AAC Volleyball Changes Coming

[1972Shocker]

In this post by WstateU he links to an inteview of Becky Endicott, Senior Women's Administrator and Associate AD.

https://shockernet.net/forum/wichita...78#post1137478

At about the 5:50 mark through the 10:00 mark they start talking about Volleyball scheduling changes. Next year they are reducing the AAC schedule from 20 games to 18 games and in 2019 they will reduce to a 16 game schedule with a division setup and add a 6-team AAC Tournament. I think there are pehaps a few things behind this. One it will help with travel costs and it will free up some play dates to add non-conference opponents which hopefully AAC teams will use to schedule in a way to help the conference. The benefit of the AAC Tournament is that those dates do not count against your regular season play date limits.

These changes have Lambo's fingerprints all over them.

[WuShock16]

The tournament addition actually surprises me because I’ve heard the Lambs mention that they aren’t fans of volleyball conference tournaments.

[1972Shocker]

I have heard just the opposite this past year from Lambo.

[WuShock16]

Interesting. Maybe it was because for so long, the conference tournament was cursed for Shocker Volleyball. I just remember Shannon mention that many conferences didn't use the conference tournament, which guaranteed that your best team would go to the NCAA Tournament instead of the one that got hot **cough 2005 cough**.

[flyingMoose]

I am like WuShock16, I heard Lambo say that he was not a fan of conference tournaments. I wish I could remember the setting and the context, but alas.

[1972Shocker]

A couple of interesting tidbits on the AAC Tournament. The top 2 finishers in each division will make the tournament. However, it is not automatic that the #3 finishers in each division will make the tournament. The #4 team in one division, for example, might be better and more deserving than the #3 team in the other division. There will be some kind of selection criteria in selecting the final two teams and if I understood correctly this may include non-confernec SOS considerations. This definitley has Lambo's fingerprints on it as I know he was concerned about the quality of scheduling in AAC volleyball.

Also the host of the tournament will be the prior year's champion. This opens up the possiblity that the host team will not be a participant in the Tournament. Not sure if this is a good idea or not although I'm sure the biggest financial benefit of a post-season tournament is getting the Championship game televised.

Sounds like this stuff is still being hashed out and could be subject to some changes and no doubt will be tweaked as they go along and see how things work in practice.

[Cdizzle]

Interesting. Sounds very pro-WSU. Also very pro-improvement of the league.

[1972Shocker]

Interesting. Sounds very pro-WSU. Also very pro-improvement of the league.

I think Lambo had a very positive impact on Valley Volleyball along with Bobbi Peterson and Melissa Stokes. UNI was very good long before Lambo showed up. My expectations were that he would have a positive impact on AAC Volleyball eventually. I am a little surprised that it seems to be happening so quickly. I guess when you join a league and go 20-0 and host a regional that draws 7.25k fans you perhaps gain credibility real fast.

[1972Shocker]

Lambo along with South High's boys basketball coach Chris Davis joined Bob Lutz on The Drive on Friday to fill in for Jeff Lutz who was out of town. Both were excellent. Lambo could easily do a TV or Radio sports talk show when he retires if he wanted to. Love listening to that guy.

Right before Lambo had to leave Bob mentioned that changes the AAC was implementing for Volleyball which Chris confirmed. Chris said now the AAC volleyball coaches can add a couple of more non-conference teams to their schedules and it was up to them to add the right kind of teams.

Bob asked Lambo who he had on the schedule to fill those two additional slots next year.

Lambo's response: Well, next year I got Creighton again, I got Iowa State again, I got Stanford, I got BYU, I got Cal Poly, huh I got VCU who won 30 games last year, I mean I got more 20+ game winners next year than ever. I mean I'm throwing a lot at this young group but I like it, I am not afraid of it.

This discussion starts at about the 7:45 mark on this audio excerpt: http://www.kfhradio.com/media/audio-...coaches-corner