Anonymous wrote:

FPYCparent wrote:Maybe to put in another way, ...

There is no central body that does scheduling for tournaments to ensure some level of fair competition. This isn't high school (or Little League, the NFL, NHL, MLB, etc.) where someone has a vested interest in having all teams play each other. At best, each tournament host takes all paying entrants for a particular age group and tries to seed them so that better teams (based on past-but-hopefully-very-recent performance) have the best chance to win their bracket. It is basically a pay-and-you-are-in NCAA Tournament Selection Show and the tourney itself starting and ending within a span of a week ... and repeating the process weekly for the next tourney. Things will naturally be out-of-whack here in January, because we really don't know how good/bad some teams may be in these early-season contests.

Remember, each club must pay a fee to the host of each team it enters into a tournament. So, clubs have an interest to keep their own balance sheets clean while providing (we hope, as paying customers) an adequate level of competition. Sometimes, it works. Other times, it won't.

Can only speak to MD Jrs but the main reason I think this is coming up is that this is a CHANGE. For those of us who've had girls play on DMV club 2s teams for the last 4 years, no one can remember playing a travel team during a MD Jrs tournament. And I've got multiple DDs playing for multiple teams, so we've got a good range of experience since many teams play at least 2 (some 4!) tournaments at MD Jrs per season. So the question is, why NOW? Why are Club Teams matched up with Travel teams at MD Jrs now? Is it just squeezing in as many paying teams as possible and not enough to do a Travel-only tournament so throw them in with the club teams, just spread them out? Or is there another reason?

All you say makes sense but it's the fact that this seems so different, it's natural to wonder what changed and why?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP and also a new club VB family. My DD was at the MD Jrs tournament last weekend and she was wondering the same thing: why was the Mojo Black (travel/open) team playing against her Metro regional team? It did seem a little odd. They had a seeding round first and then bracket play. Of course the travel teams there (Mojo, Legacy, etc) made it to the gold bracket rounds. DD did watch several games and saw the 2s teams (Paramount) or Metro regional teams win sets against those Mojo and Legacy travel teams. But it was definitely odd to see Mojo Black there when they also have a Mojo Pink regional level team that should have been there instead.

I assume Legacy as a new club is entering below their supposed division level so they can pump up their social media with medal brag photos against lower division teams. Frankly the Legacy team wasn’t that great considering all the hype on social (strong defense but weaker on offense). Same for Mojo black - opposite issue, strong hitters but weaker back row. Both are def going to get killed at the bid tournaments when they have to face other true open level teams. I guess it’s the optics.

They just all happened to sign up for the same tournament.

Teams want to play in tournaments to get ready for the bigger tournaments.

How is this so hard to understand?

FPYCparent wrote:Maybe to put in another way, ...

There is no central body that does scheduling for tournaments to ensure some level of fair competition. This isn't high school (or Little League, the NFL, NHL, MLB, etc.) where someone has a vested interest in having all teams play each other. At best, each tournament host takes all paying entrants for a particular age group and tries to seed them so that better teams (based on past-but-hopefully-very-recent performance) have the best chance to win their bracket. It is basically a pay-and-you-are-in NCAA Tournament Selection Show and the tourney itself starting and ending within a span of a week ... and repeating the process weekly for the next tourney. Things will naturally be out-of-whack here in January, because we really don't know how good/bad some teams may be in these early-season contests.

Remember, each club must pay a fee to the host of each team it enters into a tournament. So, clubs have an interest to keep their own balance sheets clean while providing (we hope, as paying customers) an adequate level of competition. Sometimes, it works. Other times, it won't.

Anonymous wrote:NP and also a new club VB family. My DD was at the MD Jrs tournament last weekend and she was wondering the same thing: why was the Mojo Black (travel/open) team playing against her Metro regional team? It did seem a little odd. They had a seeding round first and then bracket play. Of course the travel teams there (Mojo, Legacy, etc) made it to the gold bracket rounds. DD did watch several games and saw the 2s teams (Paramount) or Metro regional teams win sets against those Mojo and Legacy travel teams. But it was definitely odd to see Mojo Black there when they also have a Mojo Pink regional level team that should have been there instead.

I assume Legacy as a new club is entering below their supposed division level so they can pump up their social media with medal brag photos against lower division teams. Frankly the Legacy team wasn’t that great considering all the hype on social (strong defense but weaker on offense). Same for Mojo black - opposite issue, strong hitters but weaker back row. Both are def going to get killed at the bid tournaments when they have to face other true open level teams. I guess it’s the optics.

Anonymous wrote:NP and also a new club VB family. My DD was at the MD Jrs tournament last weekend and she was wondering the same thing: why was the Mojo Black (travel/open) team playing against her Metro regional team? It did seem a little odd. They had a seeding round first and then bracket play. Of course the travel teams there (Mojo, Legacy, etc) made it to the gold bracket rounds. DD did watch several games and saw the 2s teams (Paramount) or Metro regional teams win sets against those Mojo and Legacy travel teams. But it was definitely odd to see Mojo Black there when they also have a Mojo Pink regional level team that should have been there instead.

I assume Legacy as a new club is entering below their supposed division level so they can pump up their social media with medal brag photos against lower division teams. Frankly the Legacy team wasn’t that great considering all the hype on social (strong defense but weaker on offense). Same for Mojo black - opposite issue, strong hitters but weaker back row. Both are def going to get killed at the bid tournaments when they have to face other true open level teams. I guess it’s the optics.

FPYCparent wrote:For better or for worse, there are local CHRVA events nearly every weekend starting in January. Not every team at every club will participate in every event. If there are 75+ CHRVA teams in nearly every age group, there are going to be plenty of local events (Open or otherwise) where teams will compete and win. As I understand things, CHRVA "only" requires that teams compete in two local events to qualify for Bid Regionals in March ... and they only need to compete in one event at the Open level. So, you may not see supposedly higher-tier clubs teams playing at tons of local events.

While my kid was at Paramount last season, I learned that Paramount (1s) and Metro Travel tend to avoid each other at these local tournaments. (I have no idea if that is intentional on both sides ... or just on one). As best I can tell, a club like VA Juniors doesn't participate in many local one-day tournaments, seemingly relying on Cap Hill and ?National Harbor? to fulfill the CHRVA Bid Regional requirements. And then you have Blue Ridge which seems to meet requirements for competing at Bid Regionals, but will then decline to accept any bids their teams earn.

So, clubs have plenty of opportunities to put their teams in events where they can win. They just need to go out and do it on the court.

Anonymous wrote:

FPYCparent wrote:...

No. The only way to get a CHRVA bid to USAV nationals is at Regionals. CapClassic and National Harbor aren't qualifiers for nationals. I'm not aware of any local qualifiers but please correct me if I'm wrong. There are tournaments just for tournaments sake- the teams that want to go to qualify for USAV go to the qualifiers to do that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Saw social media posts that the Mojo travel open-level 1s teams and Legacy VB open-level 1s teams were playing and winning medals at the MD Jrs *regional* tourney last weekend. I’m confused - Shouldn’t both those teams be playing against other open level 1s teams? Like the Metro Travel and Paramount 1s teams? Instead they were bragging about placing over the Paramount 2s team and Metro regional teams. Just wondering what the protocol was there. FWIW, we heard those 2s and regional teams almost beat them in single digit sets. Just wondering what the strategy for that was.

NP - But why did MD Jrs allow that? We've been to Regional Club/Level 2 tournaments there for 3 years now, never heard of playing against 1s in a regional club tourney. Is that just greed on MD Jrs part or is that a "thing" now? From what I saw on social media, Mojo Travel weren't the only Travel/1s team there, also at least 2 others.