VBelo Offseason: October 28, 2022
VBelo Offseason: October 28, 2022
Preview of coming attractions
We are getting more and more glimpses of the Men’s Volleyball season everyday. The first match is still over 2 months away, but that doesn’t mean teams are sleeping. They are crafting their schedules, getting in some practices, and even playing in some fall matches.
There is a lot we don’t know, but let’s focus on what we do know as October comes to a close. One thing we know is that if you want the VBelo Scouting Report delivered to your inbox, you should subscribe. No pressure though.
…but we also know some schedules!
Schedule Releases
As far as I can tell, 14 programs1 have released their schedules out of the 57 teams competing in D-I/II this year. That is about 25% of the teams giving us a full look into the year ahead. With these 14 schedules, we know of at least 324 matches for the 2023 season.2 If we look at 2022, there were 723 regular season matches. If we adjust for the two new teams this year and round up to 750 for this season, then we probably know about 43% of all matches that will be played for the 2023 season.3 I’m sure within the coming weeks, we will know even more matches and the calendar will start to get even more crowded as we pass the 50% mark.
Speaking of calendars… here is a heat map of the known schedule. (The scale currently goes from 1-11 matches.)
March 24th and 25th already looks to be a busy weekend with almost all of these matches being conference matchups. Go ahead and mark your calendars now for some very full Fridays and Saturdays. (Currently the busiest day is Friday, February 10th with 11 matches scheduled.)
VBelo Upcoming Matches
You might be thinking: “This is a lot of matches. I wish there was a convenient place to look at all the matches that are coming up and maybe even filter them by date range or team.” If this is what you were thinking, we have very similar minds…weird.
But also, you are in luck! Since I have all of this data laying around, I am starting to put it to good use so that others can use it. I have put the fist touches on the VBelo Dashboard. This dashboard will be the go-to place for rankings, schedules, results, and stats. Since you are reading the VBelo Scouting Report, you get the first glimpse at this new part of the VBelo project.
It’s interactive, so you will get more out of it if you click the link above.
I would love to know what you think and what you might want added to the dashboard for the upcoming season!
Fall Matches
There are a handful of teams playing some fall warmup matches, but I want to start with a big disclaimer here. It is October 2022. The regular season doesn’t start for another 2+ months. These matches mean nothing and tell us very little about the teams that we will see in January, let alone April. So take all of this with less than a grain of salt.
Irvine Thriller
It would be shameful not to mention a crazy exciting match that Irvine played against the 2-time defending champs, Hawai’i, on October 22nd. The Rainbow Warriors came away with the win in Cinco Sets: 23-25, 25-21, 24-26, 25-22, 24-22. That last set isn’t a typo, it was a back and forth battle to the very end.
Irvine was led by Francesco Sani’s 25 kills (.333%) while Dimitrios Mouchlias picked up where he left off last year for Hawai’i with 20 kills (.268%). Both teams played extremely well in the 5th set. UCI hit a match high .379% in the final frame but Hawai’i went above and beyond to hit .464% when the match was on the line. It is early, but this is a great reminder of the close matches that we will get to watch in just a few short months.
Fall Tournaments & Exhibitions
Here is a quick run down of some fall tournaments and exhibitions.4 This weekend, there is quite a bit of action so hopefully you can catch some of it. At the very least, hopefully we will get some great highlights.
10/22 LBSU Hosted Tournament
CSUN def. Concordia (2-0)
CSUN def. Vanguard (2-1)
CSUN def. UCSD (2-0)
LBSU def. CSUN (2-1)
Other scores unknown at this time.
10/29 - USC Tournament
CSUN
USC
Master's
Stanford
UCSD
St. Katherine
UCI
10/29 - 2 Match Exhibition
Pepperdine at LBSU
10/29 - Ohio State Tournament
Ohio State
Ball State
Charleston
10/29 - Exhibition
Niagara Frontier VBC (VLA) at Daemen
10/30 - Exhibition
Sacred Heart at Fairleigh Dickinson
11/4 - Exhibition in Newbury Park, CA
Hawai’i vs Pepperdine
11/5 - Exhibition
Alderson Broaddus at Geneva
11/6 - Exhibition
Long Island at Fairleigh Dickinson
11/7-9 - Exhibition
USC at Alberta (Canada)
11/12 - Stanford Movember Tournament
Stanford (Cardinal & White)
Menlo College
UC Santa Cruz
UC Merced
Bay Area Dimes (B.A.D.) - a local semi-pro team
11/18-19 - UCLA SAC Tournament
UCLA
CSUN
USC
UCSB
Other teams not announced yet.
Charleston, Concordia-Irvine, Emmanuel, Erskine, Lewis, Long Island, Morehouse, Missouri S&T, Ohio State, Pepperdine, Queens, Stanford, UCSB, & UCLA.
My spreadsheet has 324 right now, but I know there have been additional matches that schools have mentioned that are not added to this. A good example is FDU playing Belmont Abbey to open their season. All this to say, this number is not perfect.
This is just some “back of the envelope” type math. Don’t quote me on it.
I know I don’t have every match, but this is a pretty decent list of what is available.