Geography certainly is a factor. UCLA and other West Coast schools have a large pool of players to draw from, whereas participation in boys high school volleyball in Ohio is rather sparse. Ohio State senior Greg Lehman said. There's more competition out there. There's more high school volleyball.
Guys are beach volleyball professionals.
The Buckeyes and Penn State, which plays Brigham Young in the other semifinal tonight, are interlopers in the Hotel California that is the NCAA Final Four. California schools have won all but two championships since UCLA claimed the first tournament in 1970. Penn State was second in 1982, but Californians took the top two spots until 1994 when the Nittany Lions upset UCLA to take the title out of the state for the first time. There's a stigma that there's no good volleyball east of the Rockies. That's not true,'' Hill said.