Good morning, beach volleyball fans,
The NCAA Beach preseason can be a long interminable slog. It’s seven weeks, nearly as long as the season itself (9 weeks), and you quickly get tired of beating up on your own team. The anticipation builds to see what other coaches do with their lineups, what potential upsets could happen, what dark horses could shine on opening weekend, what favorites could falter. Sometimes the opening weekend delivers; sometimes it’s a dud.
This was as eye-popping of an opening weekend as I can remember since I started following the sport in 2018 or so.
Hawaii launched its Danny Alvarez era in swaggering style, stunning top-ranked UCLA on the opening day of the annual Outrigger Duke Kahanamoku Classic. Hawaii entered ranked No. 16, which in the beach volleyball world is virtually unranked. Did they win any the rest of the weekend? Nope. But they competed well against a field replete with NCAA Championship contenders.
Stanford, the preseason No. 2, followed up on the Hawaii win by adding another victory over UCLA — the Bruins DID win three matches as well, over Texas, LMU, and USC — and will likely become the new No. 1.
Over on the mainland, Arizona State whacked defending National Champs TCU, 4-1, and is off to a tremendous start. Good on them and second-year coach Kristen Glattfelder and my good friend and old partner Paul Araiza — never forget p1440 San Jose, buddy! They were the first team out of the NCAA Championships field a year ago. A 4-0 start, with wins over TCU and No. 13 GCU, is big.
Here in Tallahassee, we started 6-0 with six sweeps, the best start Florida State has had since 2012 — the year we were ranked No. 1 in the country. Sixteen players recorded a win for us in those six matches, which has to be some sort of opening weekend record.
Lots more happened, but my son is sitting on my lap, requesting Magnatiles and breakfast, and there has never been a more serious deadline to hit than that.
Moving on.
The week in SANDCAST Studios
This week featured me, chatting with y’all on our monthly fan question episode. I tackle questions covering a full preview of the NCAA Beach season, what the new Beach Pro Tour format might look like, if we’ll ever see a Queen and King of the Beach format again in professional beach volleyball, and my optimal Olympic beach volleyball partnerships. Fun one:
News Around the Beach
- The ultimate 2026 beach volleyball calendar. We dropped every event you need to know, right here, and, when we knew this information, where to watch. Bookmark this page.
- Matt Fuerbringer to head USA Men’s Beach Volleyball. The complete — and probably needed — overhaul of USA Beach Volleyball has another major piece in place with the hiring of Matt Fuerbringer as the head coach of the U.S. men. Fuerby is awesome, and is still one of my favorite SANDCAST episodes we’ve ever done. You can rewatch that one, from 2021 I believe, here. He’ll have two hires to make for his assistants, and the overhaul will be complete, with all of the pieces in place to begin building for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
- Watch SANDCAST Episodes Early! Become a member of our YouTube Channel and you’ll get every piece of content days or weeks or, now, months, even, before anybody else. We have A TON already scheduled, including this week’s pod with Confident Mind author Nate Zinsser, and a bunch more from the conversation with Doc Z.
- Coming up on Wednesday we have the aforementioned Doc Z, which is the episode I was most excited to record of any I can remember. It delivered. It’s already up for our YouTube members to watch.
Much Love to the sponsors
We’ve been with Wilson Volleyball since day one, and we love the products they make — the best ball on the market, hands down, no questions asked. Use our discount code: TRIANDTRAVIS26 for 20 PERCENT OFF.
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Back again with AG1! Joining forces again with AG1, the best supplement in the world, and we’re not too shy to say it. So if you want to stay healthy AND help the show, please order with this link, which comes with a billion free things when you subscribe. Just do it.
We’re officially partnered with Better at Beach! If you want to get Better at Beach, use our code SANDCAST for 10 percent off all of their products, from online classes to in-person camps and more.
Appreciate y’all for listening, reading, and loving the beach like we do.
Have a great week!
SHOOTS!
SANDCAST Team
