By now, we all know that college volleyball is more popular than ever before. During the 2024 NCAA volleyball season, ESPN even garnered record viewership numbers (most-consumed NCAA women’s volleyball record ever with 1.3 billion minutes), underscoring for sure that fandom of the sport is on the rise in the country. But who would have thought that it would also be a problem at the collegiate level that forces the USA Volleyball to adjust its operations?

The 2025 FIVB Women’s U21 World Championship will kick off in Surabaya, Indonesia, on Wednesday, and USA Volleyball hopes to win its first trophy at the competition. However, it seems like the hopes to do so got a serious issue to deal with even before the tourney begins, courtesy of the NCAA.

On August 3, Avid Volleyball hit X to share details of the USA Volleyball team that has been named for the upcoming competition. “USAVolleyball has announced the 12 athletes selected to represent at the U21 World Championship this week in Indonesia,” the X update notes, before going ahead to highlight rather startling information. “Due to conflict with the NCAA, this is a U19 team being sent,” Avid Volleyball points out how the USA Volleyball had to mitigate the NCAA’s operations in order to have its representation at the FIVB U21 World Championship.

While the details of the scheduling conflict weren’t made public, we assume that with the NCAA season starting soon, the country’s apex collegiate volleyball body didn’t want to put too much pressure on its biggest stars. The 2025 season will commence less than a week after the FIVB U21 tournament comes to an end, and it’s only natural for the NCAA to want the athletes to be in peak condition to handle the hectic schedule, irrespective of how the USA Volleyball fares at the international competition.

But this wouldn’t be the first time the national team had to do this. At the 2023 FIVB U21 World Championship, too, USA Volleyball sent a team comprised of U19 athletes and placed sixth at the tournament. The 12 stars who will be representing the Stars and Stripes at the competition in Indonesia this year were selected from a group of 19 who recently underwent rigorous training at the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.

But fret not. Just because the U21 team is made entirely of athletes from a younger age group doesn’t mean that they aren’t up for shouldering the duty that awaits them in Asia. Six of the 12 USA Volleyball athletes named for the World Championship have past experience with the national team and even boast goldware with the team or in an individual capacity. The USA will enter the tourney in Pool B, with China, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Korea, and Croatia.

After the FIVB World Championship ends, many of these stars will be back on the court before too long. But this time, not as the friendly teammates.

USA Volleyball stars will soon stand with opposing camps

The U21 WC won’t be the last action to satiate the country’s volleyball fans. Instead, right after the international competition ends, the NCAA season will blitz into action. While it is true that this year there could be fewer collegiate volleyball matches to be televised nationwide, the fans would surely want to keep their eyes peeled for all the progress of the season. But for those who will be rooting for USA Volleyball at the U21 World Championship, it might be the 2026 season that would entice them more.

Many of the athletes who will be bearing the red, white, and blue flag in Indonesia will be back home next year, representing different NCAA factions on the volleyball court. While Keoni Williams and Jayden “JJ” Robinson will find their way to Lincoln as part of the Huskers’ Class of 2026, Blair Thiebaud will do so for the Louisville Cardinals.

More players from the U21 USA Volleyball squad will be headed to various NCAA powerhouse programs, including Wisconsin, Pittsburgh, Texas, and Louisville. How do you think the reunion on the court will pan out when they meet each other under different banners in the 2026 season? Will they let their time together as part of the national team affect their game against each other, or will the girls be able to handle things like professionals? We’d have to watch out to know!