Draft Prospect Profile: MB Claire Jeter
High volleyball IQ and a fierce attitude make Jeter an essential part of the Sun Devils.
Arizona State captured public interest last season by being one of the best teams in the nations in the first year under the leadership of first year head coach JJ Van Niel. What they achieved wouldn’t have been possible without middle blocker Claire Jeter, whose presence was an essential part of the team’s identity on and off the court.
“I’m a hype woman, I think,” said Jeter when I talked to her in early June. “I play a pretty dominant role in front row and serving, and that's just things that we've worked on. Having dominant middles is something that kind of changes volleyball as a whole. If you can have dominant middles, it's very hard to lose.”
Jeter is no flash in the pan. She’s been a cornerstone of the Sun Devils’ play at the net for years. She was an immediate starter after transferring from Texas A&M as a sophomore and has played in that role in three seasons since. Coach Van Niel recalled what a challenge it was to formulate an effective plan to deal with her during his time as an assistant at USC.
“I kind of got to know her through the lens of coaching against her. Whenever we played ASU, she was always like one of the kids that frustrated me because I was typically doing the defensive game plans. Yeah, it won't sound good, but I was like, I don't understand. Like, why does that kid keep scoring on us? We had to dedicate some resources to trying to stop her. So, when I got to coach her, I was excited because obviously I've been a fan of hers from afar,” said Van Niel.
The true value Jeter offers to her team is in her well-roundedness. She’s worked hard at closing any gaps in her style of play. She takes pride in being more than a two-trick pony, only capable of hitting and blocking.
“In games, there's a lot of short serves and they think, like, ‘Serve the middle, take the middle out. Now, they can't run, let's say, a slide.’ I think middles who have the ability to pass, it's our favorite thing to do is pass the attack. It gets you in rhythm. It's really nice. It's easy. You don't have to watch the pass because you just did it. I think that that's something that is really beneficial for us,” said Jeter.
Not only does she do well in serve-receive, middles with better serving skills than Jeter are few and far between. There were only three in the nation with more aces than the 43 that Jeter put down last season — Georgia’s Sophie Fischer and two small school players.
“We are very big on aggressive serves, we don't really talk about, ‘Oh, you missed the serve - don't do that.’ He does not care. You go for it, and if there's a hard aggressive miss, he's not going to say anything about it. We also learned a snoop. Everyone has short serves, but these kind of drop instead; they don't really show so early. That's something that really benefits us because you can play with them short and deep. If they're starting to get everything deep, you throw in a short serve or a dropper, a snoop, and they don't really know what to do with it,” said Jeter.
She’s still getting better, too. As a senior in 2023, she set new personal bests in blocks, hitting percentage, and service aces. As the coach explained it, a major reason why that was possible was Jeter’s willingness to improve in ways that aren’t particularly flashy.
“It just doesn't happen that often, the glamorous stuff block, but there's all these other areas of blocking that are important. There's plenty of technical cues you can grab, but at the end of the day, a lot of it is, are you willing to put in the work and be really mindful of improving that aspect in such a non-glamorous kind of thing? I think part of this is the testament to her, you know, when I kind of showed her some of the areas that she could improve when I walked in the door, that was one she really took to heart and it was just touching the ball more,” said Van Niel.
While the coach is happy to defer credit to his players, Jeter openly explained that his philosophy opened her mind to a freer, and ultimately, a better brand of volleyball.
“My blocking numbers in 2022 weren't horrible, but my block touch percentage was pretty low. If I touched the ball, I usually got a block, but I didn't touch the ball very often. Now, our thought process in blocking right now is ‘just touch the ball,’” she said.
“He basically said that he wants us to go and touch any ball. It doesn't matter if we get blocked, if we get touched, or if we get fooled. It doesn't matter. He just wants us to be able to touch the ball, to grab it. I've never heard a coach say, I don't care if you get fooled. I just want you to go for it,” she continued. “That has helped me realize I need to put my body in the position where if I get a touch on this, it's going to be good. I'm going to touch it. I think that's what really helped my blocking numbers skyrocket this past year.”
When it comes to creating points for her own team, Jeter doesn’t put up huge scoring numbers, in part because there were so many mouths to feed on the Sun Devils offense last year. However, she’s proven all but impossible for college competition to stop from getting hers. Jeter took a larger volume of attacks than in her junior year and her hitting percentage jumped to .378 in the process. She’s also a controlled hitter, never hitting more than four errors in a game and going totally error free in eleven games.
One reason Jeter is able to be a consistent performer, explained Van Niel, is because she understands the game so well.
“We've been working a lot on just the volleyball IQ side. So thinking a lot about strategic aspects of the game. ‘What's your opponent trying to do? What are we trying to do to the opponent? And then what do we have to adjust in game?’ I was actually just at coffee with another player and, and she literally brought up Claire. ‘Yeah, Claire's been like really good at helping think about some things strategically,’” recalled Van Niel.
The role that Jeter fills for Arizona State’s offense is more than her ability to put the ball on the floor. As the coach explained to me, the Sun Devils are more than happy to redirect the ball to take advantage of matchup opportunities created when teams make stopping Jeter a priority.
“We're always trying to get the balls to the middle more, but there are times where we can't get it because they've dedicated some resources to stopping the middle and then it opens up for someone else,” explained Van Niel.
“When Claire's in that zone next to the right side blocker, all of a sudden they're like, ‘Man, I got to stop this big, tall redhead coming at me.’ And here she comes, and then you set the ball over the top,” continued Van Niel. “I know we try to do a really good job of praising our middles when we see things like that, where the outside hitter got the kill on stat sheet, but really there's kind of an assist from the middle because the chaos they provided during the play created that space for the outside to get the kill.”
The intimidation factor Jeter brings to the court springs from her physicality and is only enhanced by her personality. She has a fire in her belly and is completely unafraid to mix things up across the net.
“I think that it's looked down upon when it comes to women in sports talking mess, when guys do it all the time, and I'm all for it. I think it is so fun. I play significantly better when someone has said something to me that has thrown me off, and I'm like, ‘Okay, well… Now I'd watch out because you have done something. Now we're going to have a little mess across the net, and I'm going to do things, and you're going to be sad.’ I think that that is probably why I'm more looked at as an intimidating player.” she said.
“She's definitely feisty. I love when kids kind of jaw back and forth and just have a little bit of an edge, and she definitely has an edge. I'm not saying she starts anything, but if someone started it, she's going to go after them,” said Van Niel with a laugh.
With an intense competitive drive sharpened by an excellent understanding of how the game functions, Jeter is convinced she’ll have a future in volleyball no matter what. She would readily accept the opportunity to play professionally, especially if it happens stateside, but her sights are set on a long-term career on the coaching side.
“I always wanted to play pro, and I still do,” said Jeter with an air of thoughtfulness. “I think I could definitely play in the U.S. I think that would be an awesome experience. On top of that, I can still coach in the college level at the same time. I think that that is something I'd be really open to. When I'm done playing this year, if I don't go pro, it's not the end of the world because I'm not leaving volleyball. I'm never actually going to leave the sport until I finish coaching. I'm very excited.”
When I asked Van Niel about Jeter’s future, he was unequivocal. In his eyes, there’s no question that his star middle can play at the next level.
“I think Claire would be a no brainer for a bunch of these leagues. So if she wants to go play pro, she for sure can go play pro,” he mused. “I'm certainly going to try to convince her to take advantage of these opportunities because even in her coaching career, I think it will help, right? You have just another little knowledge base that you build by going and playing pro and experiencing other programs.”
Even if she goes undrafted this winter due to concerns over her health or the lack of an elite skill in her repertoire, Jeter will be a natural choice for a team looking to fill out their training camp roster in January. Someone’s coach will fall for her easy confidence, track record of winning, and knack for understanding the game.
Some quotes have been lightly altered for clarity. To read the full transcript of my interviews with Jeter and Van Niel, click here. To watch full games, click here and here.