Random weird thoughts and associations as we comb through the gold mine that is the NCAA Division I volleyball tournament bracket.
Such as:
BOWLING GREEN, BOWLING GREEN: Kentucky of the SEC, located in Lexington, Kentucky, will play host to MAC-champion Bowling Green, Atlantic 10-champion Loyola Chicago, and Western Kentucky, which represents Conference USA. Bowling Green is located in Bowling Green, Ohio. WKU is located in Bowling Green, Kentucky (no relation, presumably), and Loyola is located nowhere near the Atlantic …
LSU/BATON ROUGE: There’s a Louisiana theme to be explored.
In the first round at Stanford, LSU of the SEC plays Big West-champion Hawai’i. The Rainbow Wahine’s best player is Amber Igiede, who is from Baton Rouge. Igiede, fourth in the NCAA in hitting percentage (.439), third in the Big West in kills per set (3.79) and second in the conference in blocks (1.3/set), was not recruited by her hometown school …
Gianpaolo Nicolosi
LSU coach Fran Flory retired after last season, but one of her former players, Tonya Johnson, replaced her. Johnson has gotten the Tigers back into the tournament for the first time since 2017. Another former of Flory’s players, Lyndsey Benson Oates, has been the coach at Northern Colorado since 2005. She’s got the Bears back into the tournament for the third time in four years and they will play at San Diego …
And back to Kentucky. Bowling Green head coach Danijela Tomic was an LSU assistant from 2003-04 and WKU assistant coach Craig Bere was an LSU assistant from 2004-06 …
Southeastern Louisiana is located in Hammond, Louisiana, about 45 miles east of Baton Rouge, and the Southland champion is making its first NCAA appearance. One of its players is sophomore DS/libero Lexi Gonzalez. Lexi is not only from Baton Rouge, but the last player from my old club, Volleyball Baton Rouge (2000-2019) playing in Division I (Hey, a little self indulgence is OK once in a while). And Lexi and Amber Igiede were teammates at St. Michael High School for one proud coach, Rob Smith. SLU, by the way, has 15 players from Louisiana on its roster …
REHR ROARS: Speaking of Volleyball Baton Rouge, back in the day at club tournaments, I became friends with the then-Arkansas State coach, Dave Rehr. We just used to hang around and visit and I always figured one day he would move to a bigger program. Indeed he did and…
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