BadgerHorn

I appreciate you guys compiling this info. I'm still learning the who's who at the college level. Can anyone: 1) provide a projection of the '24 beach roster. We know there are a few question marks wrt several '23 beach players staying indoor. And then you have the grad transfer/portal variable. I'm guessing Keonilei, Devin, Marina come back. Madi and Molly are TBDs? Any other intel? 2) provide a summary of the level of the transfers and recruits coming in. Either in terms of star ratings [ducks], takes for other top teams, which pairing they project to, etc? I see we have a few UCLA players/recruits headed our way, which is a strong indicator.

For the first few mins, I thought Gerry had a durag on. Longhorn Livestream | Texas Football News | Recruiting Updates | | Basketball |

Wow, another seemingly really good get. Not "Stein" level splash, but I'd say well above a solid asst coach hire.

Outside air pressure at cruising altitude is 3-5 psia. Cabin air pressure is something like 10-14 psia. WAG at door area would be 8 sqft or 1152 sq in. Multiplying that out, you're looking at ~10k lbs of force keeping the door shut from the inside. If you try to crack the door seal to let the cabin air out and equilibrate the pressure, now you're in a competition with the engine compressor whose bleed air maintains cabin pressure. It would have to be a substantial gap to depressurize to the point where you could get close to opening the door and odds are you're blacking out anyway at <7 psia due to lack of oxygen in that attempt.

Kelly Claes/Cheng can confirm

April Ross finally announced today that she’s pregnant. I did some quick internet querying while out there to make sure I hadn't missed something. It was kind of bizarre as no one there said anything. It wasn’t much of an announcement for anyone at Huntington as it looks like she’s 6-7 months in. She was coaching Scoles and Flint who made it to the finals.

Here you go. Best defender out here in my opinion. I don't care what the scoreboard says. Noticing a couple of interesting body changes. Looks like a few shaved several lbs and others have been putting in work in the weightroom. And there was one other body change that I wasn't aware of.

Surly is on site Bracket on both sides is pretty chalky so far. Partain/Benesh are continuing to modernize their offense. Both are mixing in a bit of optioning. More quick setting than I recall

So much to get excited about here. You know how the football and basketball boards have coaching search threads and there's always the initial phase of "we know we'll never get Saban, Smart, Urban, Self, Few, Wright, etc" and then the conversation (and FlightAware queries) move to the next tier of possibilities? Stein is in that first tier of aspirational gets - arguably #1 overall. I know beach volleyball money and booster complications are nowhere near football and basketball. Just trying to help underscore how big this could be for those who don't follow as closely. We keep talking about UT Beach's potential. You now have top tier: resources, recruiting footprint, and head coach. Next step is building the roster and facilities. After that, show me a loss. Only regrets: 1) it would have been nice to get this done earlier to make some hay in the portal. Can beach players transfer in the Dec transfer window or is that reserved for fall sports? 2) man, I wish I was still on campus for this I'll be out at AVP Huntington Beach this weekend. We'll see if my Longhorn shirt starts any conversations.

So, how do we do beach volleyball offseason? When do we start the threads about 'cruitin', and the corch search, and critiquing uniforms? Seriously, though, any news on: - coach search (probably influences the answers to the next two questions) - who from the indoor team is looking to come back to the sand - recruiting / portal - partial or full 2024 season (show me a loss) - on/near campus beach volleyball facilities - NIL

I was half watching that one along with Molly/Madi's third set. Stayed for the rest of the non UT matches too.

Spent the first day getting the lay of the land. Focused more on details today. Day 2 observations: - confirming yesterday's suspicion that we were running basic defenses. Mainly line blocks with the occasional angle. Don't recall our ladies calling any show (3/4) blocks. The other teams mixed it in with some success. Probably for the best because... (See the next bullet) - our blockers/defenders ended up stacked way too often. Basically both players end up playing line or angle because of a miscommunication leaving half the court wide open. Adding show blocks when we struggle with straight line/angle would've been chaotic - Pro tip: During a rally, if you're showing a drop (via a drop step) causing your body to face inward, don't signal the block to your teammate on your outside butt cheek with your outside arm. Your teammate can't see it. Either switch hands or pat the side of your butt that you're blocking. Saw that one too many times. - And if your blocker drops toward you as a defender, you need to compensate. It's usually not an issue with a 1 block. I'm not sure how they coach dropping off a 2 block - whether they want the blocker to drop straight back and the defender slides across or if the blocker drops into the angle she called. Either way, I can guarantee that coaches don't tell them to end up on top of one another... which happened a few times - too many service faults for a team that isn't trying to generate offense via aggressive serving - I don't recall any of our ladies handsetting which isn't surprising. I was kind of surprised how sporadic some of the bump setting was. It wasn't terrible, but too much spread considering very little wind - We got called multiple times for doubling serves or attacks, which are the indoor instincts lingering. One of Jenna's seemed like a driven ball where she should've had more latitude, but that's just refs confirming for us that God himself couldn't handset a serve/attack w/o doubling - I had the privilege of witnessing one of my favorite farces in beach volleyball - when (without a line judge) the ref walks over to inspect a ball mark near a line. Unless you're raking the lines within the set (which they weren't), the lines look like the surface of the moon. How they convince themselves they're looking at the right mark unless they never break eye contact with the mark from the impact, to getting down the ladder, to walking around the ref stand...is beyond me - Molly was dropping off her blocks a lot in the first match. Not sure if that was the strategy - didn't appear to me that the hitter was always far enough off the net to warrant dropping as often as it occurred. She was tipping the drop early too. A better attacker would've taken advantage. Would've loved for her to mix it up more - showing the drop, but stay up for a roof. Too bad she's a Sr as it would be fun to see her out there at 6'5" with more experience/reps/instinct. Does she have another yr from covid? - Madi/Devin/Keonilei were doing their thing. The Hawaiians got the second match off. - Crownover could be very good if she keeps developing. Has good size and tools for a defender. And a RS Fr. - Ella playing defender at 6'3" was interesting. She seemed to hold her own in the little I saw of her matches. Just like basketball - a big with ball skills can be a great weapon. Also a freshman (EE I think?) - Reilly and Kenna showed some good flashes. Reilly scoots around well making up for shorter stature. Didn't get a good feel for her side out / hitting game though - really curious to see who sticks with beach next year. There are a couple who are struggling out here, several who are OK and may be able to narrow the gap with their opponents with practice/coaching, and a few that show some real potential

I can see why:

My observations: - it's a lot of fun. Highly encourage you guys to come out and watch. If you have athletic daughters, it's a no brainer to bring them along - Basically reiterating what we knew: the beach player is a different type of athlete. These teams are full of 5'5" - 6' girls with agility, ball skills, and everyone can either hit or they have craft with cuts, shooting, etc. You need blockers who aren't a liability on serve receive and setting; and defenders/littles who can hit down on the ball to side out. Indoor players aren't asked to do that. Overheard the Utah coach talking to one of the LBSt coaches saying something along the lines of "we're in a similar boat to Texas just one year further - still mostly playing indoor volleyball outdoors but some younger beach players" and the response was "yeah, that's really tough" - The top 3 teams are showing some positive flashes. You can tell Devin and Akana have some of the right beach instincts and are still working on the execution part. They may not have the physical tools some of their teammates do, but I can see why they're on Ct1 - Madi and Molly looked good and won their second match. I played beach several times against college indoor players and the key is getting them out of system. If you give them easy balls, they'll set up and just crush balls back at you. That's what happened for M&M a few times - Madi received an easy ball and you could tell the point was over before she smoked one past the block. Molly and Jenna had a few hammers of their own. Too many unforced errors esp on serve. I could see Madi being very good at beach... But you can probably say that for her about multiple sports - Didn't see much of the 4-5 teams. Hoping to see more tmrw. - Seemed to be running relatively basic defensive schemes from what I noticed. Makes sense for a new team. I'll pay more attn to that tmrw. - Serious uniform talk: I'm not a big fan of the unis. The white front looks good but the wide burnt orange stripe on the back makes it look like an attempt at a dual use home/away jersey of some sort. Either go storm trooper or burnt orange - Really happy to see the girls out there competing and laying the groundwork for what I think will be another UT team competing for championships in a couple of years

"You are looking live..." Surly is on site

Thanks for the updates. I'm planning to be at the matches later this week. Curious to see the team dynamic / morale considering this team is used to competing for and winning national championships and is now scraping to win games and may be uncompetitive in many matches this season. The coaches will need to manage the mental side / confidence. A few wks ago, Coach Sullivan said something about setting proper expectations with the team. I suspect he knew they'd struggle in many matches this first season and wanted to get in front of it and prep them for the learning/growth experience. Also, going forward the coaches will need to: 1) figure out, in coordination with the players, who's going to play indoor/outdoor only or both and 2) for those playing both ways, ensure beach techniques/tendencies/instincts that don't work indoor don't bleed over to that side and vice versa

First ever Texas Women's Beach Volleyball roster is posted: https://texassports.com/sports/wbvball/roster

Ella and Devin at the USA Volleyball Women's National Team Open Program 🤘

My thoughts on the men's side: Last year was kind of interesting with some of the bigs pairing up: Chase/Troy for the season and then Benesh/Dalhausser at one point (Austin iirc). And on the other (smaller) end, you had the Taylors teaming up. The Bourne/Crabb/Brunner/Schalk switch will be interesting to watch. I think Bourne/Schalk is the more successful duo going fwd, but I like Theo and betting against Trevor the past few yrs has been a bad decision. Last I saw, Chase was teaming up with Miles Evans. Not sure who Troy is going to end up with. Benesh and Partain could be sleepers. Andy seems to get overshadowed by some of the bigger name blockers in terms of hype, but he can hold his own. And Miles is so good in so many areas. If they can get the jump set down, they'll be winning a lot of tournaments. Who I'm looking forward to following: - The Taylors simply because of the highlight reel - Partain because he's that good - "[insert name] just because [insert name again]": Theo, Billy Allen, Bomgren, Casebeer, Ratledge - Tri and Travis because of SandCast; briefly talked to them at Manhattan Beach and seem like cool guys - Casey if he comes back for any events My thoughts on the women's side: I generally prefer watching the women's side [lets the jokes and jeers die down] because I still play and I just learn way more from them. The guys are able to cover so much space, take chances, and then make up for mistakes by sheer size and freak athleticism. I'm not 6'7" nor can I get my shoulders to the tape to hit/block - I can't replicate what the guys do on a men's net. I can kind of do most of what the women do. I'm a big Sarah Sponcil fan. Her ability to move around the court and get to balls she has no business getting to is amazing; the last few years she's gotten much better at converting those digs into points on the offensive side. You could see she and Terese Cannon were figuring things out most of the year - you'd have the really strong performances interspersed with "what the heck was that?" sets, strings of points where they weren't on the same page, or periods where T seemed to be lacking confidence in her passing or hitting. I'd have to think the re-union of Cheng and Hughes makes them the favorite - so much talent on both offense and defense. Who I'm looking forward to following: - Sponcil because of the above - Met Kloth and Nuss sitting on the courtside bench at Austin last year - both really sweet and super talented. How Kristen Nuss can hit down on a ball is beyond me - Kelley Kolinske - just makes everything seem so smooth/fluid; she's picking up an up and comer so we'll see how that works - Zana because she seems like a mini Sponcil to me (even though they're listed as the same height) and she got Sarah Pavan to wear a bright pink tennis skirt at the championships last year - Julia Scoles - another up and comer - interested to see what she can do this year with a new veteran partner - Brandie and Mel Humana-Paredes would be my sleeper team on the women's side. ...oh and Six Feet of Sunshine is teaming up with Logan Tom for one last Olympic run. Will April enter a tournament or two? Should be a fun year.

My attempt at Who's Who Back row: Coach Elliott, Coach Hunt?, Asjia, Mariana Singletary?, Sydney Helmers?, Jordyn Byrd?, Devin Kahahawai, Bella Bergmark?, Madi, Jenna Wenaas?, Asst. Brannan?, Coach Sullivan Front row: Halter, Ella Swindle?, Akana, Reilly Heinrich?, Kenna Miller?, ?, Molly Looks like we have a few incoming '23 Freshman signees and a '23 transfer on the sand, which is great to see.

Looks like we need to start a thread on the $9.95 'cruitin' forum

Do we have any courts on campus? Otherwise we'd be left with one of the nearby parks ... or Aussies. Curious what the NCAA facility requirements are for beach volleyball and if UT would be looking to build something on campus or nearby to host in the future. Would be cool if they could develop something the UT beach team could use and also to attract AVP back to Austin. Curious what the roster will look like.

Schedule is up: https://texassports.com/sports/wbvball/schedule Date Time At Opponent Location TV Radio Tournament Result Links March 10, 2023 (Friday) 1 PM Hawaii Queens Beach Heineken Queens Cup March 10, 2023 (Friday) 7:15 PM Oregon Queens Beach Heineken Queens Cup March 11, 2023 (Saturday) 1 PM Nebraska Queens Beach Heineken Queens Cup March 11, 2023 (Saturday) 4:45 PM California Queens Beach Heineken Queens Cup March 12, 2023 (Sunday) 2:15 PM Washington Queens Beach Heineken Queens Cup March 14, 2023 (Tuesday) 10:30 PM Hawaii Manoa, HI March 17, 2023 (Friday) 10:30 AM Long Beach State Long Beach, CA March 17, 2023 (Friday) 12:30 PM CSUN Long Beach, CA March 18, 2023 (Saturday) 10:30 AM Utah Long Beach, CA March 18, 2023 (Saturday) 12:30 PM Stetson Long Beach, CA March 24, 2023 (Friday) 9:30 AM Missouri State Fort Worth, Texas March 24, 2023 (Friday) 11:30 AM Grand Canyon Fort Worth, Texas March 25, 2023 (Saturday) 9 AM Missouri State Fort Worth, Texas March 25, 2023 (Saturday) 5 PM TCU Fort Worth, TX