IUPUI Hampton Invitational

[UCONN_Husky]

Congrats on your National Ranking! Love to see American schools in the polls.

I think you'll roll through the AAC pretty easily. Hoping to see you guys make some noise in the post-season.

[flyingMoose]

Hoping to see you guys make some noise in the post-season.

Geography (where close-by will they send you - Nebraska about half the time) always bites the Shockers. The year the Shockers made the second weekend (2012), they were sent to Kansas, a very soft #11 seed, where they beat Arkansas and Kansas.

[1972Shocker]

Tabitha gives a quality interview as well. She was on The Drive with Bob and Jeff Lutz this afternoon.

http://www.kfhradio.com/media/audio-channel/killing-it-shocker-volleyball-star-tabitha-brown

[JayPak]

I have a PM asking that very question in to a poster on Volleytalk that would come to this forum when Creighton was still in the Valley. I'll post his reply.

Hi Moose,

I apologize for letting this slip. The question was... other than the obvious excellent coaching, how did Creighton volleyball go from being a decent mid-major to a national seed and borderline national title contender? And did an influx of money relating to the Big East move have anything to do with it?

1. I know it's the answer that's already obvious, but the top three factors in Creighton's rise were coaching, coaching, and coaching. Specifically, HC Kirsten Booth and her stable longtime associate coach Angie Oxley Behrens. Other than those two, there has been a revolving door of regular and graduate assistants who almost always end up staying in the game and rising in the coaching ranks when they leave Creighton. Booth will have established quite a coaching tree some day. She's strong at everything... recruiting, teaching the game, fostering team chemistry, strategy, academics, etc. If Booth and Behrens were to leave, the program would still be strong, but doubtful it would stay at a top-20 level.

2. The biggest area where Big East TV money brought improvement was in facilities. Creighton already had a dedicated women's basketball/volleyball arena with a volleyball sport court, but since the move to the Big East the main arena, locker rooms, lounges, etc have been updated and are on par with volleyball facilities anywhere in the country. Creighton also put money into TV production. Any game not on Fox under the Big East contract is webcast by the school in HD with announcers, replay, and the whole works, and it's free to the viewer. Lastly, the team still flies commercial as do all the school's teams except MBB, but they've been able to upgrade hotels and restaurants for all the school's teams including volleyball.

3. There hasn't been a big change in the recruiting methods or budget. Coaches still fly commercial or drive on recruiting trips. We all know the midwest is the most fertile volleyball recruiting area in the country. With the increased national success, Booth has made recruiting inroads into top clubs regionally... Iowa, KC, Colorado, South Dakota... in addition to getting her share of Nebraskans where she competes with Nebraska, Iowa State, and Iowa for recruits. She's also had great success with landing top transfers from the state schools who were playing but maybe not enough or in their preferred position. Dimke is an example. She played at Purdue, but as an OH when in her heart she wanted to be a setter.

4. Creighton has 2 unique inherent advantages in attracting players. 1) Creighton and BYU are the only top programs that are private schools, and since BYU is huge, Creighton is really the only small private school that's a national title contender. All the others are large state schools. So Creighton has an attraction for players who want a smaller campus, a private or Catholic environment, etc. 2) Creighton is one of the few schools in the midwest recruiting grounds that can tell a regional recruit she can play close to home while getting to travel to NYC, DC, Philly, Indy, Cincy, Milwaukee, and Chicago every year.

5. From an RPI standpoint, the Big East is similar to the AAC. Both are strong at the top, as is the MVC, and much better than the MVC in the middle and bottom. Still, in order to earn a seed and RPI bonus for scheduling, Creighton and Wichita both have to schedule very tough OOC and win some of the games. The good news is, if they do that, while they still might not earn a seed they have plenty of wiggle room for making the NCAA tournament. Both Shockers and Jays are locks to get in this year and are borderline seed candidates depending on how they finish.