The U.S. Women’s National Team ended the opening week of the 2025 Volleyball Nations League with a victory, but it was still a disappointing showing from the nation that once won the tournament three times in a row. Fans across social media and dedicated discussion groups are largely displeased with the performance of Team USA after the squad opened with three straight losses. While defeat at the hands of a full-strength Italy and a strong Brazil squad–in front of a fiery Rio de Janeiro crowd, no less–could be expected, losing in a reverse sweep to VNL newcomer Czechia was a much harder pill to swallow.

The straight-sets victory over a winless Korea doesn’t do much to raise spirits, given that the opponent has won only two of its last 34 matches at the VNL and will almost certainly be relegated under this year’s new rules. If anything, the fact that the struggling Korean team pushed the U.S. to extra points in the second set was further cause for concern.

As is typical in any sport, USA fans have immediately started to point fingers. The most common target is the new head coach Erik Sullivan, who has Karch Kiraly’s Olympic gold medal-winning shoes to fill. In pre- and post-match interviews throughout the week, Sullivan has been clear about his intention for the week: he wants to see what this youthful roster can do and “collect data points” based on the team’s performance. I would argue that you don’t need to watch a fairly inexperienced roster play against powerhouse teams to know that it’s a losing formula, but I’m not privy to the conversations inside the USA gym.

Now, we wait to see how Sullivan adjusts his strategy when the Week 2 roster is released. In the meantime, here are my thoughts on what’s working and what isn’t for this new iteration of USA women’s volleyball.

What’s Working

Sarah Franklin is the real deal. The 2023 AVCA National Player of the year’s future looks bright. Her performance against Czechia was one of the few bright spots after that tough 2-3 loss, as she came away with 19 kills and a .264 hitting efficiency. She is the team’s kills leader after Week 1, with 41 attack points to her name. Her passing also held up fairly well, except when she had to shoulder responsibility for weaker passers next to her (more on that later). After the national team season wraps up, she’s headed to Italian A1 team Scandicci for the 2025-2026 season, and I’m looking forward to seeing how she develops.

USA remains strong at the middle position. While Anna Dodson and Serena Gray didn’t get much time to prove themselves on the court this week, Molly McCage and Amber Igiede each had plenty of highlights. McCage had a number of momentum-building blocks, including four in the match against Italy, while Igiede’s offensive output was rock solid. Igiede’s block also came alive in the match against Korea, where she recorded nine blocks in addition to seven kills.

There’s a healthy right-side pipeline. After two straight quads of Jordan Thompson and Annie Drews alternating as the starting opposite, there are several new faces who look primed to take over the role. Of the two opposites on this week’s roster–both of whom are still in college–Logan Lednicky was afforded the most playing time, and, for the most part, she played well. She recorded 27 kills and three blocks, while reigning AVCA National Player of the Year Olivia Babcock registered 17 kills, one block, and one ace.

What’s Not Working

Too much youth all at once. Exposing new players to this level of competition is critical for the growth of any national team, but throwing together a team of players with limited-to-no professional experience and hoping for the best isn’t the way to do it. Of the 12 players named to the Week 1 roster, two are still in college, seven have only played a max of two professional seasons (not counting the aforementioned college athletes), and only four have prior VNL experience. Having three or four veteran players (especially those who can pass well) would have done wonders for this team not just from a performance perspective, but likely also in terms of regulating their emotions and processing defeat.

Coaching isn’t tactical enough during timeouts. I was surprised to see assistant coach Brandon Taliaferro leading more timeouts than Sullivan did. Given that he’s new to the position, I would think Sullivan would want to establish himself as the go-to leader when things aren’t going well, but he often deferred to Taliaferro straight away. When he did offer feedback, it rarely, if ever, touched on tactics. Instead, he emphasized “resetting” and getting a good pass—things that are easier said than done. The lack of strategic feedback was made more apparent in the match against Czechia, where head coach Giannis Athanasopoulos’ thoughtful instructions to his players helped them eke out the win. A more laissez-faire and feelings-focused approach might find success with seasoned veterans, but these young players need direction that they simply didn’t get.

Forcing Madisen Skinner to play outside. For the better part of the past year, Skinner has been playing as an opposite. That’s the position in which she made her VNL debut against Thailand last summer, where she looked extremely comfortable not having to shoulder passing responsibilities. Given that she also played on the right side in her first pro season with LOVB Austin––where she was one of the league’s top scorers and the MVP of the championships, which her team won––it looked like that was the position she would be playing from here on out. But Sullivan, who is familiar with Skinner as an outside hitter from their time together at Texas, seems keen on sticking her on the left side, which means she has to return to the passing lineup. It’s not going well; she passed 33% positive on the week, and it was in trying to cover for her passing that Sarah Franklin found herself getting aced several times in the final set against Korea.

It’s unclear if the decision to put her back on the left side comes from Skinner herself or the coaching staff, but it has not proved to be successful. This is not to say that I think Skinner could never play as an outside again; in fact, I think that having a full-strength Skinner as a left-side and one of the promising up-and-coming opposites in the pipeline (Babcock, Lednicky, Kennedy Martin) on the right side could prove to be extremely effective. But the pressure of having to pass after months of not having done so is clearly weighing on her, and she needs serious investment in her reception skills if she’s going to find success in the role.

Looking Ahead to Week 2

In Week 2, USA will be in Belgrade to face Serbia, Poland, Netherlands, and France. Like Korea, anything less than a sweep against France is unacceptable, but the remaining competitors should not go underestimated.

Despite going 0-4 in Week 1, Serbia is not going to look the same in their home country, as we can expect the A-team––led by star opposite Tijana Boskovic—to show up hungry to make up for the losses incurred by their less experienced counterparts. The full-strength USA team at the Paris Olympics barely squeaked away with a win during pool play last summer, coming away with a 17-15 fifth-set victory. Without several key Olympians on the VNL roster, things might get ugly for the U.S.

Team USA also struggled with Poland several times during the last quad, most notably losing to them in the 2023 VNL bronze medal match. A well-composed roster could give Poland a run for its money, but getting past the wall of 6’8” Magdalena Stysiak and 6’7” Agnieszka Korneluk is a tall order (pun intended) even for the fiercest of competitors. It’s possible that Stysiak, for whom consistency seems to be a challenge, may struggle from an offensive standpoint, but outside hitters Martyna Łukasik and Martyna Czyrniańska are more than capable of carrying the attacking load for this Polish team.

The Netherlands, in my opinion, is a bit of a toss-up. Injuries mean they are without several of their key starters, but they’ve managed to compete serviceably in the first week of competition, coming away 2-2. Victory will depend on who the U.S. fields against this time as well as which of the Dutch players are able to step up.

We likely won’t hear who’s on the USA’s Week 2 roster until this weekend, but I know I’m not alone in hoping that we’ll see some of the more experienced players to guide the newcomers who have shown the most promise. There also needs to be emphasis placed on getting playing time for those most likely to compete at the World Championships later this summer. Given that neither Babcock nor Lednicky will be able to attend, I’d like to see Skinner return to the right side for the rest of the VNL, though I’m not confident that will be the case.