auto meets Mario Kart. Basically, they had balloons on the back. Honestly they should have. That would have made way more sense, but missed opportunity.
Matt Houlihan:They were throwing street hot dogs rather than the manas.
Chad Gordon:And to your point, this is just whatever 1 pm on a Monday.
Arielle Houlihan:This was yesterday.
Matt Houlihan:Oh my gosh, what a time.
Arielle Houlihan:I get how hard the convention center stuff is, but man LA is maybe my least favorite. The hotels are not.
Matt Houlihan:It just logistically speaking the convention center is at its capacity for this event. For what boys volleyball is?
Arielle Houlihan:How many courts?
Matt Houlihan:They've got to be like near 90-ish courts in there.
Arielle Houlihan:Maybe 80-something.
Matt Houlihan:Yeah, I mean when you get banished to the West Hall like the 15th.
Arielle Houlihan:Sid, that's a tough time over there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we. You get banished to the West hall like the 15th that's over there.
Chad Gordon:That's a tough that's a tough time over there. We two were banished. Yes, yeah, I got hit by more stray volleyball. I was in that place. I don't know if the level's just low over there but, like Jones. Jones got hit in the face.
Matt Houlihan:I got hit in the West Hall, that's all I'm saying, but the real part of it is the hotel situation. Hotels are very tough in LA. There's nothing that's attached, there's small ones that are close, in walking distance. No one will work with you. No one wants to give you a block bigger than like 20 rooms. Logistically for clubs it's difficult. I would love to get back to a place where you're at and I have, because Anaheim is one of the largest convention centers, so you can scale up and do it. Hotels are obviously abundant and close and everywhere.
Matt Houlihan:And it's just way more family friendly. But yeah, that's. That's the other reason why I said about Vegas is like Vegas is less family friendly, but at least everyone's like you're attached.
Arielle Houlihan:Yeah, I'd way rather go to Vegas. You have a choice of where to stay. You have a choice of, like, what you want to do. It's.
Matt Houlihan:Yeah.
Arielle Houlihan:The casinos are good. The casinos.
Matt Houlihan:But theoretically, yes, there's a lot more ways you can get in trouble in Vegas if you are inclined to that Sure, to that lifestyle.
Chad Gordon:You can probably get in trouble in downtown los angeles.
Matt Houlihan:You may have missed the bomb that went off. Yeah, I would rather. I would rather my kids walk from the mandalay bay to the convention center than my kids walk from I would the jw marriott to there's more security in these casinos?
Matt Houlihan:yeah, there's no, yeah let's get into the meat potatoes of what we do. New ABCA rankings, let's go. Ucla lost badly, by the way, to Ohio State. It was an ugly loss, and so we have a new number one. According to the ABCA, our new number one and favorite for the national championship is Long Beach State.
Arielle Houlihan:How many people voted for Long Beach?
Matt Houlihan:I think there's 23 votes and Long Beach State got 22 of people voted for Long Beach. I think there's 23 votes and Long Beach State got 22 of them. Who?
Arielle Houlihan:got one.
Matt Houlihan:There's one rogue vote out there, we'll get to it. We'll get to it. Long Beach State number one. Irvine number two. Ucla drops back to number three. Hawaii hangs at number four. Still Number five is BYU, who is the lone other number one ranked team. They got one singular vote for first place. We can put on our tin hats and make a conspiracy theory on who we think that is so.
Arielle Houlihan:BYU got the one vote.
Matt Houlihan:BYU is the other team that received a vote for number one. This is a ranking by the coaches on the they get to kind of cast their vote for one through 20, and then they tally up those numbers and that's how they kind of certify the rankings. So when you get a number one vote, they put that in there.
Arielle Houlihan:I'm just explaining, for all the people that need to know Somebody voted for BYU, was it you?
Chad Gordon:It was Keone for sure.
Arielle Houlihan:I think that it was. I mean, it's got to be BYU, right.
Matt Houlihan:Vote for yourself. Yeah, I wonder what that? What's that they used to publish the results?
Arielle Houlihan:Give me some transparency. We don't like any non-transparency.
Matt Houlihan:That way we could call out the people who are just doing a bad job voting.
Chad Gordon:They're just not paying attention obviously this is copy and paste from last week.
Matt Houlihan:Yeah, last week and then like oh, if they saw that you said I lost they adjusted.
Chad Gordon:Do you think Nipe is someone who wouldn't vote for his own team at one?
Matt Houlihan:That was one of the things I was thinking. Maybe Knipe voted for BYU as a joke, no, just to give his team something else. You're not unanimous.
Arielle Houlihan:Oh, I love that.
Matt Houlihan:You're not a unanimous number one.
Arielle Houlihan:No, I voted for us.
Matt Houlihan:Also, aren't they playing BYU? No, it's not this week or next week.
Arielle Houlihan:I was like that's a funny one.
Matt Houlihan:That would have been funny. They play Ir not this week or next week.
Arielle Houlihan:Oh, I was like that's a funny one. That would have been funny. No, they play, they play.
Matt Houlihan:Irvine this week. No, byu does Long Beach plays.
Arielle Houlihan:Long Beach plays.
Matt Houlihan:Pepperdine.
Arielle Houlihan:Pepperdine correct.
Matt Houlihan:God, I'm an almanac of.
Arielle Houlihan:No, you just studied right before this.
Chad Gordon:Or you might be confidently wrong.
Arielle Houlihan:We're not actually sure actually sure we're not fact-checking this at all. That's true, I'm not fact-checking it.
Matt Houlihan:You're wrong, I'm right, nice try, that's not bad. What do we think? What do we think about these rankings? Any adjustments? I think Stanford bumped up to nine after beating Penn State, ohio State, loyola's, the ten, no, the eight, that I'm not confident on, but I know that ball state stayed, uh, stayed above Stanford, so they lost to BYU.
Arielle Houlihan:They lost to BYU and they stayed.
Matt Houlihan:Yeah, they're happy he was ahead of them.
Arielle Houlihan:So he was number one according to according to maybe, maybe, ball state voted for them as number one.
Matt Houlihan:Classic Donan.
Chad Gordon:Donan could have.
Matt Houlihan:Donan could have been like we lost to the number one team.
Chad Gordon:Yeah, game theory, yeah, I don't know. I mean I watched. The only UCLA I've watched was really that like I watched half of the Ohio State one.
Matt Houlihan:That was the bad game to watch.
Chad Gordon:That was, but I think a pretty telling game to watch. I mean, I don't know, they didn't play that great at the beginning of last year too. They're I mean, they have some stuff they got to figure out like without champlin, like they're, yeah, passing the rock very well. That's the biggest thing I saw like like rowan is still playing really fast. Like you know, david like hit a lot of balls out of bounds. That was pretty interesting.
Matt Houlihan:Um, like both lefts did some like really impressive stuff and then like just yeah, soft block, soft block yeah, they had a couple defensive plays where they like just fumbled the ball like they had absolute golden opportunities and whiffed it. But yeah, I think the biggest thing I agree was there just doesn't look like they have a glue guy, like champlin was 100.
Matt Houlihan:Their glue guy last year made the team go even when they struggled, yeah, they were always in it and they always looked yeah, together, they looked put together. Even when they weren't like, the chain wasn't fully on the bike, they still looked like they could could beat anyone yeah yeah, I wonder, I wonder who.
Chad Gordon:Who's the leader on that team right now? Yeah, who steps into philadelphia?
Matt Houlihan:is it? Is it cooper robertson? Is it rowan? Is it? I don't know? I don't know who fills that role and you know that I'm sure will become more clear, but that was, and you know that's sports. Someone's gonna have to fill into that to be a top team. Yeah, but it was clear and it was a testament, I think, to champlin of how important he was for that squad Alex Knight too.
Chad Gordon:Yeah, yeah, let's not discount Knight also.
Matt Houlihan:Two guys. That Knight didn't play as big of an all-around role but when he was plugged in, as was shown by his most outstanding player, of the tournament. Yeah, he was super stable.
Arielle Houlihan:That should be an award given most outstanding stability.
Chad Gordon:Most stable, most outstanding stability.
Matt Houlihan:Most stable.
Arielle Houlihan:Stable stability.
Matt Houlihan:We got some big matchups this week, though, that I'm very much looking forward to.
Arielle Houlihan:I'm trying to go to a Long Beach game. I think that Long Beach is just so exciting.
Matt Houlihan:I definitely want to go to a Long Beach game, no doubt. I wonder when we go down there for the Equinox tournament. I wonder if that's the same.
Arielle Houlihan:You should look at that. You want to go to a Long Beach game, no doubt. I wonder when we go down there for the Equinox tournament.
Matt Houlihan:Oh yeah, I wonder if that's the same. You should look at that. You want to do a slab shot again?
Chad Gordon:No, I'll be in Poland.
Matt Houlihan:Okay, fair enough yeah.
Arielle Houlihan:We can go?
Chad Gordon:Yes, we can, or you guys can come to Poland.
Arielle Houlihan:Nah, I'd also like to do that go to that Equinox tournament.
Chad Gordon:I can take a hint.
Matt Houlihan:The matchup of the week for me is none other than the UC Irvine Anteaters playing the BYU Storm and Mormons. It's at Irvine and I think it's going to be a show BYU's kind of running the gauntlet the next two weeks. They got Irvine and then Charlie Wade and the Rainbow Warriors are coming to town to play BYU at.
Matt Houlihan:BYU in two weeks, which you know. Your boy Keone's head circled on the calendar for the moment. He entered the transfer portal and decided on BYU. So some big, big time matchups for them. And then the other matchup, and I'll let you guys layer on your thoughts. Here we got USC number six gonna have their first real test. Take it on my boys c sun at number 15 at the matadome for the first one. Oh they're getting smoked?
Chad Gordon:you think so, s he's getting smoked, you think s he's gonna smoke is happening I'm I'm not gonna lie.
Matt Houlihan:It's hard. It's hard to root against CSUN at the Matadome. For me, I think that is a but. This is the test, right, like is USC legit or can they handle?
Arielle Houlihan:a team with that much firepower. I don't know if this says if USC is legit or not.
Chad Gordon:Yes, this is the only match that will matter this will determine everything I don't think that this is the.
Arielle Houlihan:This is definitely a. If they don't win, they. This is the. This is definitely a. If they don't win, they're not but like if they win.
Chad Gordon:Oh, not conclusive.
Arielle Houlihan:Yeah, not conclusive.
Matt Houlihan:No for sure. But I would say USC for the past couple of years has been Underwhelming. They've been up and down Like they can beat Sure.
Arielle Houlihan:They beat Irvine last year Totally.
Matt Houlihan:But they you, but they take your pick of who they lose to. They're just an up-and-down team. To be at number six, to be in that top grouping, they're going to need to be at a really high consistent level, even if they lose to a CSUN at home. I think CSUN's under-seeded. If they go toe-to-toe with CSUN at the Matadome and then get a win at home, okay, that's a legitimate team for sure. But CSUN's going to be a major test because they're veterans, they game, they will talk a bunch of shit and they will back it up, so will SC.
Matt Houlihan:Exactly. But will they back it up is still the TBD question mark, because they can do it, but they can also flounder in it as well. So it's a good test. I think that'll be a really good early season matchup for two programs that I think could make some waves this year. Usc, to kind of meet the expectations and for CSUN to showcase were the real deal and I think they are a like we kind of talked about. One of the first episodes was just that of the juggernaut slayers. I think csun's one of them, because they can get hot enough, they can play at a level uh, just emotionally, that will take them really far. But it's kind of like driving your car on nos right, like to quote dan or asai. You can, you can definitely hit the nos and and hit that turbo speed, but if you run on NOS the entire time, your car's going to fall apart. That's what kind of CSUN has reminded me of as well. I'm interested to see what they can bring out of this.
Arielle Houlihan:We get it. You love CSUN. Yeah, this is clear.
Matt Houlihan:This is clear. We saw my boy, neil, this weekend too. Neil Finnegan shout out that's my guy. You guys have any thoughts on those top matchups? Anything that you're looking forward to seeing in these?
Chad Gordon:I like the Irvine matchup. I think that'll be a good just another good indicator, right of like hey, these guys were serious last year, they're serious again this year, and then we'll see how that weekend goes.
Arielle Houlihan:I'm interested to see if Pepperdine can do anything against Long Beach.
Matt Houlihan:Yeah.
Arielle Houlihan:I think Pepperdine is an interesting one that hasn't been showcased at all. I don't think that they're at elite level.
Matt Houlihan:Not juggernauts.
Arielle Houlihan:But I don't know if they can get one off somebody. I need to see more Pepperdine. I'm interested to see if it's just a 3-0 clap or if it's actually something. Yeah.
Matt Houlihan:What's the level of resistance? What can they do? Also I mean for Long Beach too. Yes, they obviously have some very juggernaut tendencies's they've got some yeah I want to see what they're. They took lewis, took a game off of them at at lewis. What does? What does their consistency look like? Are they, are they? I don't think any team is unbeatable at any point. Like nikilov obviously is a beast from watching that Lewis game against Long Beach State. He kind of willed them to the finish line.
Arielle Houlihan:Yeah.
Matt Houlihan:But I think there's someone out there that's going to take him down this year and it's, it's. Let's not be surprised when it does happen.
Chad Gordon:I think it's also an interesting one because you know, teams kind of fall in these different categories. Right, you have like a Stanford who's very young, right, and these guys are like hey, we're putting our stamp out here and like let's go you know, show these guys what we can do and, you know, get some nice wins over.
Chad Gordon:It seems like ohio state. You have some squads that are maybe more like irvine, where it's actually a lot of the same characters from last year, right, and they keep a lot of their pins and all that. So it's. You knew that they were good and could they get over the hump last year. Okay, no, they push again, you know, in year two. And then you have some uclas, some byus, some. I guess long beach is probably a pretty good example of they. Obviously they retain a lot of talent, but even long beach right, like they've lost a lot of really good players too, yeah. And so, yeah, you may have a talented setter, but like these guys are also still finding their footing against really strong teams and you know.
Chad Gordon:So. Like the same way we see or saw UCLA kind of flounder this past weekend, it's really like can these guys, can these staffs, find their footing and get the ship going in a good direction with what is, admittedly, a lot of changes?
Matt Houlihan:Yeah, 100%, we'll see. I think USC falls in that kind of category as well. You've got those groups that you're melding a lot of new pieces together, or melding different pieces together, and you're trying to find all that balance as you're working through the course of a season. That's where the Penn States of the world have a great advantage. You just got to get through your tournament, but for the Big West and the MPSF it is very much a. You got to perform right now. You got to win these out of conference matches because you can't risk losing the tournament at the end of the year and not getting that at large.
Matt Houlihan:There's just not enough. There's not enough leash for you to uh, to flounder and that's why we bet the house on the matadors yes, I'm on the train bring it all. I'm telling you, we need to make a trip. We got to make a trip to the matadome we were not that far away you could yesterday yes, but I had a job to do yesterday I want a full like you want the full, full experience I want to go and I want alex jones to take me to yeah, to the local watering hole with Faulkner.
Chad Gordon:Yeah, what am I talking about? Obviously, I need Faulkner there 100%.
Matt Houlihan:I want to sit in the stands. Kyle Stevenson.
Chad Gordon:You're invited.
Matt Houlihan:I would like Kyle to come. Who else could we name Travis Magorian? There you go. Can I get some other? What other CSUN legends can we pull out of the woodwork here that really tall Polish middle blocker that had a wicked float serve. Whatever his name was, I want that guy too, yeah.
Arielle Houlihan:They had some big dudes. Other national championships this week yeah, UDIA national championships happened.
Chad Gordon:I'm sorry. What is that that's?
Matt Houlihan:a fake name.
Arielle Houlihan:Guys. College football national championship happened, if you know anything about the most important sporting event that happened this weekend. It was not the college football national championship. You know anything about the most important sporting event that happened this weekend? It was not the college football national championships, it was the dance national championships in Orlando.
Matt Houlihan:And just like we go to Orlando, is this the one where they jump in the ocean? No, that's a different one.
Arielle Houlihan:That's the, the Juco. Actually, I don't know. Are there beaches? There's not beaches in.
Matt Houlihan:Orlando? No, not historically the Juco one, actually, I don't know. There's not beaches in Orlando.
Arielle Houlihan:No.
Chad Gordon:Not historically. There are alligators, though. Look out, there are swamps everywhere.
Arielle Houlihan:What beach do they go to? I feel like they go to Orlando, palm Beach or something it's Wide World of Sports, and then they run into the ocean after. But what ocean Is it like a fake ocean.
Chad Gordon:Call in if you know.
Arielle Houlihan:Wait, I'm super confused about that. I'm going to look that up after this Well dance. National championships happened and UNLV won hip-hop and Ohio State won jazz. And the Ohio State jazz one was amazing. I know nobody gives an actual flying F about any of this, but I do.
Matt Houlihan:No, I'm intrigued. Is there NIL for college dance? Yeah, are they paying for top talent?
Arielle Houlihan:100%.
Matt Houlihan:You said that very confidently.
Arielle Houlihan:How much is the top? These girls are more influencer than anybody in volleyball 100%. Great Now my whole for you page right now is all dance right now and that's actually exactly where I. My whole for you page right now is all dance right now and that's actually exactly where I want my for you page to be. I don't want it to change at all that's funny.
Matt Houlihan:My whole for you page is alligators and orcas.
Arielle Houlihan:So, the usual, I can't stop watching alligators and orcas which makes sense, because Florida watching alligators and orcas, which makes sense because florida same thing I think of for you page like what's actually going on inside people's brains and so like. In my brain is like national championship dance competitions. In your brain is just alligators and orcas yeah, throwing some like bodybuilding I don't have tiktok okay, but like what's in your brain of like what do you get fed instagram? Instagram reels oh it's.
Chad Gordon:I mean it's like Nakoba and Nakoba adjacent stuff.
Arielle Houlihan:So you're just volleyball.
Chad Gordon:Yeah, it's a lot. Someone was asking like, hey, how's life going? And I was like, well, I'm coaching, we're doing this AI business in volleyball, all volleyball we have a podcast that I drive down to Morgan Hill for once a week.
Matt Houlihan:It's about volleyball, To talk about mostly volleyball. My girlfriend also coaches volleyball and then some afternoons I go play some beach volleyball. Can I eat volleyball for dinner?
Chad Gordon:DoorDash founder volleyball guy. Yeah, there you go.
Matt Houlihan:We can get you some volleyball-shaped dino nuggets. Honestly, yeah.
Arielle Houlihan:If you could be separated from volleyball, what would you like? Do you have any hobbies?
Chad Gordon:Honestly, I swear I used to and now I don't to, and now I don't know. Now I don't know.
Arielle Houlihan:I don't know because even like the analytic stuff and I was like, yeah, I'm gonna post some stuff yeah, well, now it's volleyball.
Chad Gordon:Yeah, because like quit the real job. That was, like you know, business, intelligence stuff yeah yeah, don't do that anymore, don't go to like those conferences which is fine we all need to pick up he's niching down over there, chad's just niching down.
Matt Houlihan:What if?
Arielle Houlihan:we all pick up one hobby this year, that is non-volleyball.
Matt Houlihan:I have one Orcas.
Chad Gordon:CSUN.
Matt Houlihan:I'm going to have the greatest compilation. End of your video of me plugging CSUN in like 70 episodes.
Chad Gordon:And us just cackling at it, they better not blow it. Do we pick a national champion? Oh, you guys want to do that now. We don't have to we could wait until later in the season.
Arielle Houlihan:Should we wait until after the national championship to pick our national?
Chad Gordon:champion. I feel confident that I could do that.
Matt Houlihan:Let's do an early season one, we'll do a mid-season form, we'll see where people are at. Okay.
Chad Gordon:So we are two weeks into the season.
Matt Houlihan:Yeah, we're coming up on week three here.
Chad Gordon:I'll go first. I think it's Niff, I think it's Irvine. I think, based on what I saw with UCLA a lot of unanswered questions have the roster to do it. It's a tough problem to solve. There's a lot of expectations. It's tough if you don't have a bunch of senior leadership or something like that. I think Irvine has the experience. I think they're overdue. I'm taking that. I like that.
Arielle Houlihan:I love that.
Matt Houlihan:They were my Big West champion pick. I'm going to go the opposite. I got Irvine winning the Big West tournament and I got Long Beach winning the national championship for the early season. Of what I've seen this far, I'll go with Long Beach but I do love the pick.
Chad Gordon:Where does CSUN finish for you?
Arielle Houlihan:Second.
Matt Houlihan:CSUN making the tournament, csun on the Big West. I think I had them, I think.
Chad Gordon:I put them third, so not making the.
Arielle Houlihan:Could make it Biggest snub. Yeah, he has CSUN as the biggest snub.
Matt Houlihan:I probably got CSUN as the first one out. Yeah, first one out, that's what I'd say. But can you get three Big West teams in there? I think it'd be tough.
Chad Gordon:It's a tough snub, it would be tough.
Matt Houlihan:CSUN would have to beat everybody. But if ucla has has a couple more bad losses and they end up winning the tournament or stanford or whatever, whoever usc, whatever it may be like, I could see a big west getting three. It's possible, because big west I don't know. Yeah, I, I agree it's probably tough, but yeah, I got, I got c sun as my three in the big west. I got them. I got them taking down Hawaii.
Chad Gordon:Ooh, interesting.
Matt Houlihan:Hawaii's got to go to the Matadome this year, yeah, so that's why I go there.
Arielle Houlihan:I'm going to pick. I want to pick something that you guys don't pick, but I'm going to pick Long Beach still, because.
Matt Houlihan:We can all do a dark horse pick too, Loyola. Stanford, yeah, homer pick, love that.