Draft Prospect Profile: S Melani Shaffmaster
Shaffmaster is talented, but her heart is set on playing overseas, which makes her a draft-and-stash prospect.
Minnesota has been in an enviable position over the last several seasons, enjoying the presence of now-senior setter Melani Shaffmaster for a half decade. Once an elite high school recruit, Shaffmaster has paid off on the promise that she showed as a teenager and has awards piled high to go along with her rock solid statistical resume. In her opinion, a major reason that she’s been able to be successful is her unshakable calm on the court. After some basic biographical information, that was the first thing she told me about herself.
“I would say I'm pretty consistent. I'm pretty much in the same mood all the time. When I need to be a little bit more energized or get people going, I can, but I'm not the rah-rah person. I would say I'm definitely more like the calm person that organizes everyone when stuff starts to go bad, if that makes sense,” she explained. “I mean, I’m a setter.”
That expression — “I’m a setter” — made me laugh a little. Of course, everyone knows she’s a setter. It intrigued me, too. Why does Shaffmaster think being a setter boils down to constant calm?
“I think you can't be too high and you can't be too low because you're the person that's connecting the defense to the offense. I would say you want to be very consistent, not only with your setting, but your energy so you're not freaking out one side of your team. I don't want to be screaming at the passers and then setting the ball to the hitters and it's getting messed up because I'm worrying about the passers,” said Shaffmaster.
The ability to connect the defense to the offense isn’t a skill that exists in a vacuum, though. Another tool the Minnesota setter puts to good use is her people skills. She makes an effort to understand her teammates on a personal level, which allows her to keep her team from being derailed when the X’s and O’s start to fall short.
“When we get into the fire, I know what everyone responds best to. I'm not talking to someone that wants to get yelled at, like, ‘Hey, like you got this,’ and then they completely shut down. It's not what they want in that moment. I would say that's probably one of my greatest strengths because I do really, really enjoy being around people,” she said.
Shaffmaster has mental skills that extend to both sides of the net. She started playing volleyball sooner than most, which she credits for a deep understanding of the game. The volleyball IQ that her experience affords her is how she is able to bring on-paper strategy into real life.
“Everyone can read a scouting report, but actually being able to understand it in terms of the actual game is pretty cool. Like, you see where they like to hit and then you watch in warmups and you're like, ‘Okay, yeah, that makes sense,’” she explained. “I'm pretty good at reading situations. So you see where the ball is on the court, off the net, on the net, you see what the setter's gonna do. If it's on the net, you're most likely gonna hit; if it's off the net, it's gonna be a tip, so you position yourself.”
“I would say like the more you can read, the better, the slower the game gets. It is pretty fast paced and a lot of things are happening, but as you are able to read a lot better, it slows the game down quite a bit. So it's actually a lot easier to play, get the ball and keep it off the floor for the most part,” continued Shaffmaster.
Shaffmaster has another advantage she can leverage at any time — she has unique physicality for her position. In a college landscape where most setters are in the 5-foot-10 range, she can boast a 6-foot-3 frame that stands out and gives her an aggressive edge in scoring.
“When I'm at the net, I’m obviously a bigger presence than most setters. I'm able to attack a lot more. I am a lot more comfortable just at the net in general. That's a part of the game I enjoy. We have been working a lot on passing it about like five feet off the net and it's been a little interesting for me because it's hard to throw the ball down when it's five feet off the net,” she said.
“But definitely, that's one of the favorite parts of my game. It's a lot of fun to do. People think it looks cool, but it's pretty enjoyable where you don't really have to worry about who you wanna set against what blocking options you have. A lot of what I worked on this spring was staying tall when I'm at the net, so people don't know if I'm setting or attacking.”
After getting a nagging issue in her knee surgically repaired over the winter, Shaffmaster isn’t just big, she’s light on her feet, too. Her recovery process was over a month long, but she stayed sharp by practicing sets from a swivel char while she wasn’t allowed to stand. Now fully healed, she no longer has to tape and brace the knee that was bothering her.
“Oh my gosh, it's so much better,” she said. “Diving was very hard. Getting up was hard. So, I've been moving a lot better. I've been able to jump higher since they got it fixed. And then, yeah, it just feels a lot better. I can move side to side a lot better. Running's easier. Getting off the floor is easier.”
With her dynamism regained and skills intact, there’s nothing stopping Shaffmaster from having a pro career after the current college season ends. The trouble for PVF fans is that her heart is set on going overseas, at least for the first stretch of her adult life.
“It's been a really big, I guess, dream of mine to go live in a different country,” said Shaffmaster. “It'd be great to play in the United States, but I couldn't imagine calling my mom and saying, like, ‘Hey, I'm going to Indy,’ just because I've always wanted to live in a different country for so long. So, as of right now, that's kind of what I want to do. Hopefully I get picked up by a team somewhere in January and I'm over there for a few months and see if I like it.”
If a PVF team falls in love with Shaffmaster’s size and mentality, they might spend a late round flyer on her and try to bring her back to the states after a few months pass, similar to how Kendall Kipp came home after spending four months in Italy. However, I see that as an unlikely path for a setter, the position most cramped for roster spots in the Federation. If we see Shaffmaster play on American soil again, it will probably be as a 2026 (or later) free agency signing after an excellent season or three in Europe.
For that reason, I removed Melani Shaffmaster from my 2025 draft prospects watchlist. She’s a great college player with high volleyball IQ and a deadly offensive game. For now, though, it’s just not the right match.
Some quotes were lightly edited for clarity. To watch a full Minnesota game, click here and here.