Long Beach State Athletics!: Re: Beach Volleyball Prospects

I agree with a lot of what you have stated. Team needs to beat everyone behind them in the polls and win one or two more that are ahead of them.

I expect that the team needs to beat either Grand Canyon or LMU and also beat Pepperdine and Arizona to have a realistic chance at a bid.

It will still probably come down to the Big West tournament. I do not see the NCAA committee selecting three Big West teams so beyond winning the previously referenced matches the need to finish ahead of either Hawaii or Cal Poly.

Team looks to be improving but I have limited confidence in LB's number one team. The other flights seem to be contenders from week to week.

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with a win over #8 Stanford, the Beach team is putting themslelves in a solid position for a trip to Gulf Shores

the NCAA tournament expands to 16 teams this year.

LB has been around #14-16 all year in rankings

Big Wins: #13 Cal Poly, #8 Stanford, #16 Stetson
Sig Loss: #18 Pepperdine

major matches, the rematch with Pepperdine on APril 7 is huge, with both teams probably fighting for tose last of at-large teams , then LMU, Arizona, and likely Hawaii and/or Cal Poly in teh BWCT

LB has shown it could win the AQ, with the matches with Hawaii & Cal Poly, which will be a dog-fight up in SLO

The team has lost so many 2-3 matches (#4 LMU, #13 Cal / twice, Hawaii) so a large part of the season has been 'close but no cigar' to date, up to the 3-2 breakthru win over Stanford @ Palo Alto

need a couple more of those ranked wins to probabley secure a berth in the NCAAs

Long Beach is the host university for 2025 & 2026 as the NCAA championships come to Huntington Beach, and sponsored by Long Beach State - which is pretty prestigious considering the growth of the sport, and LB still the only Big West sponsor of teams in the area as Irvine/Full do not sponsor Beach Volleyball - so will be a big deal for the Beach Program, on top of host the 2024 Men's Volleyball Championships at teh Pyramid (fingers crossed that Mr. Nikolov stays for a few more years, we can hope to have Nikolov and Godbold anchoring what could be a blockbuster team in 2024 with Mr. Torwie as well, & Briggs should they all stay to play out their elgility - would be a dynamite team). Briggs could realistically be part of the National USA team, as could Nikolov part of the National Bulgarian team for the Olympics in 2024.