I'm most excited to watch these draft prospects in 2025
When these players come on screen, I won't be able to look away.
OH Nia Washington, LSU
Once I started watching last year’s game film for players in the upcoming draft class, I immediately fell in love with Washington. She unleashes fury on the volleyball at every opportunity, and her back row attack is a work of art. Her intentions are always to terrorize the opposing defense and it’s glorious to watch. I had the opportunity to interview Nia in mid-August, and I couldn’t be more excited to write about her in a feature length format soon.
The trouble is that, despite playing an aesthetically pleasing brand of volleyball, the statistical results didn’t always follow. Washington’s stat line last year included hitting just .227 with an elevated 15.7% error rate on 1160 attacks. In a similar vein, her 29 service aces and 63 service errors demonstrate an aggressive mentality that will be distasteful to some until she can clean things up a bit.
Washington transferred from Ole Miss to LSU to be closer to home for her final season and will immediately be the Tigers’ best player. She’ll get to play alongside Jurnee Robinson in the upcoming season, creating a fearsome one-two punch for a team that has lost a lot of games in recent years. Standing at a slim 5-foot-10, teams could be concerned about Washington’s physicality, but Charitie Luper proved that, with the right skill set, this kind of frame can work in pro ball.
MB Cara Cresse, Louisville
Cresse hovered near the top of my list for the entirety of last year’s draft cycle, only to go undrafted due to her status as a redshirt junior with remaining eligibility. Instead of going pro, she’ll return to school for one last season with the Cardinals. Standing at 6-foot-6, she’s all arms and legs and takes some of the longest strides you’ll see on a volleyball court. Cresse moves with surprising quickness and precision for someone of her length and can appear out of nowhere on slide attacks.
The statistical results were sparkling for Cresse in her redshirt sophomore season, hitting .440 on 463 swings along with 17 aces, but her production dropped from superstar level to merely very good in 2024. Not only did her hitting efficiency dip to .323, due in part to a 15.8% error rate, but she was fed the ball a little less often while teammates Anna DeBeer and Charitie Luper took on the lion’s share of the offensive workload. Don’t misunderstand, it was still a successful year, just not as explosive as the previous one.
The outlook for Cresse’s individual performance in the upcoming season is good. Though talented, Chloe Chicoine and Reese Robins present less star power than last year’s top hitters, and Cresse will arguably be the team’s best player. While I was initially disappointed to see Cresse return to college because she’s so advanced, it’ll be a ton of fun to watch her dominate the NCAA one last time.
OPP Malaya Jones, SMU
Jones, who I profiled in detail prior to the 2024 season, has taken a strange route through college volleyball. Initially a Colorado State commit, she flipped to USC before eventually transferring to CSU as a sophomore. She didn’t play a single set of volleyball for those first two seasons, but she was sensational when she eventually took the court for the Rams. Last season was a further improvement, and she was named 2024 Mountain West Player of the Year.
“I don’t believe in perfection,” she said in June 2024. “I think always chasing that is gonna be one of my biggest strengths for sure. I'm highly critical of myself in that way, and I love hearing feedback. That's honestly all I want. I want as much feedback as I can possibly get just to be able to better myself for the future.”
Making the jump to the ACC, Jones will have the opportunity to demonstrate the talent that made her a lethal player in the Mountain West. I believe it can translate to a higher level of competition. She has a heavy arm that makes things tough on opposing defenses, and though she’s a little on the shorter side for the opposite position, she’s built well for power. Jones was named to the AVCA National Player of the Year Watchlist in July and has the chance to make a real splash with a full time role in a power conference.
MB Jackie Moore, Vanderbilt
Although she doesn’t appear on my main draft watchlist, Moore is a player I’m excited to watch in the upcoming season. Moore is an offensively-minded middle and was one of the most efficient hitters anywhere in the nation as a junior in 2023, hitting .454 while being set no small number of times. Following that excellent campaign, she entered the transfer portal and received offers from a number of outstanding programs, but landed on Vanderbilt as her final destination.
Here’s the catch — Vanderbilt has no volleyball program. At least, they didn’t have one when Moore committed to play for them. The Commodores are making their debut on the court in 2025, joining the SEC and leaning on Moore as one of their veteran leaders. As a once under-recruited high schooler who will now get the opportunity to pass her wisdom along to a new generation at the birth of a program, the storylines write themselves. I can’t wait to see how it plays out.
A primary reason why Moore doesn’t make my watchlist is because she’s an undersized middle, standing at just 6-foot-1. She made it work in the WCC and there’s a good chance she has the savvy to make it work in the SEC, but it’s tough to predict that a frame of that size can reliably play defense in the middle at the pro level. If Moore starts the season red hot, I may have no choice but to add her as others inevitably fall off the watchlist. For now, though, I’ll be content enjoying her last season of college ball for its own sake.