The United States women's volleyball team has named 10 Volleyball Nations League debutants in its 14-player roster for Week 1 in Beijing, a selection call that has drawn criticism from analysts who say the Americans are leaning too heavily on inexperienced players during what is already a transition cycle.
"I think it's fair to say, this isn't a great roster," Olympian and beach volleyball world champion Sarah Pavan said on her Volly Talk podcast. "We have 10 players on that list out of 14 that are making their VNL debuts. That's a lot. That is a lot."
The four players with previous VNL experience are Madi Skinner, Ronika Stone Perry, Morgan Hentz and Zoe Jarvis. The remaining 10 have never been on the VNL roster before.
Pavan, who competed for the Canadian national team at two Olympic Games and captured a beach volleyball world title in 2019, said the experience gap matters well beyond what happens on court.
"My biggest concern is just the lack of experience. Not from an on-court perspective — that is a separate thing for me," she said. "Normally when you're traveling and things are brand new and it's just like a new experience, kind of overwhelming, you want a couple older or more veteran athletes there to kind of hold down the fort from an emotional perspective. And like not even that they have to play, but just to be there to be a steady influence of like, this is how this works. This is what we're doing. This is normal."
Defenders of the decision have argued that the Americans are automatically qualified for the 2028 Olympics as hosts, meaning the next three-year cycle is effectively a rebuilding window. Pavan pushed back firmly on that framing.
"I've engaged in a few conversations, and I've seen some dialogue this past week of people saying, 'Well, you know, it doesn't really matter because the US is going to get the number one seed in the Olympics in 2028. Like it's that's just going to happen.' So the next four years don't really matter essentially is the conversation. And I very much disagree with that."
She argued that culture and institutional knowledge can't be transmitted by veterans who simply aren't there.
"You can't do that when you have all new players. It's really hard to pass that culture on. So now you're expecting people to raise their level without anybody leading the way. And I just think it's really hard to do that without experience. And that's my concern with the young roster."
The Americans open VNL Week 1 against Turkey in Beijing on June 3.