How JJ Van Niel turned around ASU volleyball

TEMPE – Having spent the previous eight seasons as an assistant at USC and Utah, coach JJ Van Niel was itching for a chance to take that next step as a head coach. When the job opened at Arizona State, he jumped at the opportunity. 

“The other benefit I had was that the expectations were, like, zero, maybe negative zero,” Van Niel said of the Sun Devils gig. “Picked like 11th in the conference that year. And the year before, finished maybe ninth or 10th and the whole team had transferred.”

Before the 2023 season, the ASU volleyball team was never viewed as a standout program. Dating back to the mid-1970s, the program had only made it out of the second round of the NCAA Tournament twice and that was all the way back in the mid-1990s.

Three years ago, things started to turn around for the program, in large part due to Van Niel. 

In his first three seasons with the Sun Devils, Van Niel has made it to the third round of the NCAA Tournament twice, with the other season ending in the second round. His .860 winning percentage is by far the best of any coach in ASU history.

“I just felt really ready,” Van Niel said. “The list of ‘nos’ for head coaching jobs for me is pretty long. I’d been trying for years. So, I wanted this for a long time and I felt prepared.”

The last time the Sun Devils were this consistent was in the early 2010s under coach Jason Watson, who is now coaching at Arkansas. After four years of inconsistency and poor play, Watson made the NCAA Tournament in 2012, the first time for the program in six years.

When Watson arrived in 2008 as a member of the Pac-10, he had a long to-do list. Playing in one of the best conferences in the country at the time, Watson knew that he had a lot of work to do if he wanted to turn the program around.

“It just took a while,” Watson said. “We had to find the right athletes that wanted to be part of some rebuild. I was also fortunate that I had a pretty patient administration that was willing to give me time to build it.”

The biggest help in his rebuild came from just up the road at Gilbert High School in the form of outside hitter Macey Gardner. The current coach at Air Force, Gardner came in as a freshman in 2012 after ASU finished 9-22 in 2011. 

Watson credited Gardner and other freshmen from that class with altering the culture. Just a year after winning nine matches, the Gardner-led Sun Devils made it to the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Watson pointed to a significant reason for his connection with that group.

“I would say a great deal of empathy,” he said. “That came from listening to the athletes more than just, ‘I’m the coach, go do what I say. Let’s get some healthy introspection and feedback from you guys.’”

The Sun Devils finished each of the next three seasons around the same place, winning 19 to 20 matches in each and making it to the NCAA Tournament each year. The farthest they managed to advance was in 2014, when ASU won its first postseason match since 2006 before losing in the NCAA’s second round.

In Watson’s final season with the team in 2015, everything was starting to click. The team got off to a blazing-hot start, jumping to 15-0 and up to No. 5 in national rankings.

“We were, I think, as good of this idea of team that I’ve ever coached,” Watson said. “That team was really diverse, yet wonderful, and I don’t know if I’ve coached a group that has been as good as that group was.”

After the hot start, the Sun Devils traveled to face Washington. After dropping the first set, Gardner went down with an ACL injury that sidelined her for the remainder of the season. 

Her loss derailed the remainder of the season. Following her injury, Arizona State finished the season 4-11 in its last 15 matches. While it was still good enough to make the tournament, the Sun Devils were a step behind other teams, eventually losing in straight sets in the NCAA’s first round.

Gardner’s graduation and Watson’s departure for the Razorbacks put the program back on a downturn over the next seven years, finishing just one season with a winning record, and not making the tournament in any of those years. The majority of those years were coached by current LOVB Houston coach and the latest LOVB coach of the year, Sanja Tomašević.

After the 2022 season, and after chasing multiple coaching candidates, ASU landed on Van Niel. The decision ended up producing more than either side could have imagined.

“Obviously, he wanted to put ASU on the map,” ASU outside hitter Jillian Neal said. “He wanted us to be a top program where we can get top recruits and compete for national championships. The way that he was just like confident in it and also like displayed a plan. He was prepared and very intentional in everything he was doing.”

When Van Niel joined the team, ASU had five players on scholarship, a large gap between the usual 10 to 12 on other DI teams. On top of that, the roster had nine players compared to the usual 15 to 20 that most rosters featured.

At the root of the problem was funding for the team, or lack thereof. Each time Van Niel was approached about being over budget his first year, he would cite not only the team’s lack of scholarships, but lack of players in general. 

Eventually, he said, ASU’s administration altered the budget and Van Niel was able to offer more scholarships.

“I remember them being kind of towards the bottom of the Pac-12,” Neal said. “But then, when I was talking to JJ and hearing his vision and how committed everyone else was, I really just trusted it.”

Before even touching a court, Van Niel wanted his players to first understand who he was and the approach that he hoped to bring. 

“The most important thing is just establish our culture and our standards right out of the gate,” Van Niel said. “I felt like if you don’t have those in your program, I think it’s really hard to have an identity, and you need that to get by. You need that to bring in new kids and have them be part of that.”

By the time Van Niel took the job, the transfer portal had already closed. He did everything he could to try and sign anyone that was willing to join, both from other schools and any high school seniors who hadn’t committed. 

One of those was Neal who, after the upcoming 2026 season, will be Van Niel’s first true four-year player. She was a late addition to the team, not signing until May heading into her senior year, which is extremely late for volleyball. Most commitments are made before the start of a high school senior season.

She stuck around, with Van Niel calling her “the epitome of what we want as a Sun Devil.”

Van Niel had a process for how he was going to build ASU into a winning program, and it all started with coffee. His first spring, he took players to coffee shops, talked to them and got to know them. He had one rule in those meetings: no volleyball talk. He wanted to know these women on a human level, not just as players.

“I think the people’s side of your players is really easy to forget,” Van Niel said “It’s really easy to let go because you’re actually running a program, and you really are kind of like a CEO of a business, getting pulled in all these directions.”

His next building block was surrounding himself with the best assistant coaches he could find.

He started by making his first hire just six days after getting the job, giving an assistant coaching job to Preslie Anderson.

“Preslie Anderson has been instrumental in building the culture and direction of our program,” Van Niel told reporters. “She is an exceptional connector with our players, our staff and recruits, and she brings an elite presence to the practice gym every single day.”

Anderson’s hiring was followed by two more coaching hires within five months, with Carley Bock coming on as the new director of operations and Ellen Joiner coming on as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator. 

All three are still with Van Niel today, creating continuity for the team.

After putting all of those pieces together, Van Niel finalized his roster with 15 players. Like Thanos with the infinity stones, he took down everything in his path.

“A lot of people just looked at us as underdogs,” Neal said of her freshman year. “One of our biggest things going into the season, not only mine, but honestly every person on staff is we just want to go out there and surprise people and we want to prove people wrong.”

ASU started the 2023 season 14-0, its best start since Watson’s 15-0 mark in 2015. Led by Latvian opposite hitter Marta Levinska and four-year Sun Devil Geli Cyr, ASU finished Van Niel’s first season 28-7, making the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2015.

Following that, Van Niel had his first real chance at recruiting and signing transfers, and he was not shy about doing so. He brought in multiple upperclassmen from around the country, focusing on looking for people who could add leadership to a young team. One of the names brought in was West Virginia outside hitter Bailey Miller.

“I would say it just felt like there was a winning mindset,” Miller said. “Getting on campus and feeling that everything we’re doing has an intention and it’s so that we can win.”

Miller made an impact in 2024, ranking fifth on the team in kills (147). On top of that list was Cyr, who led the Sun Devils to their best season since 1973, the team’s inaugural season, with a 30-3 record and only one loss in conference.

Although ASU lost in the second round of the tournament, it was obvious that this was not the same team that Van Niel took over. All that change and culture he had hoped to bring to this program was taking shape right in front of his face.

He kept it going into his third year, winning another 28 games and making another trip to the NCAA Tournament, this time making it back to the regional semifinals before losing to Creighton.

Outside of his success on the court, Van Niel has made it a point to try and connect with the community as well. With such a rich volleyball culture around the state, Van Niel has done his best to show support to some of the local teams and coaches with the hopes of getting more butts in seats.

“That first spring I definitely spent a lot of time trying to make sure I was doing relationships with the clubs around,” Van Niel said. “Most of them are run by former ASU players.”

Thanks to those efforts, ASU has achieved records for attendance, drawing more than 7,700 in a match against Arizona in 2025.

The changes that Van Niel brought to the program were drastic and fast, but his approach is simple. He wants two things from his team: to be good people and to win a national championship.

“It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, I’m only talking to you or coaching you because you’re playing.’ I feel like it was always spread out between all the girls,” Miller said. “He really genuinely cared – not about if you were going to help him win a Big 12 championship, but if you were a good person, he wanted to continue building that relationship.”

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