Is ICSTS and NCSAA the same organization?

More ranting:

Let me review the reasons why Calumet/Calvary is not going back to NCSAA:

- Dirty crowded dorms
- Refs that call nothing, to the point where the play resembled backyard volleyball
- No set warmup policy - utter confusion the first day
- A ref that said the teams couldn't serve to each other, as is normal in warmups, because "that's the way girls get hurt". [Extremely puzzled look]. Huh? What are you talking about?
- Pool setup: 1)Three pools so that point differential is used to do the seeding, which rewards teams with really bad teams in their pool and causes teams to leave in their starters even in blowouts; and 2)three of the top five teams in one pool. Ours, of course.
- Invited teams that really shouldn't have been playing post season volleyball.
- Completely nonsensical rankings. I think the same people are doing the rankings at NCSAA and ICSTS, although the NCSAA people have better reasons for their bizarre rankings, as they can't see teams from every part of the country and don't know the competition, which is not the case for ICSTS. NCSAA has to rely on accurate information from the member teams, and I'm not sure they're getting it. The team that finished first, which was better by far than every team there, was ranked seventeenth in the country. The team that finished sixth in the tournament was ranked fifth and was the highest ranked team there. Yes, fifth in the country. We were ranked #22 and beat them badly and we weren't even playing our best. The team that finished second wasn't ranked in the top 25.
- The championship, or upper level, bracket play concluded with games at 9:00 AM, while the lower level brackets were played at 11:00. Better play should be rewarded with the later start, and you want to finish with your best match.
- The seventh-, fifth-, third-, and first place matches were all played at the same time. The championship game should be the only game being played at the time, so there is a championship-match feel, with all the other competitors watching and cheering.
- Championship games played at 9:00 AM. Not the right atmosphere for a championship. A tournament needs to build to a crescendo, and to do this the final needs to be at the end of the day, or at least afternoon.
- No MVP, no all-tournament team, no trophy for the champion (only a banner), nothing for teams finishing lower than first.

So Coach Carr has reserved the lodge at NACA next year. We're looking forward to going back there (and winning).