S2E12: Long Beach v. Hawaii, USC Injuries, Volleyball Tariffs

Arielle, Chad, and Matt dive into a lively discussion of recent collegiate men's volleyball action and debate the future of the game.

• Hawaii splits with Long Beach State
• USC battles significant injuries to key players, creating strategic challenges for upcoming matches
• Conference tournament predictions across MIVA, EIVA, Big West, and MPSF
• Data reveals NCAA men's volleyball is 16% international athletes
• Discussion of whether international roster limits would benefit American player development
• Proposal for rule changes to improve men's volleyball as a television product, including a service "foul out" rule
• Brief recap of LOVB Championship results, with Austin defeating Omaha in a sweep

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Transcript

Intro & Weekend Volleyball Recap

Matt Houlihan 0:00

My in is mustaches .

Arielle Houlihan 0:02

Ew . Okay , I was going to say ew . I was going to say ew to literally anything that came out of his hair .

Matt Houlihan 0:09

Was that eye contact a little ?

Arielle Houlihan 0:10

too intense for you . I'm uncomfortable Literally anything that he said there .

Matt Houlihan 0:15

Hold my eye contact .

Chad Gordon 0:31

There's going to be a blue dot on this house in like an hour .

Arielle Houlihan 0:33

I don't like that okay , try again . Take , lead us in nope welcome back to this week's episode of the coaches group chat . I'm ariel , along with my co-hosts chad and matt . Our producer , bobby , is here welcome back , bobby , our budget our budget was raised this week .

Matt Houlihan 1:00

Our budget was raised this week . Our budget was raised this week .

Arielle Houlihan 1:03

This week's episode is sponsored by the dentist's office and the veterinarian's office , and You're just naming all the places that we spent way too much money at this weekend . We've got a great docket for all of you today . Thank you to all of our loyal listeners .

Matt Houlihan 1:20

Anybody who's why do you sound like you're speaking over the store microphone , like you're like a ? You sound like you're speaking over the the store microphone , where you're like very calm and quiet like nice .

Arielle Houlihan 1:30

I've always wanted to do that staff representative . Please report to the poultry section yeah , I've always wanted to do that well , that's good for you .

Matt Houlihan 1:40

I'm gonna bring a little bit more energy to this couch right now , because we had a great weekend of volleyball . I tried to stay up late to watch all of the UH Long Beach matches . I got to the first two sets and then I conked .

Arielle Houlihan 1:57

I phoned it in first and then I was like can I go to bed ? Yeah , you went to bed first . I was laying down on the couch watching like this , and I woke up and missed at least 13 points . Yeah , you went to bed first . And then Matt was up . I was laying down on the couch watching like this .

Matt Houlihan 2:05

Maybe 10 minutes later , and I woke up and missed at least 13 points , I was like , yeah , it's time , it's time to call it . I'll watch tomorrow on Ballmatrix . So I tried , but we did stay up and we watched USC Stanford right before that . That went five . We had a nice weekend of volleyball , and so I think that's . I hear we talk about volleyball sometimes that's where we'll start .

Chad Gordon 2:23

I feel like we need to start there .

Matt Houlihan 2:24

So , Chad , give us your perspective , Since you were not asleep on the couch with us . What were your thoughts ?

Chad Gordon 2:29

I was not asleep on the couch . Yeah , I would have preferred this couch . This is a great couch . I've watched a lot of good volleyball and I've had a lot of good sleeps on this couch .

Arielle Houlihan 2:39

We're not telling you because the producers of this couch have not paid us enough money to tell you where it's from , but we will if they do .

Matt Houlihan 2:46

This couch is from dropdimesco .

Arielle Houlihan 2:49

Nice , we sell couches . Now Go to the website .

Matt Houlihan 2:51

No , it's actually sold out , but there's other great products you can check out .

Chad Gordon 2:54

They are not from China . Dimes 10 for a 10% off code .

Arielle Houlihan 2:57

We got tariffs on this couch now , so we're going to need a new supplier . We're going to need to just steal this out the window , we'll get back to Terrence later .

Chad Gordon 3:03

Funny , you say that Good segue To

Hawaii vs Long Beach Breakdown

Chad Gordon 3:10

Hawaii . Yeah , I mean , I think . What is it ? Matt Stradamus over here called the first night win by the beach and then the second night loss , the split on the weekend ? Yeah , I mean , Hawaii settled into their own . Obviously , Finn Kearney , coming into the starting lineup , played really really well for them both on the left and the right .

Chad Gordon 3:30

Um , I thought Troy Libero was very impressive against Long Beach's serving . I thought I mean he was just basically digging balls and like that's what you needed to do . Against some of that . He did not get enough credit . I would agree that he was huge , for sure . Yeah , that was some of the best volleyball I've seen him play , I think , this year . Um , and , yeah , it was , hawaii just brought it with their atmosphere and were able to recover pretty quickly and then took advantage of , I don't know , the tire , long beach or I don't know . I know there were rumors about nikolov like not feeling great or whatever , but like credit to hawaii , like sorry , but like they they wanted and why did you say sorry , like I hate hawaii I don't hate , you know so was that directed at you ?

Matt Houlihan 4:10

we need to talk to our fans about this . I was looking past ?

Chad Gordon 4:13

yeah , were you directing . That was the refrigerator . Why are you so threatened ?

Arielle Houlihan 4:16

right now , do you think ? Do you think that I'm not defensive like hawaii ?

Chad Gordon 4:20

that's like a state do , you do do . Yeah , it's beautiful . It's a great like , great like beaches and yeah .

Arielle Houlihan 4:27

Do you think I like Hawaii ?

Matt Houlihan 4:30

What are we talking about ? The team .

Arielle Houlihan 4:31

Yeah .

Matt Houlihan 4:32

Do I think you like Hawaii ?

Arielle Houlihan 4:34

Yeah .

Matt Houlihan 4:35

Yeah , I think you think they're good . I think you think other teams are better . Yeah , do I think you have a bias against Hawaii ? Is that what you're asking ?

Chad Gordon 4:41

Yeah , bias against Hawaii . Is that what you're asking ? Yeah , that's a real question , really .

Matt Houlihan 4:43

Yeah , 100% . You have a bias .

Chad Gordon 4:44

Really , of course I'm not aware of this bias . Alright , a classic bias bias , would you ?

Matt Houlihan 4:51

like us to let you see around the corners of your bias ? No .

Arielle Houlihan 4:57

I'm just talking to all the people that are hating on me in the comment section of me putting Hawaii at five . You put them at five I put them lower than everybody else you kept usc , who lost twice this weekend ahead of them was hurt and I think klein is really good and I think that yeah , so was duker , and so was blanchette . Like usc is hurt , yes , 100 way too hurt and I don't think they deserve to go down when they've been playing out of their minds lately yes , healthy usc is top three team hurt my rankings doesn't need

Arielle Houlihan 5:24

to make sense to everybody . They're my rankings for me .

Matt Houlihan 5:30

And that's why we say Exactly . Crazy idea . Are you ready Next time next year for the Traders Poll ? We'll remove all the names and we'll just submit them anonymously , so no one will know that's a good idea , because people have been being mean to us . Because people are holding us accountable for our votes .

Arielle Houlihan 5:51

Oh , that's a good idea .

Matt Houlihan 5:52

We should totally do that . We'll edit this part out , obviously .

Arielle Houlihan 5:57

We can't take the criticism from people .

Matt Houlihan 5:59

Exactly .

Arielle Houlihan 5:59

The criticism I've gotten today has been Missy , you can't talk to hawaii like that someone did .

Matt Houlihan 6:07

Someone did comment missy , which I was like who who in this world uses missy ever ?

Arielle Houlihan 6:14

anymore been called missy not lately have you ever been called missy ?

Matt Houlihan 6:17

what's the male version last ?

Arielle Houlihan 6:18

time you were called missy bobby .

Chad Gordon 6:20

It's been a minute hey , hey kid , hey sport , yeah yeah what's the boy versus that sport ?

Arielle Houlihan 6:27

yeah , maybe no , somebody calls you sport listen to your buckaroo . It's definitely buckaroo I got words buckaroo yeah , I don't know about that , oh man hey , you gotta you .

Matt Houlihan 6:39

You deserve to get a little bit of smack for that sure it drives the algorithm .

Arielle Houlihan 6:43

Thanks for the algorithm push you can , you can embrace , that embrace that I get the other bit of smack for that .

Matt Houlihan 6:45

Sure , it drives the algorithm . Thanks for the algorithm push .

Arielle Houlihan 6:46

You can embrace that Hold on .

Chad Gordon 6:47

I get the other side of it . They need to win a big match . Win away from your house , away from the stand .

Arielle Houlihan 6:54

Thank you .

Chad Gordon 6:54

They haven't played any big match . I mean , what have ?

Arielle Houlihan 6:59

they done CSUN , csun's a big match . They didn't do it .

Chad Gordon 7:02

They split with CSUN and what that's the eighth ranked team .

Arielle Houlihan 7:06

Great Good for you .

Chad Gordon 7:07

That's sick , but you want to be the number two team .

Arielle Houlihan 7:10

Listen , I don't even know . I'm just putting names in order , and Hawaii's is my five .

Matt Houlihan 7:18

You also removed Loyola Chicago completely .

Chad Gordon 7:22

They got rocked by Lewis . They did lose to Lewis .

Arielle Houlihan 7:26

So they lost to Lewis and they were my nine the week before , and so I was like yeah , you're out , you gotta go .

Matt Houlihan 7:30

You gotta go . Stanford's back , stanford's back . Actions have consequences , actions have consequences .

Arielle Houlihan 7:34

Exactly . See my rankings only need to make sense to me and make us laugh when we're sitting here .

USC Injuries & MPSF Tournament Strategy

Arielle Houlihan 7:40

That's it sold there you go .

Matt Houlihan 7:41

Great , then . A victory has been had it's been had the victory has been okay , I'm glad we've settled this all right ?

Arielle Houlihan 7:47

well , speaking of usc , there's should I put hawaii's one next week , just just just to be completely unhinged 11 , 11 .

Chad Gordon 7:54

Yeah , people are gonna troll you even more be saying that .

Arielle Houlihan 7:59

So maybe , yeah , maybe you should , I think uh , I'll put haw , put Hawaii at one if somebody pays me .

Chad Gordon 8:06

Money's . No object Money's the object .

Matt Houlihan 8:09

You want to put your Venmo username in there Did any of us have BYU .

Chad Gordon 8:13

Is BYU still in our thing at all ?

Matt Houlihan 8:16

Or is it just ?

Chad Gordon 8:16

in the other poll Hunt had BYU . He doesn't pay attention .

Matt Houlihan 8:20

Hunt does pay attention .

Arielle Houlihan 8:21

Hunt pays more attention than .

Matt Houlihan 8:23

Brad does .

Arielle Houlihan 8:30

Brad pays attention to the top three . He doesn't listen to this hunt or this . Oh , I don't know , brad . Brad uh went to the stanford usc game and then just made switches based off stanford was like oh , I like the way stanford played great put them in , yeah , yeah that's it .

Matt Houlihan 8:42

Yeah , no , I , I don't I , I think it was just those two . Did you have you in there ?

Chad Gordon 8:48

no , yeah they haven't beaten anybody since ball state like we stanford let's talk about ball state okay , not number five anymore . No , they're not .

Arielle Houlihan 8:58

They started at five okay , so who had them up high ? I remember I need to make my myself I had make myself one of those little Mastrodomus videos , because I'm pretty sure that I said there's no way in hell Ball State is going to stay here , you did , you did , yes , can you make me a video like that . I got shit to do .

Matt Houlihan 9:17

I'm yelling into microphones a lot . I got things to do .

Arielle Houlihan 9:20

Could you do something nice for me once ? Yes , I'm sorry Acts . Can you do something nice for me once ?

Chad Gordon 9:23

Yes , I'm sorry .

Arielle Houlihan 9:25

Acts of service .

Chad Gordon 9:26

Come on .

Arielle Houlihan 9:26

Yeah , I'm going to have an airdrop waiting for me you did yeah , coming up .

Matt Houlihan 9:30

we're going to do our recap to look at our preseason predictions to where we're at now coming up and we're going to go . We're going to get to that place , but first and foremost , can we talk thec ? Since we were there before , I'd like to just pull us back real quick so we can finish off the usc conversation . Usc injured yes , healthy . I think everyone would agree top three team . They've been having a hell of a season and now they are ramping up they're limping , they're limping their way in , they're limping .

Matt Houlihan 9:58

You've got duker has been out for two weeks , not sure of the extent of where his injury is at . Klein didn't play against Pepperdine night two . He tried to give it a go against Stanford , played all five sets but was kind of in and out , struggling a little bit . Played on the left , played on the right and then didn't play in night two . Blanchett's been nursing a back injury . He was in and out . So you've got a banged up starting group for them . They , they have UCLA this week , you got Crosstown rival , then you got MPSF tournament . Obviously they have a good record , but they're also at the point now where they might not have that at large locked up , where they might need to win the MPSF tournament . So if you're Nygaard and the USC staff , how are you game theory in this ? What are you stepping into ? Are you trying to run Klein and the A's ? If they're feeling good , let's just assume they're not at 100% . Chad , how would you play this ?

Arielle Houlihan 10:51

He doesn't want to hear my opinion .

Matt Houlihan 10:52

No , no , I know you're going to have a spicy take , so we'll get to you . I'll go with the mild .

Chad Gordon 10:56

I'll go with the mild salsa on this one .

Matt Houlihan 10:57

Yeah , salsa fresco over there .

Chad Gordon 10:59

Yeah , I think if it's an ankle or something like that where it's like , all right , I know , if I just get off of it for a few days it'll get me where I need to go and you know , hey , maybe we can get through the first round of MPSF by another day or two .

Arielle Houlihan 11:13

Okay , how long do they have ? Two weeks .

Matt Houlihan 11:16

I believe there might be a week in between . They might have three weeks . No , it's two weeks . No , it's two weeks , it's two weeks , yeah , yeah , because then you're right in the middle , two weeks is short .

Chad Gordon 11:27

Yeah , I think it's a pretty fast turnaround . I think they probably have to try and win these UCLA ones , because you put a lot on the line and you don't know if they're going to be healthy in the playoffs . But yeah , I don't know . I don't know exactly what the injuries are , so I don't know who's playing with what . Uh . So I think , if they're small-ish things , I think you push . I think if they're medium to large things , like if it's a knee and not an ankle or something , maybe you you play night one and like see how it goes so you're , you're thinking they need to try and they need to get a win against ucla .

Chad Gordon 11:59

For the at large , I think , oh yeah , to give themselves the best chance , let's say they , they , they're hurt and they drop both to UCLA , which is super possible because UCLA has like 40 guys who are all like blue chip kids . Okay , that's another two L's . Do you get it at large like that ? I don't know .

Matt Houlihan 12:18

You don't ?

Chad Gordon 12:19

Probably not , then you're going to lose to somebody in the playoffs . I don't know . I think you got to win the conference at that point .

Arielle Houlihan 12:26

I'm going to sleep today . I'm waking up ready for the MPSF , I'm forfeiting both games and I am getting ready to make a run .

Matt Houlihan 12:37

Rest everybody . You're not even going to let Jack Everton have a go at UCLA . No chance .

Arielle Houlihan 12:41

Jack needs to be ready for the MPSF .

Chad Gordon 12:43

He could get hurt getting off the bus . Yeah , we need everybody ready .

Arielle Houlihan 12:46

We need everybody ready to go ?

Chad Gordon 12:47

We're not going to even cross the town . We're going to sleep .

Arielle Houlihan 12:50

We're all locking in and we're getting ready to make a run .

Chad Gordon 12:55

Get in the fucking bubble .

Matt Houlihan 12:56

Yeah , it's the bubble . No one's going to come knocking for Ariel as the head coach of their collegiate men's volleyball program .

Arielle Houlihan 13:04

Thank God , I'm with you . You might as well phone it in . I'd rather make double .

Matt Houlihan 13:12

Shit shots fired . I'm with you , chad . I'm thinking you got to try and get one against UCLA .

Chad Gordon 13:22

I think if you split , that's still a good look , sure .

Matt Houlihan 13:25

I get that we have no knowledge of what the injuries are , what the extent is . Obviously you got to prioritize that , but if there is the ability for them to go , it's like a choice of like hey , we can go hard this week if they win both , do they get the at large ?

Matt Houlihan 13:39

I'm . I mean , there's no guarantees at all , obviously . But what do you think I think they for if they beat ucla twice ? There's no guarantees at all , obviously . What do you think If they beat UCLA twice ? There's a very good chance that they're still in that at-large consideration . Obviously , the two losses to Stanford don't help . But if you win , the other thing that that committee looks at is how you trend into the tournament .

Matt Houlihan 13:55

And that's the struggle , that's the sad part for USC right now it's so hard , they've been playing so well and they're just at the wrong time . Kids are getting knocked out .

Arielle Houlihan 14:05

Hey , hopefully , hopefully . These , like these kids , are a little bit banged up but they're able to like , recoup and get ready to go . Yeah , I mean .

Matt Houlihan 14:14

I want to see a full , a full strength , because if you played this match , they're the most interesting team to me . If you played that , that match three weeks ago , when usc is still like in prime form yeah , that's .

Arielle Houlihan 14:26

Ucla is in prime form .

Matt Houlihan 14:28

My goodness that would have been , or it could be .

Arielle Houlihan 14:30

It still could be if they're still going . Yes , but I gotta think pretty great .

Chad Gordon 14:36

That was pretty nonchalant .

Matt Houlihan 14:38

Yeah , he had . He had a couple , a couple of plays in that game that were like damn still very physical , but not anywhere near the you could see him limp in and I mean , it was also a five setter and like long game . He was . He was being taken in and out . He didn't have a kill through the first , like half of the second set , yeah .

Arielle Houlihan 15:00

It's not their normal game .

Chad Gordon 15:03

Hopefully .

Arielle Houlihan 15:04

USC is back , ready to go .

Matt Houlihan 15:06

Hopefully USC doesn't forfeit two games against UCLA and we can watch some good matchup . Play the one at home .

Arielle Houlihan 15:12

Don't get on the bus To anybody that's listening that doesn't realize that I'm kidding . You're an idiot . That's okay , Good for you All right .

Matt Houlihan 15:19

We've been making some predictions as of late . We like to do that sometimes . We're getting close to the conference tournament , speaking of that very coveted automatic birth into the NCAA tournament , so I'd like to take us around the horn again and , ara , you get to kick us off this time .

Arielle Houlihan 15:35

With what , predict what ?

Matt Houlihan 15:37

With our conference champions . We're going to start . We'll keep it right here in the MPSF . We'll keep it right here in the MPSF , because we were already talking about them .

Arielle Houlihan 15:45

So the EIVA , go ahead . Who you got , I don't care . The MIVA I'm going to go . Mckendry , yeah , coming out of nowhere just like figuring it

Conference Champion Predictions

Arielle Houlihan 16:00

out .

Chad Gordon 16:00

The long con with the double Ls . They're coming back , yes they're coming back .

Arielle Houlihan 16:07

I got McKendry A Tale as Old as Not A Tale as Old as Time . They've never done it before , wouldn't it be so cool , mckendry ?

Matt Houlihan 16:12

Oh yeah , I would love . I would love a McKendry .

Arielle Houlihan 16:15

Okay , big West , I got .

Matt Houlihan 16:22

I West , I got , I got Long Beach . Can we go one at a time ?

Arielle Houlihan 16:23

here . Oh , I thought you're Miva . Great , now we've got your McKendry .

Matt Houlihan 16:26

Thank you Chad your turn . Let's debate the conferences at a time .

Chad Gordon 16:30

My heart , needs to be some logic . My heart would love Nikki , my brain says Loyola because of Parker . Sure , that's one of the many name a McKendry player . Don't know , don't know , I don't either , don't know .

Matt Houlihan 16:46

Their outside hitter comments on all of our stuff . Really yeah , he's a great dude , that's so nice , he's all in Nicky's , the only one I know . I'm blanking . No , his name is on the tip of my tongue . I can see his face . He's their captain , oh one , and I'm blanking on his name mckendry , I'm sorry , my guy we'll look it up .

Arielle Houlihan 17:03

We're gonna know everybody's name after this . I'm gonna look it up .

Matt Houlihan 17:05

I'm only here for nikki nikki's team I want nikki number one , nikki number two nikki number three .

Arielle Houlihan 17:11

Nikki number four I want so badly to save all state because that was my that would be so funny early season pick , it would be a longer , I'm sure that's what their gym sounds like right now of like , all we gotta do is get back to number five .

Matt Houlihan 17:29

Yeah , but man , oh man , I've . I've watched a couple of the recent games and it looks like it's , it's , they're just it's not crisp at all yeah . Loyola looks so much more crisp . Even Lewis , like I'm more inclined to pick my dark horse pick would be Lewis Really . Because they , yeah , they just they have games where they look like they can beat anyone . And then they have games where you're like what in the world has happened ? Like how hungover is this group of kids ?

Matt Houlihan 18:00

High ceiling , low floor , that's okay and so yeah , I mean honestly that's that's where my head goes is like yeah , I think loyola is the safe bet mckendry is is is right there . They can absolutely do it . They've beaten loyal already this year . I think it would be a fairy tale . I think I'm gonna go with lewis because I want .

Arielle Houlihan 18:19

I think they could do it too trying . He's just trying to clip farm right now .

Chad Gordon 18:22

That's the best beard in the Mewiff it's not a clip farm at all , Honestly if I want to be .

Matt Houlihan 18:26

Mastrodomus right now . This is a bad . This is a bad Mastrodomus pick . This is a . This is a high risk , high risk choice . I want McKendry to win , so I'm gonna pick mckendry . I like that . You're picking loyal , you're picking lewis . Should we have a watch party ? Maybe , if it happens it happens , we usually do that anyways . All right , let's go to the eiva .

Arielle Houlihan 18:50

We'll start with chad , since I do care about the . I do care about the eiva . I just wish they were all better right now we all picked penn state to win the eIBA . We all agree that that's still who you pick .

Matt Houlihan 19:02

Let's find out .

Chad Gordon 19:03

Chad , you guys are going to start with me , man , it has not been super impressive out there .

Arielle Houlihan 19:10

Easy year out there .

Chad Gordon 19:14

Give me some Princeton and we'll see All right .

Arielle Houlihan 19:19

Why .

Matt Houlihan 19:19

A little Rowan David Alvear yeah give me a little Rowan .

Arielle Houlihan 19:21

Yeah , go Rowan , yay , that's about it though . What about ?

Matt Houlihan 19:24

it . I am with you . I am also selecting Princeton . They'd be my current pick . After just seeing how it goes , they're in the lead of the EIVA currently .

Arielle Houlihan 19:34

Screw you guys , I'm going Penn State , peter Criss forever .

Matt Houlihan 19:38

He's not there yet . He doesn't go there , but that's okay .

Arielle Houlihan 19:40

I think Pav's the goat .

Matt Houlihan 19:43

Hey , I mean in all honesty .

Chad Gordon 19:45

Wasn't Pav my backup ? No , yeah , he was your . Did I pick Pav ? Oh yeah , you picked Pav for your beer Olympics team .

Matt Houlihan 19:49

Yeah , okay , well , he'll be free .

Arielle Houlihan 19:51

Yeah , because she took your starting pick which was yeah , Hold on to my beer . Olympics team , you idiots .

Matt Houlihan 19:59

All right , let's take it to the Big West . Let's take it to the Big West . We all picked Long Beach as our . No , no , we didn't . He picked Irvine , I picked Irvine , I think .

Chad Gordon 20:09

No , you picked Irvine , no I picked Long Beach I picked Long Beach , but I picked Irvine to win the Natty oh .

Matt Houlihan 20:15

Wait , you think .

Chad Gordon 20:17

Long Beach wins the conference . Yeah , I think Irvine wins the net .

Matt Houlihan 20:21

I picked Irvine to win the conference . That's what I did . I picked Long Beach to win the regular season and Irvine to win the tournament is what I picked .

Arielle Houlihan 20:28

I picked Long Beach to win the conference tournament and the national championship .

Chad Gordon 20:35

Yeah , I'll get out of the first two rounds of you know , I'll see .

Matt Houlihan 20:40

Yeah , I'll see , I'll get out of the first two rounds of VNL . I'll see , yeah , I'll see . I'll start Um after seeing the season play out . See what this team is . I think you got to bet on long beach . That's just . You know , even even still knowing that they lost at Hawaii , I think if it's Hawaii , long beach again in the finals at big West , that would be an amazing , amazing thing for men's volleyball and I would choose Long Beach in that matchup again , me too . So , yeah , I'm going to stick with Long Beach as the auto qualifier out of the Big West . Sorry , irvine . I think Irvine still gets in as the at-large . If they can not have a bad next two weeks , they're going to be in there .

Arielle Houlihan 21:18

I'm excited to watch it . You got Long Beach still .

Matt Houlihan 21:23

Yeah , long Beach for you as well . Clean sweep of Long Beach for us . Let's go to the MPSF , where things can be quite interesting . Ariel , start us off . Who takes the tournament ? Who takes that auto berth ? I'll set the stage for you a little bit . I think the MPSF has actually been a lot more back and forth than probably we would have thought it was going to be this year . Lots of upsets thus far .

Arielle Houlihan 21:49

I don't know , Honestly .

Matt Houlihan 21:52

I know there's there's , there's options .

Arielle Houlihan 21:54

Do you got something ?

Chad Gordon 21:57

I do , but we're I wouldn't want to upstage you Please , I think UCLA , because SC is probably not going to be healthy .

Arielle Houlihan 22:07

I'm going to go to Matt . What do you think ?

Matt Houlihan 22:11

I am currently checking who is hosting .

Arielle Houlihan 22:14

It's Grand Canyon .

Matt Houlihan 22:15

Is it at Grand Canyon ? I don't know . If that's true , it's at Pepperdine , it's at Pepperdine .

Arielle Houlihan 22:20

It's the Grand Canyon of the Malibu , the Grand Canyon of Topanga Classic . Boy Meets World joke for you younger listeners . Wait , why did I think that Is it there next year ? Yeah ?

Matt Houlihan 22:33

it is coming up as one of them , but okay , so Pepperdine's hosting . I like Pepperdine . I think they've done some good things . I like Pepperdine .

Arielle Houlihan 22:39

I think they've done some good things that gives them a little bit of a bump .

Matt Houlihan 22:42

I think USC is limping into it . I think they're still going to be limping into it , and so that's a tough one . Stanford always finds a way in the MPCF tournament . They always find a way to get hot .

Arielle Houlihan 22:55

I want to say Stanford , because it would be so fun , but it's not about us . We have played poorly .

Matt Houlihan 23:00

Stanford has played poorly . I say we Stanford has played poorly in Firestone for the past numerous amounts of years . It's those low ceilings . And with where they currently stand in the MPSF , they're going to need to probably run a pretty tough gauntlet . They're going to see UCLA early .

Arielle Houlihan 23:18

Great If they're in and make some moves . I guess I'll pick UCLA .

Matt Houlihan 23:23

I'm going to go UCLA . That's my , that's where my heart kind of goes to it too . That's where my gut feeling is .

Arielle Houlihan 23:33

Yeah , I guess I'm going to say UCLA Just on paper .

Matt Houlihan 23:38

You got a spicier take for us .

Arielle Houlihan 23:40

Yeah , on paper , USC probably would have been my .

Matt Houlihan 23:44

I don't really know . I probably would have picked a healthy USC over a healthy UCLA . That's why I was really hoping that we would have picked a healthy usc , yeah , over a healthy ucla .

Arielle Houlihan 23:51

That's why I was really hoping that we would have that matchup I will say that I do think that stanford is a team that can upset better teams yes , they've shown that uh , yeah , back , back against the wall , I think the stanford squad .

Matt Houlihan 24:06

That's not who , if , if I'm , we're just fucking homers .

Arielle Houlihan 24:10

We just like Stanford .

Matt Houlihan 24:11

Can you ?

Arielle Houlihan 24:11

blame us , we just love them .

Matt Houlihan 24:14

To be fair , I wouldn't want to face Stanford early on .

Matt Houlihan 24:16

I wouldn't want them to be my quarterfinal matchup because they have shown the ability to slay some giants , and when your back's against the wall , those types of teams usually play to near their capacity and when a team can beat top-level teams at their capacity , that's scary to face right . Stanford has been inconsistent this year , but they have shown the ability to be able to beat the Hawaii's . The USC's compete with majority of teams across the board , minus the matchup with Irvine where they didn't really show us anything . So that's not a team I want to face , but it's hard to pick them to win the whole thing because they've got to get through three tough teams most likely .

Arielle Houlihan 25:00

The easy pick , I guess , is UCLA yes , but I do think that something else could happen . Yes , 100% . That's what I'm going to stand with 100% , which muddies the waters .

Matt Houlihan 25:08

If UCLA doesn't win the NPSF , they're in a very good position to get an at-large . Still , as long as they don't even I mean even if they split with USC , I think they're still probably in a pretty good position with their record Right , whereas the big West it's like you got to you . You want to get to the finals of that and if it's irvine , long beach or hawaii , then they're probably good for that . But even still the third place team right . If irvine loses in the semis type of a deal , they could still get that at

Tariffs & International Players Debate

Matt Houlihan 25:40

large tariffs what are they welcome to our segment that we like to call tariffs question mark what are they ?

Matt Houlihan 25:49

Welcome to our segment that we like to call tariffs question mark .

Arielle Houlihan 25:53

What are they ?

Matt Houlihan 25:54

This is where we solve and fix the world's economy from the couch .

Arielle Houlihan 25:59

Tariffs . Are they bad ?

Matt Houlihan 26:01

Are they good ? Should we impose tariffs on college volleyball ? Aka only two foreigners per team .

Arielle Houlihan 26:10

Oh , let's talk about that . For a second Luxury tax . Let's actually talk about it .

Chad Gordon 26:13

You're paying a tax for everybody over the cap .

Arielle Houlihan 26:16

We did some digging .

Matt Houlihan 26:17

Oh yes , on the foreigners From our last pod , from our last podcast , james got to work and he put it all together . So here's the task I gave to James . I said , james , I need you to go to the big four conferences and look up the rosters and put every single player's name , hometown , where they're from , blah , blah position . And then there's a box that says foreign or domestic .

Chad Gordon 26:44

And so we went through gbt gonna scrape that for you maybe he james reliably .

Matt Houlihan 26:48

James is the goat .

Arielle Houlihan 26:50

He did it for sure , just making sure , so I wanted to make sure . If you want something done right , james ? You want something done right hell yeah , james , take the rest of the day oh oh my gosh , that's badass if you did that , james . Okay so .

Matt Houlihan 27:13

So we did some digging . We've got the math .

Arielle Houlihan 27:14

We've got the numbers everybody .

Matt Houlihan 27:16

There's 536 . 536 . Obviously , athletes in the top four programs . The numbers break down to basically every team has . The average is each team has about 3.3 foreigners per roster .

Chad Gordon 27:37

I would have said 3 or 4 .

Arielle Houlihan 27:39

Do we think that's too much ?

Matt Houlihan 27:41

Yeah , If you look at it from an 18 roster cap which we are currently not in but next week that could change . It would be right about that . You'd be looking at three .

Arielle Houlihan 27:56

I don't think . When we got these numbers , I thought that it was more .

Chad Gordon 28:02

Per team .

Arielle Houlihan 28:02

Per team . I don't think that that is too many .

Chad Gordon 28:09

Do you have a split of what this is for , like teams within the top 10 ? Great question James filter your list based on their ranking .

Arielle Houlihan 28:21

Ariel's ranking of the top 10 .

Matt Houlihan 28:26

No , I don't have that .

Arielle Houlihan 28:26

Okay , but useless .

Chad Gordon 28:29

I'd be , I'd be more like . So there are just a lot of teams , I mean I . There aren't that many , but there are a lot .

Arielle Houlihan 28:34

There's only 536 athletes .

Chad Gordon 28:35

Yeah , we don't talk about most of the teams , right , like it took us a minute to remember like who fairly eva . Yeah , you know so , um , yeah , I'd be . I'd be curious about , like of the top teams that are competing to , you know , being the semis and finals of these conference tournaments okay what percentage of that is , uh , these international guys ?

Matt Houlihan 28:56

after we sorry , I have another math it's 83 total international athletes of the five of the 537 , which equates to about just over three point something per percentage that Percentage , that's like 16% .

Arielle Houlihan 29:13

Yeah around there 16% , Wow impressive to do that in your head . We've talked about it already . I can't do math that fast . I tried to give you that . No , no , no . I don't want people to think I'm smart .

Matt Houlihan 29:25

We could definitely dig down deeper into that data of like all right , how many of them start ? How many of them are starting on these teams ? How ?

Arielle Houlihan 29:31

many of them are . I changed my mind on this how ?

Matt Houlihan 29:33

many of them are playing on top 15 teams , so on and so forth .

Arielle Houlihan 29:37

I don't mind the international kids playing . I uh , I changed my mind halfway through our conversation . Last time we talked about this too , because you've got , uh , we talked about Sonny on .

Arielle Houlihan 29:51

Long Beach as a good example of this of like he's not getting as much time because the Euros are playing , and for me , he's getting the time in practice . So that disproves our theory of like every kid in our gym , the amount of time that they spend playing in practice is where they're going to get better , not just playing on the court during tournaments , and so I truly believe that where the highest level gym that you can be in is where you're going to get better , and I think that kid gets better because he's in the gym with better athletes .

Chad Gordon 30:18

I don't disagree , but I think there's still something like when you're trying to get recruited to the next level , right ?

Arielle Houlihan 30:24

The 18 roster cap is what I have a problem with .

Chad Gordon 30:27

Sure .

Arielle Houlihan 30:28

I don't have a problem with the Euros .

Matt Houlihan 30:33

I have a problem with the euros , I have a problem with the 18 roster cap , I think . Keep going with what you were saying , though , because what he was . What he's saying is basically if these guys want to play at the next level , if you want american talent to play at the highest level , they need to be seen .

Matt Houlihan 30:42

So there's about . I think there's a balance . It's not a , it's not a zero one binary code that says hey , no foreigners , or for free range of foreigners yeah , I mean like when karch flies out to like purdue , to watch annie drews play .

Chad Gordon 30:56

Like what about you know ? Okay , well , that doesn't happen if there's some euro playing , like you know , above these kids right . Like if spra's coming to the gym like oh , I'm coach , coaches the men's . Now it's braz , the ceo of usa volleyball , so I'm talking a couple years ago .

Arielle Houlihan 31:09

Yeah , I got you .

Chad Gordon 31:14

But when you're looking at these teams , if you are that third kid or something like that , you may not get seen collegiately , you may not be on these lists or whatever , and then you're not playing against the A's of all these other teams too .

Chad Gordon 31:30

You're playing against your A's or splitting in your gym , but if you're the third's right of all these other teams , too right . You're playing against your A's or splitting in your gym , but like if you're the third kid at whatever OH3 , you didn't play against Moni Nikolov this year , you know , I guess , unless you're Finn Kearney but , like other than that right , like , yeah , you get to play in practice .

Chad Gordon 31:47

There is a lot of merit to that , for sure , but you're not going against the the best of the best in the nation . Plus then , yeah , if you want to get recruited to go , or like get scouted , I guess , to go play pro overseas , you have a smaller chance to put film together .

Matt Houlihan 32:03

and let's be real , game time in a game matters .

Matt Houlihan 32:07

Yeah , like there's a reason why , when we talk when we're club directors and we talk to our coaches , is there's never gonna be a time where we just sit kids on the bench , yes , for a whole tournament . That would be a bad experience because kids need to play . There's never equal playing time , that's not . That's not a thing specifically when you're trying to win , but there's most definitely a difference between practice time and game time and getting that competition reps . So , yeah , that's where I love how this started , from tariffs as we kind of go back from it , but like it's a funny game for this .

Matt Houlihan 32:38

The idea the idea of a tariff is basically it's an incentive . Right , you're trying to incentivize growth in an american market . Okay , I , I'm not trying to put% tariff on , like no foreigners allowed , like that's not what we need . We want higher level men's volleyball in our country . We want to bring an international talent that's at the top of the level , but we also if if we're going to get capped on the roster spot , that's got to cap the international too . That's that's going to need to be a cap .

Arielle Houlihan 33:07

The serving misses yes .

Matt Houlihan 33:10

That's a whole other can of worms when it comes to how we improve the sport . But I think Chad was one of the ones that said it on the serving side . It's like this is the logical conclusion of where men's volleyball goes . You can't put in a lollipop . We're too good , we're too offensive . If we're in system , we're going to score 85% of the

Game Rule Changes & TV Product Discussion

Matt Houlihan 33:30

time . So you've got to grip it and rip it . You got to get them off the net , otherwise you're just going to lose the point anyways . So in reality , it's kind of two , two factors you're . In order for us to miss less serves , you need the offense to be less effective , or surpassing needs to be more difficult or you make the foul out rule .

Matt Houlihan 33:49

I think the foul out rule is yes , you can make the incredible I love the foul rule as well and I think it goes hand . But I think you need both things at once . Because if you , if you're trying to make the best tv product which is where we kind of always look at it from the lens of how do we make the sport more broadly , how do we more broadly reach a larger demographic , a , a larger audience it's through television . So you need to get television product . Serve , pass , kill , serve , pass , kill , serve , pass , kill is not a good product either . It's better . It's better than misserve , misserve . But the better product is rallies .

Arielle Houlihan 34:24

Is it men's volleyball or women's volleyball is a better product .

Matt Houlihan 34:28

Right now , I think women's volleyball is a better product Because there's better rallies . Because there's much better rallies , do you agree ?

Chad Gordon 34:32

with that . Yeah , there's just more . There's more to watch , I think the physical , the rally goes for 10 .

Matt Houlihan 34:40

whatever the highest level of men's volleyball can be great .

Arielle Houlihan 34:43

Yeah , for sure , I guess I agree with you .

Matt Houlihan 34:45

But the product on the whole is better on the women's side because it's a much more watchable television product because of just the length of rallies that you can see every action unfolding . It's a little yes , it's a little bit slower , but even at the highest levels , where they're hitting it just as hard as any collegiate men's volleyball team , they're still getting dicks . They're still getting these rallies .

Chad Gordon 35:08

Yeah , if you're giving me pit Nebraska , whatever Penn state like , yeah , that's , that's big time , that's big time , super athletic , really high level ball for sure . But even like there's a difference between us and our opinion on this , versus like a casual fan who like , oh yeah , like , well , my daughter plays , so like , I like , I like to watch with her . Yeah , they don't , they don't care that , you know . Hey , like if you put a random men's game and a random women's game , maybe the volleyball isn't super impressive , but one of them is going to have a lot of stoppage due to bad serving and a lot of errors .

Arielle Houlihan 35:40

One of them is going to have long routes .

Chad Gordon 35:42

I agree with you , even if it's like , hey , yeah , couldn't score so I tipped it to the libero .

Arielle Houlihan 35:46

At least we're watching something . Yeah , at least something's happening .

Chad Gordon 35:48

I agree with that something , yeah , at least something's happening . I agree that we might think that's bad , but yeah , casual person wants sport .

Matt Houlihan 35:52

That's why I think you , you , you do both things simultaneously , like if you add in the foul rule , then misters become interesting . Okay , you're like . Oh , okay , we got I think it's so .

Chad Gordon 36:01

How many ? How many fouls does he have ?

Matt Houlihan 36:03

oh like , he's got three fouls like he's got to get this ball in , otherwise the you know next guy comes in and then you also . At the same time , you're not allowed to pass open hand , because now passing float serves becomes way more difficult , and now float serves are way easier to keep in play , and so you can still create that out-of-system situation with not needing to take as big of a risk from the service line . So there's less errors . Or same idea , right ? You go full beach mode , just like Chad's preached before you go to open hand tips so it's easier , it's easier to defend and then removes a lot of judgment call .

Matt Houlihan 36:38

So there's good things there . But yeah , I think you need to do both at the same time . When thinking about the men's game in particular as a TV product , I think the women's game is is in a pretty good spot . Could it be better ? Sure , would that be beneficial ? I think they should test it . They should play around with it .

Arielle Houlihan 36:58

Just interesting switches to the game like that could be a good thing to test for TV .

Matt Houlihan 37:01

Yeah , 100% Great job Tariffs . Tariffs turned into a great segment guys .

Arielle Houlihan 37:07

Tariffs was a really well-branded segment that we didn't realize was going to be .

Love Championship Results & Final Thoughts

Matt Houlihan 37:16

Well , we didn't plan any of that job . Bobby worked out nice work . Last segment this is our uh obligatory .

Arielle Houlihan 37:18

Title nine , segment of the of the pod girls , women , women in sports women in stem .

Matt Houlihan 37:23

The love championship took place this past weekend .

Chad Gordon 37:26

I forgot what happened .

Matt Houlihan 37:35

Love Austin won , love wins , love conquers . And who ?

Arielle Houlihan 37:38

did they ?

Matt Houlihan 37:39

beat , they beat .

Arielle Houlihan 37:41

Love Omaha , it was the rematch .

Matt Houlihan 37:44

It was Texas versus Nebraska all over again , and Texas yet again came out on top .

Arielle Houlihan 37:50

It was cute .

Matt Houlihan 37:52

It was , it was . I think I'd love to see .

Arielle Houlihan 37:55

I mean , I feel like Stacey Sikora's outfits for a second . Does anybody know what I'm talking about here ? That girl has got some man . Come on guys , sorry .

Matt Houlihan 38:04

He's killing it .

Arielle Houlihan 38:06

We'll throw some images up there on the on the outfit game as of late , she's assistant for Love Austin . Yeah , and I'm going to say other facts about this that I know about . Julianne Fawcett won . Carly Lloyd won .

Chad Gordon 38:27

I learned they're best friends . Yeah , that's a nice story .

Arielle Houlihan 38:31

A bunch of Texas people won and we're really happy for them .

Chad Gordon 38:39

The top four seeds did not make the finals .

Arielle Houlihan 38:41

They did reverse sweep . They reverse sweep , reverse sweep to win . And apparently those games that day were like insane .

Chad Gordon 38:46

The bottom two teams in the league made the finals and then , yeah , awesome .

Matt Houlihan 38:53

On any given Sunday .

Arielle Houlihan 38:54

Hey , what team did we not talk about today that could win it ?

Matt Houlihan 38:59

Ball State we talked about them , for sure .

Arielle Houlihan 39:02

Who else and how they can't win it . Who could win out of nowhere Darkest horse of men's volleyball .

Chad Gordon 39:09

CSUN .

Arielle Houlihan 39:11

No , that's too .

Matt Houlihan 39:13

Queens .

Arielle Houlihan 39:14

No .

Matt Houlihan 39:15

What ? Who's the Conference Carolina champion .

Arielle Houlihan 39:17

No , we didn't . We don't know .

Chad Gordon 39:19

Name three teams in that conference .

Arielle Houlihan 39:21

No , we do that , emory . I plead the fifth Barton King Endicott .

Chad Gordon 39:26

Yeah , no Close , but Endicott's D3 .

Arielle Houlihan 39:30

Erskine had that kid back in the day that used to pump , fake every single set . It was like this isn't funny anymore . He would go up to try and attack , but he just set the ball every time . You remember that ? No , the first year the Conference , carolinas were in .

Matt Houlihan 39:44

Oh yeah .

Arielle Houlihan 39:45

They had the kid that just went up to try and attack . But he just set the ball every time .

Matt Houlihan 39:48

He was Nikolov before Nikolov he just did it , nikolov grew up watching this guy on TV .

Chad Gordon 39:54

He's been watching the Erskine kid . Probably had that poster in his room .

Arielle Houlihan 39:57

I don't know , go Carolina Chad , what's ?

Matt Houlihan 40:02

your ins of the day . What's in for you Socks . Fresh pair of socks . Nothing better for Chad than a fresh pair of socks . Chat . Nothing better than for chad than a fresh pair of socks .

Arielle Houlihan 40:11

No , I came with these oh yeah , you got a fresh pair of socks . I got two .

Matt Houlihan 40:15

I got two is a chain oh yeah , look at this guy , pop that chain out .

Chad Gordon 40:21

No , no , just let it pop that chain out , it's a nonchalant chain yeah , it's very casual nice , nice my in is silver chains I've switched all my earrings .

Arielle Houlihan 40:31

We don't do gold anymore , I go silver and that's it for now . I still have some gold in my necklace , but that's okay .

Matt Houlihan 40:38

My in is mustaches .

Arielle Houlihan 40:39

Ew . Okay , I was going to say ew . I was going to say ew to literally anything that came out of his hair .

Matt Houlihan 40:46

Was that eye contact a little ?

Arielle Houlihan 40:48

too intense for you , literally anything that he said hold my eye contact there's gonna be a blue dot on this house in like an

Matt Houlihan 40:57

hour that's a tough joke okay .

Arielle Houlihan 41:02

Well , thanks for listening to the coaches group chat . We love you all . Thanks for joining uh . Swipe up , swipe down , like and subscribe most sashes are out .

Chad Gordon 41:11

They've had their time .