Parity is what makes sports interesting, popular and unpredictable.
According to UF volleyball coach Mary Wise, it is also the reason her team lost three games in the first month of the 2011 season.
“It is great for the game,” she said. “Not great for the coaches. Not great for their mental health.”
After a 2010 in which the Gators’ only regular-season loss was to eventual national champion Penn State, Florida has been battle-tested early.
Wise’s team has already played as many five-set matches as it did in all of 2010. A year ago, the Gators were 4-0 in said matches, but this season they are 1-3.
“The 3-0 sweeps, they’re just not going to happen,” Wise said.
UF’s coach of 21 years credits the emergence of balanced competition to a couple of factors.
Since 2008, NCAA volleyball has operated off best-of-five games with first-to-25 point scoring. The 1999 abolition of side-out scoring was another change intended to make games quicker and more even.
“There’s not a lot of room for error here,” Wise said.
But without an uprising of talent, the rules would not have made a difference.
Wise said more premier female athletes are playing volleyball than ever before, leading to surprising turns such as this past weekend when No. 1 California was defeated by UCLA and USC.
“These tournaments that we go to in the spring to recruit are played in these convention centers. There could be 100 courts,” Wise said. “You’re seeing so many better athletes play the game at a higher level. It used to be we were all recruiting the exact same players. Now there’s more talent throughout the country.”
Detractions can be made to Wise’s argument. While the NCAA volleyball tournament has seen fresh faces over the last four years, it has been won each time by Penn State. Of the 30 NCAA titles that have been won in women’s volleyball, 18 have been by either Penn State or a team currently in the Pac-12.
And this isn’t the first time Florida has opened a season against tough competition. At this time last year, the Gators had faced seven AVCA Top-25 squads — compared to five this year.
Now the conference slate also looks as tough as ever for a Gators team that has won 19 of the last 20 Southeastern Conference titles. Florida’s loss Sunday to Tennessee snapped a 24-game conference winning streak.
“Whether you’re in the SEC or the Big 10 or the Pac-12, there’s just no easy W’s on the list,” Wise said.
“The game has evolved so differently because every team has a great point scorer.”
