Big West Men’s Volleyball Brings New Schedule Format

The decision to form the six-team league for men’s volleyball in the existing Big West Conference has brought the freedom to try new things.

The biggest change is in the league schedule, which will feature back to back matches against the same opponent each week throughout the conference slate.

Teams will play home and home series except when playing Hawaii. That series will be played at a single location due to the distance.

All six teams will then play in the Big West Tournament to decide the league champion.

“Playing the same opponent back to back is something we are all familiar with, having played BYU and Hawaii on this schedule for decades,” UC Irvine coach David Kniffin said. “The biggest change for us as West Coast coaches is that we no longer maintain a first half and second half to our composite schedule. Traditionally, with a 12 or 14 team conference and witholding the aforementioned “island” schools, we played half the teams in the first half and the remaining teams in the second half. Now, we are playing two completely separate seasons. For most us, we will maintain all the old opponents and rivalries, but our first half is now two halves of a non-conference schedule.”

2018 Big West Conference Schedule

Another change is in the roster size allowed for league matches. Instead of the traditional 14-man active roster, teams will be allowed an unlimited roster.

It will be the decision of the travelling team how many players it brings for away matches.

“Moving into the Big West, as coaches we have talked a lot about doing it right,” Hawai’i coach Charlie Wade said. “We can make decisions that we think will make us a better league. If there is something we need to tweak to make things more exciting for the fans or more palatable for everyone in the league, we are going to do whatever it takes. That has been one of the exciting things about making the move to the Big West.”

To delve further into the ins and outs of the new schedule and the new substitution rules, VolleyMob sat down with Coach Wade for a short Q&A session.

It seems like old hat to you, but the idea of back to back matches against the same opponent seems like a new thing in volleyball.

I have actually heard that more sports in other conferences are doing some version of it to cut down on travel. Administrators like it because if you have an opponent that is a long way away, you don’t go every year, you go every other year. So, it saves on travel.

The coaches like it because you only prepare for one opponent a week. In terms of scouting and prepping, if you are playing multiple opponents, you don’t want to look at the second one until you are finished with the first one. And then, if you play a team once early and then you play them again late, it can be completely different because of injuries, because kids improve, etc. This way, you are more efficient. You spend less time preparing a scouting report and preparing for the match and you can really focus in on one opponent.

If you are the team with that injury though, you lose that player for both matches?

That is actually an interesting thing. Is having an injury impact against one opponent better than against two opponents? It is the same thing, you are just getting it against one opponent. The pendulum swings both ways. You may have injury or you may be playing someone else that is having one. You can’t prepare for or predict that.

Having experienced this many times, do you think there is an advantage whether you win the first match or not?

I think you always have a little bit of an advantage if you win the first night because you are not searching for as many answers. You still may tweak a few things, but if you lose the first night, there are a lot of different things you have to address and try to overcome. Was it something you can control or did someone on the other side just play at a level that you couldn’t contend with or didn’t prepare for?

The conference originally presented the back-to-back schedule as a Hawaii only thing. Did the fact that everyone else was willing to go it too make it more palatable for you?

I am the one that brought it up. I said consider this… from a competitive standpoint, everyone is on a level playing field. It equals it for everyone because everyone is preparing for a single opponent in a week. We are all doing the same thing rather than us doing something different than everyone else.

And the other part that I think makes it more palatable is that you are talking about a short season. There are only five league opponents, so the variance with injuries and who teams can beat throughout the season is a lot less. With a 14-week schedule, or 13 opponents like we used to have, that is months and months that can go on from start to finish.

And with the six team league, everybody makes postseason. So, you are really only playing for seeding. It is really not affecting the ultimate outcome. The bid to the NCAA Tournament is from the Big West Tournament and everybody is already in so you are just playing with seeding.

So, if somebody caught an advantage at some point or was disadvantaged, you are just playing for seeding. You are not going from first to sixth, you are not moving very far in the bracket, so ultimately it doesn’t really make that big of a difference. It really is not impacting things competitively.

Talk about the other choices you have made as coaches as you form this new conference. 

I think one of the other decisions that we made that will be impactful is opening up the roster size. We are limited to 14 players to start the match. Before the match you have to go over and activate 14 players. As a result, you never pick the third setter or third libero or somebody further down the depth chart. You never take three setters, you only take two.

But, with an unlimited roster size, you can put those guys in at any time. You are not limited to just the 14 you had to activate. You can travel them, you can take them on the road, which for the Southern California teams is big. If you have 20-something guys on your roster and you get to drive to the opponent that is just up the freeway a little bit and bring your whole bench, I think it will make for a fun environment for everybody.

We aren’t going to travel more than 14, but at home all of our guys will be eligible. And also, it is just going to allow you to play more of your bench and get guys into meaningful moments that we were limited on before.

Was there a financial consideration to the changes?

I don’t think it is as impactful for the Big West teams financially, because they are all in southern California and they were all going to do it with us (Hawai’i) anyway. The one that was going to save them the most money was the Hawaii trip and we are already doing it and we are going to continue to do it. Financially, where it pays off, is if you are travelling a long way.