*Originally posted 2/27/2023
I don't know if there is a better tournament right now that shows, almost tangibly, how competitive volleyball is nationwide at the club level. Between Triple Crown and the tournament in St. Louis (I don't know what's its called, but many of the college coaches I talked to where going there as well) there is flat out a TON of great volleyball out there.
Now why bring this up? I am always talking about how competitive this sport is. Recently, I have been talking about how the college level cuts out roughly 95% of the volleyball athletes in the country. Yes, college volleyball is competitive. But when you can see it like you can at Triple Crown it turns ideas into reality.
So lets look at some numbers really quick before I continue:
Of the TOP 32 teams at Triple Crown last weekend, there is a lot of talent. But we know it's not ALL the talent.
32 Top Teams x 12 athletes = 384 athletes in total
Now we know a couple of things from my blog post By The Numbers: Power 5 blog post
1) There are roughly 1000 scholarships available at D1 level in any given class
2) We know that 252 athletes will get recruited into the P5 schools
3) Only 189 of the 252 will actually be on scholarship
So we've already exhausted not only the total number of scholarships available to the P5 schools, but the number of athletes recruited to the P5 schools as a whole. As for the rest of D1, there are plenty of athletes outside (and possibly inside) those teams in the top 32 at Triple Crown in the 17s age group that are already committed to D1 schools. Plenty of others are still uncommitted! Even more so, how many of those athletes are playing D2 in that top group of 32 teams?? Any??
How good are the athletes on teams that were playing in St. Louis? Good enough for college coaches to split their weekend up. How good is the next group of 32 teams (another 400 athletes) in Kansas City and St. Louis?
Walk to almost any 17s or 16s court in that convention center and there were college coaches from all levels standing around. Collectively it was great competition.
Triple Crown is a perfect example of why I tell athletes they need to stand out in the recruiting process. The pool of athletes to choose from is huge. Out of the 91 schools that I received needs from for the 2024 class, 27 are looking for a setter. There were 120 teams there playing in the 17s division. If there are 1.5 setters per team, that's 180 setters. Now some of those are going to be committed already, that's fine. But there is still a lot left to sift through as a college coach. 27 college coaches, sorting through 180 setters in 2.5 days? I wouldn't be taking my chances that the schools I am looking at just happen to come across my court. That's too risky.
Instead, be proactive. Contact college coaches. Put them in a position to come watch you. You can't always control if they will like you or not and that's okay. But you are getting them to come see for themselves. Not connecting with college coaches to get them to come watch you play is just too risky; it's really competitive out there.
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