MANHATTAN, Kan. (WIBW) – The K-State volleyball team is one of two Division I programs nationwide that didn’t have a single player enter the transfer portal at the end of last season.

“We’re really proud of that and I think it speaks to their love for K-State,” Mansfield said. “It really speaks for how much they love each other. I think they really, genuinely like being around each other.

“You gotta believe in kids, you know?” Mansfield continued. “I think in this transfer portal phase there’s a lot of, oh, we could’ve gotten a better player or there’s someone better out there. For us it’s always about development.”

Mansfield said when you show loyal to players, they’ll pay it back.

“We’re trying to coach kids for four or five years and stay on the path that they’re on and help them grow and get better,” he added. “Loyalty is a big deal to me, I want them to know we care about them and want to see them get better and continue to grow.”

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Devon Newberry is closing in on two years as a professional beach volleyball player. Yet for the last 731 days, “professional” has always felt like an elusive label.

The former UCLA standout is accustomed to life as a beach volleyball player — hauling her equipment on the beach, tugging her bag across the uneven sand while weaving through sunbathers and surfboards. She’s used to hearing provisional bleachers creak under sunscreen-slathered fans as music buzzes through nearby portable speakers.

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There’s charm in that chaos. But it’s nothing like the entrance Newberry made Friday at the Intuit Dome.

Above her, the sweeping halo scoreboard glowed, flashing beneath the thump of blasting pop anthems. Around her, where NBA chants once echoed, beach volleyball fans cheered. And strangest of all, tons of sand created a faux indoor shoreline.

After two years chasing it, Newberry found her label.

Read more: 300 tons of sand trucked into Intuit Dome to create unique AVP beach volleyball venue

“I walked into the Intuit Dome today and I was like, ‘I feel like a professional athlete walking in,’” Newberry said. “I haven’t felt like that as a beach player. There’s very rare moments when you’re like, ‘Wow, I am really a professional athlete.’ And when I was going underground here and looking all around me, I was like, ‘I really am a professional athlete.’ And that’s because we’re playing at the Intuit Dome.”

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In what began as a head-scratcher for the players themselves, 300 tons of sand were poured into the Intuit Dome, turning the Clippers’ arena into a pop-up beach — where the L.A. Launch kept their perfect run afloat for the start of AVP League Week 5.

The Launch struck first and last — with Megan Kraft and Terese Cannon opening with a win, and Hagen Smith and Logan Webber closing it out — both pairs dismantling the San Diego Smash. Sandwiched between those victories, Palm Beach Passion’s men’s and women’s teams both made quick work of the Miami Mayhem.

The moment Newberry described — descending into an NBA arena re-imagined as a sand-strewn battleground — was the AVP’s moonshot: to re-imagine the sport in lights, not solely sunlight.

“Playing in such an amazing place, brand new building, with everything going on, with the new building around here, it’s really cool,” said 2016 Olympian Chaim Schalk. “To get to play at such an iconic arena is an honor.”

Beach volleyball rarely has ventured beyond its coastal roots. But at the Intuit Dome, the sport embraced a new direction.

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“This shows that beach volleyball is growing and it’s trying to adapt to the world we live in, finding a new way for fans to interact with the players, and new ways for the sport to be exciting,” said Chase Budinger, a former NBA player who became a beach volleyball player. “This will get more people in the stands because it’s so new and so different.”

In place of sun-worshiping fans camped out on makeshift bleachers, parents lounged on cushioned seats as kids nestled beside them balancing chicken wings and pizzas on their laps.

The sport welcomed a combination of newcomers hunting for Friday night entertainment and AVP devotees.

“There’s so many people who love beach volleyball, and so many people who would love beach volleyball if they were just given the opportunity to go watch,” Newberry said. “And not everybody can make it out.”

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Read more: How Chase Budinger went from the NBA to playing beach volleyball in the Olympics

Change comes with tradeoffs. With no wind, the court became something of a power chamber — the compact sand lending itself to higher and cleaner jumps, the still air enabling blistering serves and monstrous spikes that might have drifted wide on the beach.

Rallies became quicker and tighter. The margin for error shrank, tightening the grip on the crowd.

“For a lot of people watching beach volleyball for the first time, it’s really hard to conceptualize how wind, how deep the sand is, might affect play,” Newberry said. “So it feels like more of an even playing field which allows everybody to watch really entertaining volleyball.”

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By re-imagining the boundaries of where its sport can potentially thrive, the AVP might have sketched out a novel blueprint for other sports.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if other sports follow and start expanding their ideas of where they could play,” said Olympic silver medalist Brandie Wilkerson. “I’m excited to see where this is going to go and see other sports try to catch up.”

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.