How Chris Lamb set up Wichita State volleyball schedule to chase NCAA Tournament return
With a core group of hitters back for their fourth season playing together, the Wichita State volleyball team is primed to make a run at the program’s first NCAA Tournament berth since 2017.
The Shockers won seven of their final eight matches in American Athletic Conference play to end last season, finishing with an 18-13 record and an NIVC bid. They open their 2023 season with an exhibition slated against Oklahoma at 4 p.m. Thursday at Koch Arena.
Returning from last year’s squad are three all-conference performers in sixth-year senior outside hitter Brylee Kelly, fifth-year senior opposite hitter Sophia Rohling and fourth-year junior middle blocker Natalie Foster.
Throw in a handful of immediate-impact transfers in outside hitter Barbara Koehler (Florida Southwestern), senior setter Izzi Strand (UC San Diego) and sophomore defensive specialist Gabi Maas (TCU) and WSU has realistic expectations to push newcomer Rice, which received a No. 23 national preseason ranking, for the conference title this season.
“This is a better volleyball team than last year,” said WSU head coach Chris Lamb, who enters his 24th season in charge. “That works for me because I know what I’m working with, but the outside world judges everything on your record. And this team has a lot in front of it.”
Lamb is the ultimate number-cruncher and knows the ins and outs of the RPI metric that is so important to mid-major programs in the college volleyball power structure looking to build at-large resumes.
His work constructing last season’s non-conference slate was surgical, as WSU played six NCAA Tournament teams in Creighton (12), UNLV (24), Kansas (28), Iowa State (31), Wright State (47) and Northern Colorado (89). Nine of WSU’s 11 non-conference opponents finished inside the RPI’s top-135, a key in why WSU’s RPI was boosted all the way to No. 60 despite a 5-6 showing.
Lamb has shifted toward more power-conference foes for this year’s non-conference schedule, which includes the likes of KU, Colorado, Texas Tech, Illinois and Notre Dame.
“The dirty little secret in RPI is that it only knows your success rate, it doesn’t know how good you are,” Lamb said. “So lesser teams that win a lot are better on your schedule than better teams that don’t win as much. So people look at our schedule and see (those power-conference teams) and say, ‘Wow, you’re playing a lot of tough teams.’
“You’re right, but we also need them to be really good teams. We need them to be 20-game winners. They can’t be 13-18 going the other way.
“We need to be around 48 to be in the equation (for an NCAA berth) and that has more to do with your non-conference schedule than it has to do with you. So is our schedule going to hold up? Last year it did and it moved us up the dial. Let’s hope our schedule this year does the same.”
KU and Colorado are safe bets to once again be in postseason contention, but WSU stands to benefit greatly if opponents like power-conference opponents like Texas Texas Tech (11th in the Big 12), Illinois (seventh in the Big 10) and Notre Dame (10th in the ACC) out-perform their preseason expectations. Playing good mid-major opponents like Omaha, Northern Colorado and Houston Christian, which combined for 65 wins last season, should also help boost WSU’s non-conference strength of schedule.
Lamb says he and other coaches in the league are a bit miffed at the American’s decision to crown a conference champion through unbalanced scheduling between two divisions instead of hosting a conference tournament at the end of the season. After Cincinnati, Houston and UCF departed for the Big 12 this past summer, the AAC added Charlotte, Florida Atlantic, North Texas, Rice, UAB and UTSA and changed to seven-team divisions.
As a result of the geography-based system, the three expected top teams in the American — Rice (RPI No. 15), SMU (No. 59) and WSU (No. 60) — will battle one another in the West division, while UAB (No. 149) is the highest-ranked team from last season in the East division.
“Mathematically, it seems irresponsible to me,” Lamb said. “Somebody is going to have an easier schedule than somebody else. If somebody runs the table on the other side, good luck keeping up when we’re going to cannibalize ourselves in the West.
“That’s what it feels like, at least. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe somebody runs away with it in the West and the East beats the crap out of each other. But that’s not the conversations the coaches are having. The coaches are saying it the other way.”
This story was originally published August 16, 2023 at 6:00 AM.
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