Undertow

B1G Pre-season Poll (Coaches vote) 1. WISCONSIN 2. Nebraska 3. Penn State 4. Minnesota 5. Purdue 6. Ohio State 7. Illinois 8. Michigan 9. Northwestern 10. Michigan State 11. Rutgers 12. Iowa 13. (tie) Indiana (tie) Maryland My take: 1. WISCONSIN 2. Nebraska 3. Purdue 4. Penn State 5. Ohio State 6. Minnesota 7. Illinois 8. Michigan 9. Rutgers 10. Northwestern 11. Michigan State 12. Iowa 13. Indiana 14. Maryland Not a huge difference between my guesswork and the coaches. Wisconsin is still the big dog with both Hilley and Rattke back. The key is Hilley who was one of the two best setters in the nation last spring and the other (Madison Lilley of Kentucky) chose not to come back this fall. Nebraska upgraded their deficiencies at opposite and libero plus added overall depth. Lack of depth at the pins was a problem last year. If Lexi or Madi struggled offensively last spring, there was no one on the bench to come in and provide a spark. Not true this year. Very little daylight between 3 thru 6. Went with Purdue as they have EVERYONE of note back after making it to the regional final in the spring. Get the right draw in the tournament and this is a final four team. Penn State added two solid grad transfers in Pritchard (Maryland) and Rollins (Minnesota) to fill the need on the left side although they did lose one of the triplets (middle Gray transferred to Pittsburg) but they have the other two back (Parker on the right and Hoard in the middle). Minnesota at 6 as they lost the most (Rollins via transfer and Pittman in the middle who retired) and Schaffmaster has not proven she can consistently set the middle. The top six will all host on the first weekend of the tournament. Illinois has the best shot of the other teams of making the tournament, but they are thin and any injuries to their pin hitters could set them back to where they are on the outside of the bubble looking in. Michigan has talent on the left side (Mruzik and Jones) but other positions, particular setter, have questions. Not a tournament team, but if they get through their non-conference schedule unscathed, I may change said opinion. The last six teams come in two tiers of three. In the first tier I chose Rutgers as they do have talent and finally learned how to win under their new coach in the spring after decades of abysmal failure. Northwestern has Thomas-Ailara and Cannon on the left pin and former Husker Megan Miller at libero, but they had to cancel a few games last spring for reasons other than COVID and reportedly their coach was suspended for those games. Internal strife?? Don’t know. That’s why they are behind the Knights. Cathy George at Michigan State appears to have lost her touch and is probably on the road to retirement. Then the bottom three. Iowa at least has Buzzerio who is capable of a triple double on any given night, whereas Indiana lost their top newcomer (Stockham) to Cal Poly via the transfer portal and Maryland lost their one all-conference player (Pritchard) to Penn State.

The big and unfortunate news of the night was the injury to Hames. I couldn’t tell if it was a knee or ankle. You hope it’s only an ankle. Still don’t have any info on the injury as of Sunday afternoon. We saw Poulter take a nasty fall in the Olympics where she couldn’t put any weight on her ankle, and she was back in the line up 3 – 4 days later. The three freshman pin hitters were as advertised. All three showed in glimpses why they were ranked near the top of their class. Batenhorst (12 kills) started hot, then cooled off a bit. Krause (12 kills) never really got going but still had decent numbers. Lauenstein (14 kills) probably had the best night of the trio. Really athletic and her swing is like a whip. All three appear to a have higher ‘approach leap’ than either Sun or Kubik. Batenhorst struggled in passing, much as she did in the latter parts of the U20 Worlds. Was surprised how well Lauenstein performed at the service line. Rodriguez is the real deal. There was one sequence where she made three straight spectacular digs (I can’t remember if Red won the point) reminiscent of Justine Wong-Orantes. Will enjoy seeing her at libero for the next four years. Orr looked rusty, like she hadn’t played a match in two years. The brilliant set to the middle followed by a ‘huh ?’ push to the left pin. To my untrained eye, I DID see enough to think she could be the next B1G setter on the National Team (see Carlini, Hancock, and Poulter). It appears that Akana is going to get squeezed for playing time. She’s the best server on the team and did a great job at the libero for the white. She would probably start at libero for 10 or more teams in the B1G. I hope Cook can keep her happy enough to stay. Anni Evans is my MVP of the night. The only non-scholarship player on the roster was the best and most consistent setter of the match beating out a 2nd team All-American and the top prospect in the nation. At least for one night. Amazed at how well she performed. If Hames has to miss a couple of weeks for an ankle to heal, the coaches have to feel much more confident AND comfortable in Anni coming in and running the offense.

2021 AVCA PRESEASON COACHES POLL 1. Texas 2. Wisconsin 3. Kentucky 4. Washington 5. Nebraska 6. Florida 7. Minnesota 8. Purdue 9. Pittsburgh 10. Baylor 11. Ohio State 12. Penn State 13. Louisville 14. Oregon 15. BYU 16. Western Kentucky 17. UCLA 18. Washington State 19. Utah 20. San Diego 21. Stanford 22. Pepperdine 23. Rice 24. Georgia Tech 25. Notre Dame A couple of quick thoughts. Washington and Kentucky are ranked too high. Washington made the final four last year, but struggled in all the rounds to advance in the tournament. I would label last years Huskies results more fortuitous than an indicator of team strength. Still the best in the PAC-12 and likely a regional final team. Out of all the top teams, Kentucky lost the most including their All-American setter Madison Lilley. They are still a top ten team but behind Florida in the SEC. Utah still has opposite All-American Danni Drews but lost a ton of talent due to transfer or seniors not taking advantage of their COVID eligibility. USC is better than the Utes who will be out of the top 25 and a borderline tournament team. Stanford starting out at 21 is odd, but that is largely a result of their disastrous COVID campaign where they finished 2-8 and out of the tournament for the first time --- ever. They are still uber talented but will need to find some leadership out of all that talent. McClure (OH), who provided what leadership they had last year, is gone. While the top 6 teams in the B1G should slot in the top 12 as the poll currently has it, I would quibble with the order. Nebraska should be number 3 behind Wisconsin then I would have Purdue, Penn State, Ohio State, Minnesota (in that order) somewhere in that top 12. To be clear, there is not a ton of separation among the six. All should be good enough to host on the opening weekend of the tournament. Illinois will also make the tournament and might have a good enough record to squeeze into the bottom of the 25 list. All this is with the caveat that pre-season polls don't mean much. But, like football, it's an indicator that the season is right around the corner and a good topic to get the fans engaged.

The hits keep on comin' for Cook and his band out at the Devaney Center. Four future Huskers make the U18 12 member USA Volleyball Team. From the article: The 12-player roster for that event was announced Tuesday and it includes four recruits committed to Nebraska: Bekka Allick (Waverly, Nebraska), Caroline Jurevicius (Gates Mills, Ohio), Harper Murray (Ann Arbor, Michigan) and Bergen Reilly (Sioux Falls, South Dakota). Allick, who will be a senior at Waverly, committed to Nebraska's 2022 recruiting class before her freshman year of high school. The other three are all in the 2023 class and committed to Nebraska over the last month. Reilly (ranked No. 14 nationally) announced her commitment July 15, Jurevicius (No. 6) made hers public the next day, and Murray (No. 1) went on July 29. The U.S. is the defending champion of the U18 World Championship after winning gold for the first time in 2019. That team included current Huskers Lexi Rodriguez, Kennedi Orr and Lindsay Krause. Now it's time for a younger generation of Huskers to compete for the title.

Curious if Jurevicius was seriously considering Ohio State (2 hour drive from her home) or Penn State (her dad's alma mater). Regardless a good get for the Huskers. Andi Jackson is an intriguing pick just by her athletic ability alone. She has an approach jump of 10' 04" as a junior in high school. For comparison, Yosianna Pressley, Baylor's All-American OH (and known for her leaping ability) has an approach jump of 10' 09". Jackson often times has her head AND shoulders above the net on kills. Krause is similar except Lindsay is 2-3" taller. I'm surprised they have Batenhorst listed as RS. I thought Lauenstein (another athletic leaper) was going to fill that position. And I hope Lexi also gets a good look at RS. She appears to be extremely efficient over there which would then open the door for Batenhorst / Krause as the other OH with Madi. And someone will have to explain the COVID rules as far as eligibility and scholarships are concerned. What I recall is that everyone gets an extra year. So even though Hames and Schwarzenbach are listed as Seniors, they still have two years eligibility remaining. It is the same for everyone until you hit the six member 2021 freshman class. My understanding also is that the 12 headcount limit doesn't apply this fall so the Huskers will have 15 to 16 people on volleyball scholarship. How long that expansion of the limit lasts.....I have no idea and I'm not sure the NCAA has set out any guidelines past 2021.

The Huskers had another set of matches ‘postponed’ due to COVID, but this time there was less drama involved and no last second decision making based test results the afternoon of the match. Instead early in the week Wisconsin Coach Sheffield found out about Michigan State players, their opponents the previous Saturday and Sunday, testing positive and was fearful that his players may have been ‘contaminated.’ His fears came to fruition later in the week as multiple Badger players tested positive and, ‘out of an abundance of caution’ (this catchphrase is mandatory for all COVID postponement announcements) the much anticipated showdown between No.1 and No. 4 didn’t happen. The chances of rescheduling the matches appear to be slim to none, especially since the B1G made no apparent attempt to pull the Nebraska-Illinois matches up (the Illini were scheduled to play COVID Sparty this weekend) to create scheduling space on the backend. The next time these two teams meet may be in the NCAA tournament. You would hope that the Selection committee would put the Huskers and Ferocious Weasels on opposite sides of the bracket, but given the incompetence displayed by said committee in the past don’t be surprised with a regional final match up. Week 6 of the poll: 1 Wisconsin (53) 2 Texas (6) 3 Kentucky (1) 4 Nebraska 5 Minnesota 6 Baylor 7 Washington 8 Florida 9 Utah 10 Penn State 11 Purdue 12 UCLA 13 Louisville 14 Notre Dame 15 BYU 16 Washington State 17 San Diego 18 Georgia Tech 19 A Ohio State 20 Oregon 21 Western Kentucky 22 Pittsburgh 23 Creighton 24 Marquette 25 Pepperdine COVID cancellations (excuse me ‘postponements’) were AGAIN the main theme across the rest of the country. Which is slightly odd, since the third wave of the virus has peaked and is on a significant downward trend across the country. Another indicator that it is nearly impossible to predict the comportment of non‑linear, multi-variable, coupled, open systems (yes, that’s a mouthful) like the COVID pandemic. The B1G led the pack in cancellations of the Power 5 conferences: B1G postponed 8 of 14 matches PAC-12 postponed 4 of 12 matches SEC postponed only 2 of 10 matches ACC postponed 4 of 9 matches Big 12 postponed 3 of 14 matches The match of the weekend in the PAC-12 turned out to be a ho-hum affair. Washington had their way with previously unbeaten Utah 3-0 and 3-1. It wasn’t particularly close. A beatdown. The Utes and Huskies swapped 7 and 9 positions in the polls. The rest of the upper tier of the conference (aside from Utah) had banner weekends. UCLA beat Arizona 3-1 and 3-0 and finally, after a few weeks seemingly stuck at 15, jumped up to 12. The Cougars from the plains of Pullman shut out UC@WokeBerkley 3-0 and 3-0 to creep up one spot to 16. And Oregon dispatched the Buffaloes 3-0 and 3-1 to claim the 20 position up from 22. It is crowded at the top of the PAC-12 with Washington at 10-2, Utah – Washington State – Oregon all at 8-2, and UCLA at 9-3. The conference will likely send five formidable teams to the tournament. And one of those five won’t be Stanford. More on The Color Cardinal later. In the SEC, Missouri split a pair with South Carolina winning the first 3-0 but losing the rematch 1-3. The Tigers dropped out of the poll and are sitting at the top of the RV line. Florida blasted the Volunteers 3-0 and 3-0 and remained at 8. Kentucky’s matches with aTm were postponed and the Wildcats didn’t budge from 3. And congratulations to former Husker libero and championship assistant coach Kayla Banwarth as her Ole Miss Rebels finally got on the board in the win column by beating LSU in five. They currently reside at 1-13. The rebuild may take awhile. ACC action saw no action among the 4 ranked teams. Louisville vs. Notre Dame was postponed and both remained stationary at 13 and 14 respectively. Georgia Tech and Pittsburg were not scheduled to play. Both teams dropped in the top 25. The Yellow Jackets slid to 18 and the Panthers slipped one notch to 22. ACC conference action begins in earnest this weekend as they introduce the mini-pod into the year of the COVID scheduling. Since there are 15 teams, 5 sites are picked each weekend and 3 teams per site each play 2 matches round robin style over a 3 day period. Not a bad concept. But with just 4 weekends prior to the tournament (i.e. 8 matches each team) it is too little too late. Texas beat the Sooners 3-nil twice in a pair of ‘non-conference’ matches between Big 12 conference teams. Out of the four matches between the two schools this fall-spring season, Oklahoma has taken a grand total of 1 set. Baylor beat North Texas 3-0 but was pushed to the full 5 by Pepperdine from the West Coast Conference. Texas and Baylor remain at no. 2 and 6. Speaking of the Waves, they are the newest member of the poll debuting at 25 despite the loss to Baylor. That’s due to the fact earlier in the week Pepperdine beat the previously unbeaten Cougars of BYU 3-0. BYU returned the favor the next night, but it took 5 sets. BYU swapped spots with UCLA and reside at 15. San Diego takes over the lead in the West Coast after defeating San Francisco 3-0 and 3-1. The Toreros are 10-0 and moved up 1 to 17. In the Big East, Marquette won twice in non-conference action (St. Louis 3-1 and Iowa State 3-0) and remain at 24. The Creighton Blue Jays are still in COVID lockdown. In the B1G, of the three sets of matches that were played, two involved ranked teams. The Boilermakers took care of their rivalry foe Indiana rather easily 3-0 and 3-0. They remain ranked at 11. A Ohio State swept Rutgers 3-0 in their initial match of the weekend, but the Scarlet Horde put up a fight in the subsequent match before succumbing in 5. Even with the pair of victories, the Buckenidiots stayed at 19. And finally, the most competitive match up of the weekend saw Iowa and Northwestern split a pair of 5 set marathons. 4 of the 10 sets played went deuce or over. In the first match, the 2nd set almost broke the 40 point barrier with the Hawkeyes winning 39 to 37. Of the ranked teams that didn’t play, none of them budged in the rankings; Wisconsin 1, Nebraska 4, Minnesota 5, and Penn State 10. Wisconsin did gather 2 more first place votes from the Shorthorns. COVID cancellations could have an impact on tournament eligibility. 13 games is the minimum number to qualify for the mens’ and womens’ basketball tournament, and I believe that is the minimum number of matches for volleyball, although I couldn’t confirm it. Blueblood programs like Penn State and Stanford will need good COVID fortune the remainder of the year to meet that standard. The Color Cardinal have dug themselves a particularly deep hole starting out 1-3 against two bottom feeders of the conference and having to cancel 8 of the first 12 matches of the season with only 10 to play. And 8 of the 10 remaining are against Utah, Washington, Oregon, and UCLA. Not an enviable task. Teams can apply for an exemption of the 13 match minimum, but unless Stanford gets on a serious winning streak, they are likely to miss out on the tournament for the first time in program history. Penn State (the only other program never to miss an NCAA tournament) is in slightly better position as they are ranked, but they still have wood to chop. Their record is 4-3, have one match (this week) with Ohio State and twin matches with Purdue, Wisconsin, and Nebraska out of the remaining 11 matches. They’ll need some splits against top 10 opponents to break .500. It will be interesting to see if the committee will take a sub .500 team of a premier program from the B1G just based on the ‘eye test’ in a year with only 18 at-large. The Illini are next up for the Big Red Machine. They have suffered attrition of star power in the past two seasons that have brought the program from the heights of a Final Four appearance to a mid-level B1G program. Gone are All-American middle Ali Bastianelli and generational setter Jordyn Poulter. They left in 2018. The 6’2” Poulter now roams the court with the U.S. National Team and is a likely member of the final 12 member Olympic squad. Gone is middle Ashley Fleming, an All‑Conference performer who had some huge games against the Huskers. She graduated in 2019. And also gone from 2019 is the indefatigable robotic arm of one Jacquelin Quade who attacked with power and grace and a Foecke-like fearlessness. But while the talent pool is diminished, it is not empty. Megan Cooney is back at opposite and leads the team in kills with an impressive 3.70 kills/set which is among the league leaders, but is hitting just slightly above the Mendoza line at .205. Freshman Terry Raina is second on the team in kills on the outside but it is significant drop off from Cooney (122 kills to 70). Additionally young Raina is hitting slightly BELOW the Mendoza line at .193. Illinois hits .184 as a team which ranks 10th in the conference. The Illini are running a 6-2 with Diana Brown and Kylie Bruder which is a bit odd, as last season they ran a 5-1 with Brown as the main setter where she eventually wound up on the B1G All-Freshman team. The stat lines may be misleading for Illinois as they lost to Wisconsin, Penn State, and Ohio State. They missed winnable matches against Michigan State and Northwestern due to COVID. And it doesn’t get easier for the Illini. After the Nebraska matches they travel up north to play the Gophers in Minneapolis. There is not enough offense on the orange and blue side to compete with this group of Huskers. The Fightin’ Schwartezbachs ‘play like they practice’ and take two in Champaign in preparation for the (as of now) unbeaten Buckeyes coming to Devaney.

A battle tested 5th ranked Minnesota squad came into Devaney loaded with All-Americans and highly touted freshmen to give Big Red Nation a reality check on where this Husker team was at in the B1G pecking order, and how far they were from competing with one of the premier programs in the B1G and in the NCAA. The initial glimpse was not a positive one. The first match of the series was very reminiscent of the 2018 season when Husker Volleyball was in a stretch where they lost 5 of 7 matches and couldn’t put away teams in tight sets, even when the Huskers had the lead late. That team eventually figured it out and had a great run in November and December, before finally losing in the 5th set to Stanford in the championship match. But that team also had Mikaela Foecke. And Kenzie Maloney. A common theme in each of the four sets of the Friday match was the home team felt obliged to spot the visitors anywhere from a 5 to 7 point lead before starting to play in earnest. The hole dug in the first set was too much to overcome and Minnesota breezed to a 25 to 15 win as the Huskers were unable to decipher the serve from one CC McGraw, an issue that would persist throughout the match. The 15 points were easily a low point total for a set by the Big Red this season. In the second set, the Huskers again started slow but stormed back largely on the play of Stivrins 6 kills and Kubik’s 4 and won going away 25 to 20. The third set was where Nebraska gave the match away. And it is probably a bit hyperbolic to say ‘gave away’ as it came down to two points at the end of the set. Up 24 to 21 with four set points, Hames set Lexi for the back row kill and she crushed it deep…….and a fraction of an inch out. Then with the score 24 to 23, Samedy hits a cross court shot from the right pin that paints the line……just a fraction of an inch in. Set 3 was literally decided by fractions of an inch. The Huskers blew their chances to close the set out as the Gophers scored the last 4 points in route to a 26 to 24 victory. The fourth set was more of the same. Start slow, catch up, lead late, then spit the bit. The Huskers were up 23 to 22, but again failed to deliver in the clutch as the Rodents scored the final 3 points for a 25 to 23 win. Samedy was tremendous as expected, playing at POY level, which was a good thing since her comrades on the left side had largely forgettable evenings (Landfair hit .067 with 8 kills but had 5 of those in the first set and Rollins, who may have been less than 100 percent, hit negative with only 3 kills and 4 errors). Regan Pittman set Devaney records for blocks in a 4 set match with 14. But the difference maker was CC McGraw with her serve AND uncanny knack for keeping the ball from hitting the floor. Minnesota accounted for a ridiculous 23 points in the match when McGraw was serving. And equally impressive was her coverage and digging. An All-American performance. If you would have swapped only the liberos for each team with the remainder of the teams remaining the same, the outcome would have been reversed. The Huskers would have had the higher hitting percentage by 50 points and won the match in four. An astounding impact for that position. And then came Sunday. Whoever had “3 set sweep” on their bingo drinking card deserved to get inebriated in the early afternoon. Cook complained that the team was tentative on Friday, well there was none of that on the Sunday matinee version. Huskers started out fast and kept their foot on the throats of the Gophers for much of the first two sets as the Rodents were only able to tally 17 and 15 points respectively with Nebraska returning the favor from Friday as the 15 point tally was the lowest for Minnesota in a set this season. The third set was more competitive, but by that time, there wasn’t a sense that the Huskers were in much jeopardy. It seemed inevitable that they would sweep even when the score was knotted at 22, and this time it was Big Red that ran off the final 3 points to finish the matinee affair. Multiple reasons for the reversal. One was strategic as in changing rotations so that Zuhn or Sun were matched up with Samedy most of the time (Samedy hit a season low .135 for the match). Another was certain players on the Golden Rodents didn’t have the stellar performances as they did Friday night (independent of strategy), most notably one CC McGraw from the service line. While she still had an impact digging, she was a mere mortal when serving and ended up with 0 aces and 2 service errors with one inexplicably sailing past the end line by several feet. Also Minnesota may have been satisfied with the split and didn’t have the sense of urgency they did on Friday. But the biggest impact on the match Sunday (and to be clear this is subjective) was the ‘no fear’ attitude of the team in general. Akana continued to serve nails and caused havoc with Minnesota’s passing game, the middles were solid again with Caffey having her best game as a Husker, and Hames appeared to make progress in running the faster pace offense that Tyler Hildebrand is trying to implement. But no one thing epitomizes the dichotomy from Friday night to Sunday afternoon as much as the play of one enigmatic Lexi Sun. For as tentative as she was on Friday, she was as aggressive and confident on Sunday (trust it, big girl). She went from hitting .021 to 300 points higher. She also blocked, served, and dug at a high level. Unfortunately, this has been a pattern of hers the past 3 years at Nebraska. In 2018, she had 19 kills in the National semis against Illinois tying the team high with Foecke. The next match against Stanford she ended up hitting only .030 with 7 kills in a 5 set match. In 2019, she hit an incredible .619 with 14 kills in a straight set victory against Hawaii in the regional semifinals. In the regional finals against Wisconsin, it was 11 kills 10 errors on .023 hitting. Still a solid performance by the Huskers and the split kept both Nebraska and Minnesota at no. 4 and 5 in the polls. Week 5 of the AVCA poll: 1 Wisconsin (51) 2 Texas (8) 3 Kentucky (1) 4 Nebraska 5 Minnesota 6 Baylor 7 Utah 8 Florida 9 Washington 10 Penn State 11 Purdue 12 BYU 13 Louisville 14 Notre Dame 15 UCLA 16 Georgia Tech 17 Washington State 18 San Diego 19 A Ohio State 20 Western Kentucky 21 Pittsburgh 22 Oregon 23 Creighton 24 Marquette 25 Missouri COVID protocol was the big winner across the rest of the country. Many of the matches involving ranked teams were postponed and as a result there was only minor movement in the poll. One noticeable difference in the poll was the lack of The Color Cardinal in the listing of 25 teams. The King is dead, long live The New King (The Color Big Red, or more precisely scarlet and cream). For the first time in AVCA poll history (beginning circa 1982), Stanford was unranked leaving Nebraska as the only team to be ranked in every AVCA poll since it began. But my glee in this development is somewhat tempered by the reality of the situation for the volleyball women from Palo Alto. First they had to endure some of the tightest COVID restrictions in the nation imposed by Santa Clara County, then their university made a decision to support the men’s and women’s basketball teams by shipping them out of county and isolating them so those teams could continue to play while relegating the volleyball team to practice outdoors. They cancel the first four matches of the season, THEN they have 4 matches in which only 8 were eligible to dress, and finally this past weekend they cancel an additional set of matches with a ranked Washington State opponent due to COVID. And yes, Stanford was the team that had the puerile, classless depiction mocking Nebraska on their locker room whiteboard at the 2018 finals so I realize that Husker fan may not be sympathetic, but that team is largely gone. The big match in the PAC-12 between Utah and Oregon was ‘postponed’ (COVID protocols on the Utah side). Utah and Oregon stayed at 7 and 22 respectively. The Utah-Washington matches this weekend are also in peril of being ‘postponed.’ But the Huskies DID play this past weekend and beat the Buffalos in Boulder twice. Washington moved up to 9 as the Nittany Lions from Not-so Happy Valley faltered midweek. And the Bruins from LA dispatched Arizona State in their two matches to remain a fixture at 15. The SEC had five pair of matches scheduled and of those five a grand total of two were played, and only Missouri – Georgia involved a ranked team. The Tigers did beat the Bulldogs twice 3-0 and 3-1 and stayed stationary occupying the final spot in the poll. Florida vs. Mississippi State and Kentucky vs. South Carolina were COVID casualties. Kentucky remained at 3 but Florida moved up to 8 (again see Penn State). Florida and Kentucky don’t play until March 19th and 20th. The ACC is still two weeks away from any of their ranked teams from playing, but that didn’t stop Louisville and Notre Dame from swapping the 13th and 14th spots again. Two weeks ago when Notre Dame grabbed the 13th spot I presumed that the voters got wise to the fact that the Fightin’ Leprechauns had dispatched The Bird Cardinal in the fall by a 3-0 count. But now that Louisville jumped back in front, there is something else going on. Rumor has it voters are taking into account how the two teams PRACTICE (yes, we’re talkin’ practice) and while the PRACTICE competition was tight, Louisville gained the edge this week when Dana Busboom had her team run gassers AND lines at the end of the Thursday session. Or Not. The Big 12 starts play this coming week with Texas and Baylor staying at 2 and 6. Texas did lose a first place vote to Wisconsin. The West Coast Conference DID get in their matches involving ranked teams as BYU (no. 12) beat Loyola Marymount 3-nil and 3-nil. San Diego (no. 18) also won twice but was extended to 5 sets in their 2nd match with Gonzaga. The Hilltoppers of Western Kentucky beat Charlotte twice in Conference USA action to take sole possession of the 20 spot. And, in keeping with the overall theme of the weekend, Creighton and Marquette had their Big East tilt ‘postponed’ due to………COVID. The issues are with the Blue Jay program and this coming weekend matches are also likely to be ‘postponed.’ The Golden Eagles (or is it The Gold?) remain at 24 but the Blue Jays dropped three notches to 23. In the B1G, A Ohio State was the big mover in the polls jumping all the up from the RV line to 19 after upsetting Cultist Valley mid-week in a 5 setter, then Illinois twice over the weekend to run their record to 9-0. The Buckenidiots are an impressive 5-0 in five set matches. Penn State bounced back after that mid-week loss to beat Indiana 3-1 and 3-0 but dropped two spots to 10. The Boilers dumped Northwestern twice 3-0 and 3-1 to remain at 11. Wisconsin beat Sparty also with 3-0 and 3-1 tallies to remain atop the AVCA poll and picking up a first place vote from Texas in the process. In unranked competition, Rutgers and Iowa divided a pair which leaves the bottom tier of the conference of Indiana, Rutgers, and Iowa tied at 2-8 after splitting the match ups with each other. And Maryland finally got in the victory column after halving two 5 setters with Michigan in Ann Arbor. A trip to Madison and a climb to Mount Rettke is next for the Big Red. The holes the Ferocious Weasels had to fill prior to the season, replacing Duello at opposite (2018 All-American and 2019 All-Conference) and Clark (2018 All-American) have been accomplished, and with talent. Enter Devlyn Robinson freshman and Laura Barnes senior. Robinson is hitting an eye-popping .459 with just under 3 kills per set at opposite after beating out another freshman Jade Demps for the position. As for Barnes at the libero, Coach Sheffield indicated that she had taken a giant leap in improving her skillset and that she “may be one of the best ‘bros we’ve had in the program.” In the limited action I’ve seen her play, that seems to be the reality and not some coach speak. She anticipates well and covers a lot of ground (even those damn tip shots that the Huskers seem to have issues with). The remainder of the crew is a familiar nemesis to the Husker faithful. Rettke and Hart in the middle, Hilley running the offense, and Loberg and Haggerty on the outside. All are All-Americans of some form and all are seniors with the exception of Hart who is a redshirt junior. Rettke is a legitimate POY candidate and Hilley is one of the two best setters in the nation (Kentucky’s Madison Lilley being the other). To top it off, they’ve added depth in the freshman Demps who plays either pin, Giorgia Civita a defensive specialist transfer from Wichita State where she was an All-Conference libero, and Deahna Kraft a transfer from Pepperdine who can (and does) fill in as a defensive specialist and on the left pin. To further illustrate Kraft’s versatility, she was an All-American in 2019 at beach volleyball and an All-American in 2018 at indoor volleyball while at Pepperdine. As a team the Badgers are hitting an incredible .351 while holding their opponents to a suffocating .122. Really the only question on the Wisconsin side is whether Haggerty is healthy enough to play as she sat this past weekend against Michigan State due to injury. A tall task. A steep mountain to climb. It remains to be seen if the Huskers had a seminal moment on Sunday when they ‘finally played liked they practiced.’ When the pieces came together much like it did for the 2017 team during the UCLA matches before they went on their incredible run. OR was the Sunday matinee was just a one off. If the Huskers play like they did Sunday, the Big Red have better than a punchers chance at a split. If they play like the Friday version, it will likely be a sweep by the Badgers and it may be quick. This is probably Husker vision shading my perspective, but the Fightin’ Schwartzenbachs climb Mount Rettke, and while they don’t conquer it, they gain the split and keep their B1G title hopes alive.

Since Rutgers joined the B1G, their volleyball team has had a heavy influence of Eastern European players from places as Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Serbia, and so on. Assembling and structuring such a diverse group proved to be a difficult task and for a few years the Knights have been an easy target for opponents to pad their schedule. Now they have a new coach, but there are multiple players from that part of the world still on the roster. However, with this group there seems to be less confusion and more cohesion. Indiana can attest to that reality as the Scarlet Horde dumped the Hoosiers two weeks ago 3 to 1 in their first match up of the weekend. And Steve Aird’s young squad was fortunate to win the second match after having to comeback from being down 8-15 in game 4 to prevent the Knights from forcing a decisive game 5. As it was last weekend against Maryland, inconsistent play plagued the Huskers in match one, and, as it was last weekend, the level of play plummeted in the 2nd set and nearly cost the Big Red their first set to Rutgers since the Scarlets entered the B1G. The biggest issue remains passing. During a large portion of the 2nd set where the Knights staked to a 15-10 lead, the Huskers were passing, as John Baylor would opine, ‘like a Yugo on the Autobahn.’ Cook was so disgusted he actually pulled Akana after a shank off a serve and subbed in Emma Gabel. Immediately the turbulent waters calmed as Gabel made a couple of nice digs and the Huskers righted themselves for a 25-21 set 2 win en route to a straight set victory in the opener. The middles again were efficient with Stivrins getting 11 kills on 18 swings and Caffey putting in 7 on 11. Both hit over .500. Lexi Sun rebounded from a moribund performance against Maryland with a team high 17 kills and a scorching .484 hitting percentage. The Rutgers hitters, particularly the right side, Beka from Belgrade, were taking advantage of Nebraska’s poor coverage on tipped attacks over blocks, something Wong-Orantes and Maloney were excellent at, but for some reason Knuckles, despite her athleticism, seems slow to respond to. It wasn’t pretty, but there were plenti-o-‘reasons’ floated out as to the cause of the sub-par performance of the Big Red. Long flight, early morning testing, false positive giving the team a testing scare, early start to the match. We were assured that day two would bring a steadier performance for the Good Gals. Instead, we saw a Rutgers offense that was on fire in set 1 of the second day with the vaunted defense of Nebraska seemingly unable to do much about it, even with Miss Callie starting in place of Caffey in the middle. The Scarlet Knights took it to the Big Red Machine and hit an astounding .400 in route to a 25-22 win. First set taken by Rutgers over Nebraska EVER. Well, at least since the Knights joined the B1G. The Big Red dominated sets 2 and 3 by identical 25-14 margins before putting the Knights away in a much more contested set 4, 25-20. Stivrins was once again Stivrins and got a double double with 15 kills AND 11 blocks. She keeps with this pace and Lauren may garner some POY consideration. Three other players accumulated double doubles with Hames of course adding to her total (49 digs, 17 digs) and the six rotational pins of Sun and Kubik hitting double digits in kills and assists. Sun was high error in this match and while she had 15 kills, she also blemished the stat line with 8 errors for a hitting percentage of .156. Riley Zuhn was a disappointment. After making strides against Maryland, she regressed in New Jersey, hitting triple zeros for the weekend mainly due to attack errors that where long, whether mis#!t or missing hands. Finally, Coach Cook subbed in Jazz Sweet for the final 3 sets of the 2nd match. To compete against the best in the B1G (and by definition the best in the country), the Huskers are going to need have increased production at opposite. For Wisconsin, the right pin was supposed to be a question mark in replacing Duello, but freshman Devyn Robinson has been tearing it up. Jazz DID have an excellent outing in the final 3 sets with 8 kills and a hitting percentage of .429, but she can also disappear in matches and hasn’t significantly improved her play since 2017 (at least to this untrained eye). The first set of matches against Indiana and Maryland were solid, but not dominant performances. This set of matches I would put under the ‘unimpressive and concerning’ category. The level of competition ramps up dramatically in the next two weeks (hell, the next month), and it is not clear that this version of Husker volleyball is ready at this juncture in the season. Week 4 of the AVCA poll: 1 Wisconsin (50) 2 Texas (9) 3 Kentucky (1) 4 Nebraska 5 Minnesota 6 Baylor 7 Utah 8 Penn State 9 Florida 10 Washington 11 Purdue 12 BYU 13 Notre Dame 14 Louisville 15 UCLA 16 Georgia Tech 17 Washington State 18 San Diego 19 Pittsburgh 20 Creighton 20 Western Kentucky 22 Oregon 23 Stanford 24 Marquette 25 Missouri 1 through 14 remained unchanged although Wisconsin DID pick up an additional first place vote from Kentucky. 15 through 25 saw some maneuvering and is starting to look like a home for the 2nd tier from the PAC-12 again, but not as crowded as some years when you would have 6 to 7 teams from the conference slotted in the back half of the poll. The big news around the country comes from the forementioned PAC-12 and once again concerns the defending national champs. After getting drummed out in Tucson last weekend, the volleyball team from The Farm played their rivalry match up with the dreaded Bears from UC@WokeBerkley on a Friday night. California was picked 11th in the pre-season PAC-12 rankings and, much like Arizona, hadn’t won a match this season resting at a meager 0-6. However, Stanford sans McClure & Campbell and only dressing eight due to injuries and COVID, turned out to be the chicken soup necessary for the Golden Bears to break into the victory column. It went 5, but Cal prevailed on Friday night in Berkley 3-2. Their first victory in 9 years over the Color Cardinal. The second match on Sunday at Palo Alto resulted in a dominant Stanford sweep. McClure was back for this match, and while her stats were pedestrian, Kendall Kipp, the heir apparent to Kathryn Plummer, had an outstanding match with 15 kills on .571 hitting and the Cardinal offense improved from .192 to .378 between the two matches. The 1-3 record compiled over the first two weekends against the bottom tier of the league didn’t put the Color Cardinal out of the top 25 for the first time. They are still clinging to the poll at 23. I personally don’t see how someone ranks them, but the AVCA poll has a lot of inertia associated with it, particularly with the blue blood programs. In other PAC-12 action, Utah beat USC twice, but it took 5 sets to prevail in the second match of the weekend. Washington split with UCLA 3-0 and 2-3 and remained at 10. The Bruins actually moved up three spots to 15. Washington State beat the Buffalos from Boulder 3-0 and 3-1 and climbed from 22 to 17. And Oregon crushed Arizona in straights in which only one set out of six was competitive, to make their entry into the top 25 at 22. In the SEC, Florida and Kentucky held serve, but 16th ranked Missouri lost twice to unranked Tennessee, with the Tigers succumbing in the second match of the weekend in straight sets. Missouri drops to the final slot at 25. The ACC started their sparse non-conference play, the first of two weeks before entering the conference slate. Two of the four teams in the rankings elected to play no non-conference games (Georgia Tech and Notre Dame), Louisville was off after beating Dayton in an exhibition match last weekend and doesn't play again until March 5th in conference, and Pittsburg beat Villanova from the Big East 3-0 and also won’t play again until March 5th in conference. The Yellow Jackets, by not playing, still managed to move up one to 16 while the other three ACC teams stayed put. The Big 12 starts their bastardized non‑conference ONLY spring schedule on February 25th. Realistically Baylor and Texas are the only plausible teams from the conference with a chance of making the tournament (Texas has actually already garnered the automatic bid). Kansas State finished third at 10-6 in the fall, but play just 6 non-conference matches this spring. One IS against Creighton, but two are against Division II Wayne State. Not enough substance to build a resume for an at-large tournament bid particularly in this COVID year with a truncated number of at-large positions. In the Big East, Marquette and Creighton DID NOT play this past weekend (despite what I erroneously wrote last week), but will play THIS COMING weekend in Milwaukee. BYU and San Diego both handled their business in West Coast Conference play. BYU beat Gonzaga twice 3-1, 3-0 and remain stuck at 12 and San Diego defeated Portland twice also 3-1, 3-0 to move up two positions to 18. And Western Kentucky had their Conference USA matches with Old Dominion postponed, but climbed up into a tie with Creighton at 20. In B1G action, the spotlight matches over the weekend involved Minnesota and Penn State with the Golden Rodents beating the Cultists twice, 3-1 in which 3 of the 4 sets went deuce or extras (all won by the Gophers) and 3-2 in which none of the sets were particularly close. With the two close losses Penn State stayed at 8. More on the Rodents later. Michigan lost twice to Purdue in the Wolverines first action of the season 3-1 and 3-1. Purdue remains at 11 while Michigan drops out to the top of the RV line. Ohio State beat Iowa twice to run their record to 6-0 but still remain below the RV line, right behind Michigan. Wisconsin dispatched Indiana 3-0 and 3-0 but two of the sets in the second match went deuce or over. The Ferocious Weasels remain the top dog in the land accumulating even more first place votes. The Golden Rodents come to Lincoln chalk full of All-Americans and highly ranked freshman. They have also been battle tested in this young season after beating Purdue and Penn State. Samedy is a force at opposite and has multiple 20 kill matches this season. The newcomer Taylor Landfair at one outside has struggled at times hitting percentagewise, but is an outstanding athlete and in the last match against Penn State had 22 kills on .340 hitting. Schaffmaster is the 6’03” setter who presents unique problems with her height and her willingness to attack on the 2nd touch, but also is undergoing some understandable growing pains. An odd stat prior to the Penn State matches was that Schaffmaster was averaging only one less attack PER MATCH than her 1st team All-American middle Regan Pittman. She sets the pins heavy, calls her own number quite a bit, but often neglects the middles. Some of it is that her pins are dynamic, some of it is Minnesota is not a premier passing team so setting the middles consistently is more difficult, and some, I’m sure, is inexperience. After watching snippets of the second Penn State – Minnesota match, it is apparent that the Huskers are going to have to take their game up a notch. Both the Huskers and Gophers struggle with passing at times, but Nebraska should have an advantage at the service line. Minnesota has better pins, Nebraska has better middles. Hames has a slight edge at the setter (if Schaffmaster was 5’10” it wouldn’t be a competition), but Minnesota has CC McGraw at libero, a first team B1G All-Conference and honorable mention All-American performer last year. Nebraska doesn’t. It will be interesting if the brain trust comes up with a game plan to contain Samedy or Landfair a bit. If Nebraska serves nails and the Rodents spend much of the two matches out of system, I think the Huskers split. If Samedy, Landfair, and Rollins can tee off all night (and all afternoon), it will be a rough weekend for the Big Red. Having said that, by the time the Tournament comes around, the Huskers will be a tougher out as Minnesota tends to peak a bit early most seasons. The Fightin’ Schwartezbachs get the split with the Golden Rodents at home before they take their show on the road to Madison to face Mount Rettke.

It would be a bit cliché to start the post quoting Dicken’s classic set in the French Revolution, but instead let’s just say the Big Red’s performance over the weekend was ‘uneven,’ particularly the first match. The Huskers won the first set securely enough, but that was largely due to the play of the middles and Maryland gifting the home team several service errors. Maryland actually outhit Nebraska in the first set .286 to .261. But the second set was when the patchy play finally caught up with the Blackshorts and Maryland edged out a win in extras 27 to 25. Nebraska had 3 set points but squandered those opportunities with errors and tentative play from Sun. The pin hitters in general for Nebraska started out in a funk, which persisted for the first two sets and bled a bit into the third. And something was definitely off with Madi Kubik. Not only was she getting blocked, or missing hands, she was also making uncharacteristic mental errors (net violation on a point when the Maryland right side hit it out of bounds by three feet, interfering on a cover where Akana had perfect position to play it and instead pushing the ball out, to name two). And while Zuhn and Kubik started to warm up as the match extended into sets 3 and 4, Sun remained tepid throughout. Kubik actually ended up above the Mendoza threshold at .227 while Sun limped to the finish line at .100. Fortunately Lauren Stivrens still has eligibility as she and her middle buddy Caffey carried the team much of the night. Caffey again was on a pitch count due to injury and was subbed out at the start of the fourth but posted an ‘okay’ 6 kills on 14 attempts with 3 errors to go along with 5 blocks in her 3 sets. Stivrens on the other hand went all time on the night with 18 kills on 20 attempts and a solitary error. The .850 hitting night put her in the ‘Top 5 hitting percentage for a match in Nebraska history’ category since the rally scoring period began. Which means she now has two entries on that top 5 list to go along with her perfect score on 10 kills against Northwestern in 2018. As the pin hitters warmed up and Stivrens remained white hot, the Big Red finally started to put some distance between themselves and the Terrapins winning the 3rd set 25 to 19 and the 4th in a more comfortable 25 to 14 fashion. A somewhat odd stat for the Husker side was that THREE players had double doubles. Hames ended up with 52 assists and 12 digs. Because she’s a digging machine, she accumulates double doubles like the Federal Government accumulates debt. And despite the tepid offensive display, the two outsides, Kubik and Sun, also were double digits in kills and in digs. For Maryland, Pritchard played like the All Conference preseason pick and ended up with 13 kills. She was clearly the best pin hitter on the floor Friday for both teams. The other Terp who played like an All Conference performer for at least one night was the libero Samantha Burgio. She was seemingly everywhere keeping balls off the floor and getting some nice digs on hard shots. The Terrapin block was effective as advertised (3rd in the conference entering the match) and edged the Huskers in that department 10 to 9. Of course the highlight of match came Anni Evans came in and served an ace that knuckled down at the feet of the Maryland defender in a fashion that would have made the Niekro brothers and Wilbur Wood proud. It was priceless to see the reaction of her teammates and especially from her. She seemed almost giddy, barely able to contain herself. This was probably a dream of hers to play for Nebraska since she was a little girl growing up in Waverly (as it is for many girls in the state) and the first time she’s on the big stage against a live opponent, she crushes it. One can only imagine the decibel level in Devaney if 8000+ fans were there to react. Oh well, still a great moment. In match two, the pins came to play for the Big Red, particularly Kubik and Zuhn. Sun started out playing well, but tapered off in sets 2 and 3. Kubik and Zuhn started fast and pressed the pedal down for most of the match. Kubik ended with 12 kills with a .308 hitting percentage, and Zuhn went off with 11 kills on 18 swings with 2 errors. The maturation process is coming together for Riley. Again, her ceiling is higher than Sweet’s, she can hit OVER a solid block, and she, herself, is an intimidating block for opponents. As she gets more comfortable with playing time, and teams start game planning for her, it will open more opportunities for the other hitters to attack against single blocks. Sun hit a respectable .266 but was ‘finessing’ the ball much of the night. A lot of cream puff, not much iron. The middle play was solid for most of the match until the end of set 3 (more on that later) and it was good to see Caffey healthy enough for back to back starts. The serving by Nebraska was tougher on Saturday night although the stats don’t indicate much difference on the aces / errors number (7 to 8 match 1, 8 to 7 match 2). Sun had a decent serving run in the 1st set and Madi went off on an 8-0 run in the 3rd. During Kubik’s service run, she had at least 2 if not all 3 of her aces, and Maryland was scrambling out of system every serve save maybe one. Pritchard again led the Terps in kills with 10 but she hit well below the Mendoza line at .138. Pritchard was the only Terp even close to double digit kills. And after a stellar Friday night, the libero, Burgio, looked ordinary in the second match of the weekend. Nebraska out aced the Terrapins 8 to 3 and edged them in blocks 7 to 6. The Huskers breezed in the first set 25 to 14, the second set was tighter with Maryland getting to 21 before an attack error ended it, and the 3rd set was on its way to a blowout until Hames got sloppy trying to feed Stivrins towards the end resulting in the All-American middle’s hitting percentage dropping from .400 something to an even .200. The Big Red still posted a comfortable 25-18 final tally. Again, a solid but not dominant performance over a team picked 12th in the B1G preseason. But gradual signs of improvement. The Huskers remain at 4 in the new AVCA poll. Week 3 of the AVCA poll: 1 Wisconsin (50) 2 Texas (9) 3 Kentucky (1) 4 Nebraska 5 Minnesota 6 Baylor 7 Utah 8 Penn State 9 Florida 10 Washington 11 Purdue 12 BYU 13 Notre Dame 14 Louisville 15 Stanford 16 Missouri 17 Georgia Tech 18 UCLA 19 Pittsburgh 20 San Diego 21 Creighton 22 Washington State 23 Western Kentucky 24 Michigan 25 Marquette The big news around the rest of the nation was the Arizona Wildcats (picked 10th in the conference preseason) curbstomping the Color Cardinal twice over the weekend in Stanford’s first foray into PAC-12, or any, action. Stanford just started indoor practice on January 26th due to COVID restrictions in Santa Clara County. Additionally, they only had eight players available for the Arizona matches. And to top it off, their only senior, outside hitter Megan McClure (COVID), and only experienced junior, middle Holly Campbell (knee?), were on the MIA list which also included a couple of defensive specialists. As a result, a young unproven Stanford team with little practice coupled with a serve receive game which was atrocious resulted in Arizona serving the Color Cardinal into oblivion 25-16, 25-17, 25-14. Stanford hit .057 for the match. The second match of the weekend was a little better for the defending champs, but the Wildcats still prevailed 3 sets to 1. Stanford dropped 8 notches to 15. Utah replaced Stanford at 7 by beating ASU 3-0 and 3-2. Washington reentered the top 10 by beating the bottom dweller Beavers twice. UCLA and Washington State split which resulted in the Bruins remaining stationary at 18 but the Cougars ended up gaining a couple to 22. And the Ducks won twice at USC, both 5 setters and sit at the top of the RV line just outside the top 25. One additional comment on the Color Cardinal. This weekend series against the Cal Bears turns out to be critical. Cal was picked 11th in the conference preseason and sit at 0-6. If UC@WokeBerkley manages a split, Stanford is in jeopardy of moving out of the top 25 for the first time since………ever. And looking at the Cardinal schedule, it is hard to see less than 8 losses if they start 1 - 3 as they have paired matches with Washington State, Utah, Oregon, Washington, and UCLA still remaining. 10 – 8 probably doesn’t make the 48 team tournament. Which would be another ignominious first for the pride of Palo Alto. The SEC resumed play but the main match between ranked teams Florida and Missouri was ‘postponed’ due to COVID issues with the Gators. Florida benefitted from the non-event by moving up to 9 while the Tigers stayed at 16. Kentucky was off and remains entrenched at 3. The ACC resumes play this weekend with non-conference action, however, Notre Dame jumped over Louisville in this week’s poll. Apparently the pollsters finally realized that the Fightin’ Leprechauns ‘straight setted’ the Bird Cardinal in the fall. In the West Coast Conference, BYU won a nonconference match by beating something called Utah Valley University out of the WAC. BYU moves up to 12. And San Diego broke the Torreros deadlock with Michigan by getting on the board with a sweep of St. Mary’s (Sunday-Monday matches) 3-0 and 3-0 and moving all the way up from 21 to 20. In the Big East, Creighton split their matches with the former Warriors of Marquette in Omaha. Creighton fell two spots to 21 and Marquette remained at 25. The two teams play again this coming weekend in Wisconsin. The hot mess that is the Big 12 appears to be about 2 weeks away from starting a handful of non-conference matches (plus any fall conference matches that were postponed) in the lead up to the NCAAs. Texas is playing 9 matches, only two that count towards the conference record, but they are playing Baylor again on a home and home arrangement as part of their non-conference schedule. They also play Texas State twice (RV category) who won the Sun Belt Conference in the fall. Baylor is playing 10 non-conference matches starting February 25th (they were able to fit in their complete Big 12 schedule in the fall), including the two Shorthorn matches, also playing Texas State twice, and scheduling Oklahoma for two matches. In B1G action, Wisconsin beat the Eastern European Knights 3-0 and 3-0 and remains number 1. Minnesota swapped positions with Baylor and now sit at number 5 by virtue of their two 5 set wins over Purdue. And the Boilers actually moved up two slots to 11 following the two close losses. Although Purdue is probably kicking themselves as they were up 2 – 1 in both matches before letting them slip slide away. Penn State broke out of the two week COVID hibernation with a couple of victories over the Illini 3-1 and 3-2 and moved up to 8. Michigan didn’t play AGAIN and fell to 24. Speaking of those Eastern European Knights with their roster full of ‘minas, ‘novas, ‘movas, ‘novics, and ‘kovics; they are next up for the Big Red. They are not the walkover Rutgers team of the past and did split with Indiana in week two of conference play. However, the Scarlet Horde is still firmly entrenched in the bottom tier of the conference. And while John Baylor will earn his pay calling the play-by-play and trying to pronounce those polysyllabic Slavic names, the Fightin’ Schwartzenbachs prevail 3 – 0 and 3 – 0 (don’t be surprised if one or two sets are closer than expected) in preps for the showdown with the Golden Rodents February 19th.

It certainly was an odd way to cancel (excuse me, postpone) a scheduled competition, even in this year of COVID. The cancellation (delay) occurred extremely late in the day, at least I didn’t catch it until late afternoon / early evening. I had watched the end of the Indiana – Rutgers match and noted that Nebraska – Northwestern was still on the BTN plus schedule. Then at 6:30 (that’s Eastern Time in Michigan) when I went to tune in to John Baylor’s pre-match show, I see the communications from the Nebraska Athletic department about the ‘postponement’ and noted the time was 4:43 PM which I assume was Central Time. I don’t know the precise details of when the cancellation (deferment) occurred or the location of the Wildcat Volleyball team at the time, it would be likely that Northwestern had made the trek to Lincoln the previous afternoon or evening. Not knowing the exact protocols teams follow, it is probable they tested Thursday sometime during the day before getting on the plane, and then tested again Friday before getting a practice in at Devaney. And someone, somehow tested positive in that controlled environment and in that limited period time after previously testing negative. And it was a valid positive which impacted a significant portion of the team since Northwestern cancelled (err, I mean ‘postponed’) not only the Nebraska matches but the upcoming weekend matches with Michigan. The above is all conjecture on my part. I believe Brent Wagner of the Lincoln Journalstar has a more precise timeline, but my computer security settings don’t give me to access their website. And while I’m sure that the Lincoln Journalstar is an austere establishment, I don’t care THAT much to adjust the settings just to read what profundities he OR they may provide. No, I would rather do what most posters do and, with as little effort as possible, randomly speculate. Soooo….. the mystery at middle and the battle for right pin continue into another week without the benefit of outside competition. The Huskers DID practice Friday and scrimmaged on Saturday to keep themselves in sync with the rhythm of this unique spring season. Onto week 2 of the AVCA poll: 1 Wisconsin (48) 2 Texas (10) 3 Kentucky (2) 4 Nebraska 5 Baylor 6 Minnesota 7 Stanford 8 Utah 9 Penn State 10 Florida 11 Washington 12 Louisville 13 Purdue 14 BYU 15 Notre Dame 16 Missouri 17 Georgia Tech 18 UCLA 19 Creighton 20 Pittsburgh 21 San Diego 22 Western Kentucky 23 Michigan 24 Washington State 25 Marquette Outside the B1G, one of the bigger upsets of the week was South Dakota upsetting the Blue Jays of Creighton in a 5 setter on Friday after losing the first two sets. That match was in Omaha. Creighton returned the favor Sunday when they beat the ‘Yotes, also in a five setter, also after losing the first two sets, and on South Dakota’s home court in Vermillion. Husker fan may remember one Sami Slaughter (favorite student section chant, ‘You’ve been Slaughtered’) who featured prominently for South Dakota in both matches. Creighton dropped 5 notches to 19. Apparently people wised up and realized that Stanford wasn’t even practicing indoors (they are practicing outside because of COVID restrictions in Santa Clara County) so they dropped them from 3 to 7 after the Color Cardinal ‘postponed’ an additional two matches. While I’m not sure what wind conditions are like on The Farm, I DO remember the gusts that prevailed at Ye Ole Candlestick Park when Wille Mays was roaming the outfield. If the squalls on The Farm are anything like Candlestick, the winds would render outdoor volleyball practice to be, I think the term I’m looking for is, ‘worthless.’ Elsewhere in the PAC-12, Utah remained at 8 in the poll after beating Cal twice (Cal was picked 11th in the conference preseason), but actually lost a set in match one, and had another set in match two go extras. Washington defeated Arizona twice to remain at 11, although one match went the distance. UCLA split with Oregon in Eugene but also stayed stationary at 18. Oregon is just outside the top 25. Washington State beat the Sun Devils twice to make an entrance into the poll at 24. And there’s a few other PAC-12 teams receiving votes so we may end up yet again with a PAC-12 quagmire from 15 thru 25. The SEC started their season back up this past weekend with no major upsets, although Missouri (17 in this week’s poll) had to go the limit in both matches against LSU. The SEC is playing a 16 match conference only schedule this spring in addition to the 8 match fall season. The ACC starts play on the 2nd weekend in February and has two weeks of non-conference action before playing an 8 match conference schedule in March. The ACC played an 8 match conference only schedule in the fall. And keep an eye out for the non-competition brewing between Michigan and San Diego in the polls. In the preseason poll, San Diego was 23 and Michigan was 24. After week one, Michigan’s dominance over a non-opponent compared to San Diego’s less than stellar performance against a non-existent foe resulted in Michigan jumping ahead to 21 while San Diego only moved up to 22. In week two, San Diego rebounded with a convincing win over the invisible team, while Michigan was ordinary while beating the imaginary adversary. To wit, San Diego moved up to 21 while Michigan dropped to 23. Both teams have yet to play an actual match and remain 0-0. At least the pollsters finally realized that the Big West was not playing volleyball this year and finally Hawaii dropped out of the top 25, but just barely. So far two conferences, that I’m aware of, have declared they are not playing volleyball at all, the Big West and, of course, the Ivy League. That expands the at-large pool to 18 for the Tournament. Other conferences have completed their season in the fall, and appear to have a minimal amount or no games scheduled in the spring, but still have an automatic bid. One example is the Sun Belt conference which completed their season in November of 2020 with Texas State at 24 - 2 being crowned champion by winning the conference tournament. No games scheduled in the spring so far. Not sure that methodology works particularly well in trying to gain momentum into the NCAAs. Over on the B1G side, No. 1 Wisconsin beat the Illini twice, had one set go over (30-28) in match one and managed to lose a set in match two, but still had a relatively dominant performance. Just a side bar in match one. Badger Coach Sheffield sat his All-American outsides Haggerty and Loberg and instead played a freshman (Demps) and a grad transfer from Pepperdine (Kraft). Kraft was second on the team in the match with 11 kills and led in attempts with 31. She’s listed as a outside hitter / defensive specialist and was also second on the team with 7 digs. Sheffield indicated all four outsides practiced well and wanted to get all four playing time. Haggerty and Loberg played in match two. As if the Ferocious Weasels didn’t have enough weapons. Minnesota beat Maryland fairly comfortably twice 3-0 and moved up a spot to 6 (see Stanford), although two sets over the weekend did go to deuce. Purdue bounced back after the Badger shellacking last weekend to beat Iowa 3-0 and 3-0 to remain at 13. Penn State was idle for a 2nd week and stayed at 9. Rutgers won in the B1G for only the fourth time since joining the conference by beating Indiana 3 to 1. The Hoosiers returned the favor the next night by the same 3-1 margin although they had to come back from an 8 to 15 deficit in the fourth set to make it happen. And A Ohio State beat Sparty twice to go 4-0 on the season, although 3 of the matches have gone the full 5. The Buckenidiots are in the RV (receiving votes) category but are still a ways away from cracking the top 25. The Huskers moved up one spot to number 4 (see Stanford) even without playing. They face the Mighty Terrapins of Maryland who come in with an unblemished record of 0 wins with 4 losses. They are led by Erika Pritchard, a senior outside who made the pre-season All B1G team and was Honorable Mention All-American (Volleyball Mag) as a sophomore. The Terrapins were picked below Indiana in the B1G pre-season at 12 and I expect a similar outcome on this match up. The Big Red probably sweep both matches with an outside chance that Maryland steals one set over the weekend. The Fightin’ Schwartzenbachs roll.

Some comments on the first weekend match up and the AVCA poll week 1 The starting line up for the first match did not surprise me to any large degree. It was clear from the Red-White scrimmage that either Meyer or Caffey would be a better offensive option for the 2nd middle and Caffey probably got the nod with her game experience. Zuhn starting over Sweet was slightly foreshadowed in the same scrimmage where one Lauren Cook-West remarked that Zuhn might have started for Red at opposite if Lexi Sun hadn’t been held out. As one would expect, there were moments of high level volleyball mixed in with a heaping of errors. A lot of errors. Passing remains THE issue with this version of the Big Red and any improvement of the passing game from Sun or Knuckles certainly wasn’t on display that first night. The service game was touted as a strength, but seemed to be rutted in non-conference form (7 aces, to 10 service errors). Cook doesn’t mind as much if a serve is just long when someone is trying to paint the boundary, but lofting the ball into the net will earn a look of disgust. That happened a few times. Also it’s not good if your serve is so long that is sails past the Monroe County line into Owen County. No bonus points for that. Looking at you Lauren Stivrens. Caffey showed herself to be a legitimate option on offense with Hames already more comfortable setting her than she ever did in setting Callie the previous two years. Add another weapon to the arsenal. It was also nice to see an opposite hit over the block occasionally. While Zuhn started out with some nerves, eventually she settled in and was effective. At this point in their careers, the ceiling on Zuhn’s game is much higher than Sweet’s. The offense in general started out slow, but did hit over .400 the final two sets. The defense was a bit spotty, but the Big Red did an incredible job on Indiana’s top outside hitter Breanna Edwards who ended up significantly underwater for the night with just 2 kills and 8 errors on 21 attempts. In the post game interview, Coach Cook indicated that since they had little information on the multiple freshman Steve Aird was trotting out, the staff concentrated on limiting Edwards by trying to match her rotation with the size and length of one Riley Zuhn and disrupting Edward’s game. Mission accomplished. The receiving wasn’t particularly remarkable even though Hames and the Hawaiian girl (whose first name I cannot pronounce), Akana, did have a couple of noteworthy gets. The blocking was also sub par, with only 5 blocks (Indiana outblocked the Huskers 6 to 5) and seemingly less touches. But the defense did hold the Hoosiers to a .140 hitting percentage. The second night featured a line up change which wasn’t entirely unexpected. In the interview after game one, Coach Cook had indicated that Caffey was slightly injured and was on a pitch count. That was confirmed pre-game the next day with the exact count; 60 jumps. How the medical staff came up with that number—no idea. Of course the exact nature of the injury is a closely guarded secret that even top officials at the Pentagon and Intelligence agencies don’t have authorization for, so it is unknown if this something that is acute and will heal, or if this is a chronic condition that will have to be managed during the season. What was surprising (at least to me), was the change at middle to the eponymous member of the Fightin’ Schwartzenbach’s, one towering Miss Callie. I fully expected Meyer to get her first start. Callie reminded people as to why she was as two year starter on the defensive end by immediately bolstering the block, which seemingly was infectious, as her teammates joined the party (looking at you again, Lauren Stivrins, but this time with a smile). Part of the improved effort was Callie, and part was that the coaches actually had a game plan for the remainder of those Indiana freshman now the staff had video on them, albeit limited. Edwards had a better night than her first (she could hardly do worse) and led the Hoosiers with 12 kills (she still hit below the Mendoza line), but Indiana as a team hit a paltry .048. The stat line for serving (4 aces, 7 errors) looks unimpressive, but my impressions were that it was markedly better than the previous night as Indiana was constantly out of system, hence more opportunities to effect a block. Unfortunately, I don’t have access to advanced stats to know if this is true or not. Passing was marginally better and will probably be a constant work in progress throughout the season. Apparently Anika Albrecht and El Syd Townsend have no remaining eligibility and are not walking through the door to help with that aspect of the game. Well, one can at least dream. Offensively, Callie in the middle is a struggle. To be clear, Hames set both middles low a couple of times, and all they could do was pound it into the net. And while Schwartzenbach reminded us of what a tremendous defensive asset she is, her offensive performance was also a reminder why Coach Cook went out and grabbed a grad transfer at that position. The Huskers hitting percentage dropped from .317 to .228 between the two matches, but Indiana did put on a solid defensive performance in that final set in match two. All four of Nebraska’s big hitters (Kubik, Sun, Stivrins, and Zuhn) had tremendous shots during the course of the third set that were somehow dug by the Hoosier squad. Probably a one off for the young squad, but still quasi-impressive for Aird’s ‘Baby Dragons’ as he refers to them. Overall a solid, but not dominate, performance by the Big Red over the weekend. It is good that the schedule is laid out like it is (Indiana, Northwestern, Maryland, Rutgers) in the first four weeks, as this edition of Husker volleyball needs some fine tuning. In other B1G action, Penn State and Michigan was postponed (cancelled?) due to COVID fears first in Ann Arbor and later in the week in Cultist Valley. Maryland took Ohio State to 5 sets both matches, but the Buckenidiots prevailed over the Terrapins each time. Illinois won twice at Iowa by 3 to 1 margins each match, but the PowerHawks put up a stiffer challenge than expected. And the Golden Rodents dispatched of Sparty 3-0, 3-0, although two sets went deuce and one even went over. Wisconsin destroyed what I thought would be a competitive Boilermaker team and served notice on the rest of the B1G and the nation. The Ferocious Weasels appear to be ahead of schedule compared to their start last year where they lost four non-conference matches. To be sure, as John Baylor likes to opine, “You don’t want to peak in August.” Or in this case January. And it isn’t too far back in the memory hole that a Minnesota squad started out the 2018 B1G slate in similar fashion including a beatdown of, at the time, a no. 5 Badger squad in straights by an average score of 25 – 18. That Golden Rodent team started out hot, but ended up not making the finals in their own regional, and was probably the 3rd or 4th best team in the B1G by the end of the year. But a peripheral glance of Wisconsin (and I literally mean peripheral, as I had my TV on BTN with the Wisconsin-Purdue in the background as I was streaming the Nebraska match) indicates that this particular version may have some staying power. Rettke looked her usual dominate self and during one brief interlude I caught Haggerty executing a perfect cut shot from the left side landing 6 inches from the right side boundary and 2 feet from the net (Purdue defenders didn’t have a chance). But the so called question marks had monster games. Devyn Robinson got the start at opposite and merely had 16 kills on 27 attempts with no errors for a pedestrian .563 hitting percentage in two games. Meanwhile the Wisconsin defense suffocated the Boilers to a meager .113 over the weekend. One theme for the 2019 Husker team was ‘29029’ indicating to scale the summit of Mount Everest, you have to climb that final 29 feet, something they failed to do the previous year by losing to the Color Cardinal in set 5 of the NCAA finals by 3 points (the difference between the Foecke Era at Nebraska and the Plummer Era at Stanford). This season there is a different summit to climb. It is early, but scaling Mount Rettke may prove to be a more arduous challenge. The week one AVCA poll is as follows: 1 Wisconsin (49) 1486 2 Texas (8) 1444 3 Stanford (1) 1315 4 Kentucky (1) 1291 5 Nebraska (1) 1268 6 Baylor 1210 7 Minnesota 1169 8 Utah 1076 9 Penn State 1017 10 Florida 904 11 Washington 849 12 Louisville 747 13 Purdue 706 14 Creighton 680 15 Notre Dame 653 16 BYU 594 17 Missouri 521 18 Georgia Tech 452 19 UCLA 427 20 Pittsburgh 365 21 Michigan 259 22 San Diego 233 23 Hawai'i 179 24 Western Kentucky 138 25 Marquette 105 Nebraska remained at no. 5 which is not too surprising. The remainder of the B1G teams didn’t budge from last week except for Michigan. Michigan actually moved up three spots to 21 by not playing. And Purdue remained at 13 despite being shelled by the Badgers. Across the country the big upset was Arizona State beating No. 7 Washington in straights on the first night before succumbing to the Huskies the next night 3 to 1. And both matches were played in Seattle. The Huskies dropped to 11. Marquette also was upset as they split their series with Illinois State at Milwaukee, winning Friday in straight sets, but losing on Saturday in five. Utah (who was picked to win the PAC-12, Stanford was picked 3rd) looked impressive in their curbstomping of Arizona (picked to finish 10th in the league) by sweeps in both matches and jumped over Penn State in the rankings. Hawaii is still ranked even though the Big West isn’t playing volleyball at all this spring. Penn State and Stanford weren’t penalized by postponing / cancelling their matches and it appears both teams will postpone / cancel a second set of matches this weekend. The mens and womens Stanford basketball teams are playing, but they are being housed off campus and out of Santa Clara County to avoid the COVID restrictions. The same provisions are NOT being afforded the volleyball team and it is not clear if the Color Cardinal volleyball unit is even practicing. The SEC didn’t play but are scheduled to start this weekend with the knowledge that Auburn has opted out of the remainder of the season. The ACC hasn’t even put out a spring schedule on their website. The Big 12 has a bizarre ‘schedule’ lined up for spring. The only conference games they are playing are ones that were postponed in the fall and it appears that teams are scrambling to find non-conference opponents. Baylor had no postponements and may end up playing only 3 or 4 games in the spring prior to the NCAA tournament. Texas has a similar problem but do have 2 games to make up with TCU. Rice and North Texas from Conference USA seem to be likely opponents and possibly some teams from the American (Wichita State, Memphis). Still an odd way by the Big 12 to construct the volleyball schedule. Next up is the Northwestern Mildcats, however this version may not be so mild. Admittedly the opponent was Rutgers, but the Kittens handled their business and handled it easily. And they did so without Tia Robinson who didn’t play (don’t know if it was injury or COVID related, or if she was relegated to the bench). They return outside Thomas‑Ailara who led the team in kills both nights and totaled 29 in all. Abryanna Cannon replaced Robinson and had an efficient 19 kills while hitting .472 cumulative. And for those keeping score at home, one Megan Miller, now a starting libero, had 4 services aces and zero errors in the two matches. Northwestern is shaping up to be a tougher out than the Hoosiers. Don’t be surprised if one or both matches go 4 games. But the Fightin’ Schwartzenbachs should still prevail and push their record to 4 and 0.

The B1G pre-season volleyball poll is out and the coaches voted Wisconsin number 1 which is not surprising since the Badgers were number 1 in the national AVCA poll. What is a bit surprising is the coaches voted them number 1 with unanimity. That doesn’t happen often in the B1G, particularly since there are multiple teams in the top 10 nationally. The last time a school was a unanimous selection was (I believe) Nebraska in 2016 following their 2015 national championship. And that Nebraska team DID win the B1G conference, but lost in the national semis to the Shorthorns. The rankings: 1) Wisconsin 2) Minnesota 3) Nebraska 4) Penn State 5) Purdue 6) Michigan 7) Ohio State 8) Illinois 9) Michigan State 10) Northwestern 11) Indiana 12) Maryland 13) Iowa 14) Rutgers I would have flipped Nebraska and Minnesota, but otherwise don’t have much to quibble about. Wisconsin Strengths: Obviously middle with POY candidate and national team member Rattke along with Hart who was honorable mention All-American. The two top outside hitters return (Haggerty and Loberg) who were also All-Americans. To top it off they have a 1st team All-American senior, Sydney Hilley, returning at setter to run the show. Hilley is probably one of the top two setters in the country (Madison Lilley from Kentucky being the other). This is a very senior laden team with a lot of experience in big time matches. Issues: Not many. They did lose an All-Conference opposite in Duello and are having an open competition between three newcomers, two freshman and one transfer, to replace her. No one so far has claimed the spot. They also lost their libero and main defensive specialist, which may have narrowed the gap with Nebraska a bit, however, Coach Sheffield is saying that senior libero Lauren Barnes ‘has made a huge leap forward’ this year and may be ‘one of the best bro’s we’ve had’ at Wisconsin. How much of that is real and how much is coach speak remains to be seen. They did also get a libero/defensive specialist to transfer from Wichita State where she was All-Conference in the American Association. Minnesota Strengths: Samedy is back at opposite along with Pittman in the middle, both All-Americans. They did lose an outside All-American in Hart, but return Rollins who was third on the team in kills. Heir apparent to Hart looks to be Taylor Landfair who was prep volleyball’s No. 1 overall prospect in 2020 and part of the No. 2 recruiting class that Minnesota acquired. Jenna Wenass is also a highly recruited outside. Issues: Their setter position was a bit ‘unsettled’ last year after the departure of Seliger‑Swanson and injuries to Kylie Miller, a senior transfer from UCLA, but they still managed to get to the Final Four largely on offensive firepower. I don’t see McMenimen as the starter with touted incoming freshman 6’3” Shaffmaster being in the picture (yes, at that size, she’s a unicorn type ala Jordyn Poulter). That said, being a freshman setter in this conference is a tough learning curve and while she will have offensive weapons all around her, there may be growing pains as she learns to adapt to the B1G. And for all the Husker fans, one Hunter Atherton (grad transfer) has made the rounds from the Big Red, to North Carolina, and now to Golden Rodent land. Penn State Strengths: The Trio of Hord (middle), Parker (opposite), and Gray (middle) are all All‑Americans and back as juniors. Feeding them is All-Conference junior setter Gabby Blossom. Issues: Lost All-American libero Kendall White, who was also the leader on the team, and a host of defensive specialists. There is not a senior on the team so one of the juniors will have to step up and fill that leadership void (circa Nebraska 2019). Their outsides last year were not special (4th and 5th on the team in kills), but have Anne Fitzpatrick, 2020 Florida Gatorade POY, coming in to alleviate that situation to some degree. She IS a bit undersized at 5’11” for an outside in the B1G. Purdue Strengths: They have their All-American outside hitters and top two kill artists back in Cleveland and Newton. Their setter, Hayley Bush was 3rd in the conference and 17th in the nation in total assists but didn’t receive any post season accolades. They also return an experienced libero (Hourning) and defensive specialist (Oltec). Oltec also led the B1G with 50 aces. Those five positions are either juniors or seniors and represent a solid foundation for this season. Issues: The Boilermakers lost both redshirt senior middles to graduation (one was All-Conference, both were effective). Their big issue is playing in the B1G. Purdue would likely win the ACC and compete for 2nd or 3rd in the SEC or Big 12. In the B1G it appears Purdue is stuck in 5th, with an outside shot at overtaking Penn State. If this were a normal season with 8-10 non-conference games to pad the win-loss records, it wouldn’t surprise me if the top 5 teams in the B1G ended up in the top 10 nationally, similar to 2018. After those 5, there is a gap to the next tier of teams which consist of only two; Michigan and An Ohio State. Michigan is young but have a returning outside in Paige Jones and highly recruited outside Jess Mruzik. The Wolverines will be breaking in a new setter however. The Buckenidiots have a new coach and new facilities. They’ve had injury issues the past couple of seasons, but do have young talent on their roster with the top two leaders in kills returning on the outside and solid incoming recruiting class led by middle blocker Rylee Radar and opposite Emily Londot. 8 through 12 is anybody’s guess. Michigan State has a lot of experience returning but had no one with post season accolades last year. The other teams are young and have holes to fill. Indiana has new facilities and a solid recruiting class (15th nationally), but are probably one to two years away from being a tournament team contender. Illinois has lost too much over the last two years with Poulter, Quade, Bastianelli, and Cooney all gone. Their 8th place ranking is probably too high. Northwestern returns outsides Nia Robinson and Temi Thomas‑Ailara and may push up from number 10. And firmly ensconced at the bottom are Iowa and Rutgers. Rutgers has a lot of players returning and a new coach, but there is probably not enough improvement to climb past 13. While Rutgers is trending slightly up, Iowa is trending down. They lost their leading attacker, libero, and setter (Brie Orr, Kenndi’s sister). It will be rough year for the Hawkeyes. Nebraska is a year older and, hopefully, wiser and better. The Big Red filled in one deficiency of lack of offense at the 2nd middle blocker position with Meyer and Caffey. Here’s anticipating another year of tutelage and practice improve the passing so Hames isn’t running all over the court for balls to set. At the pre-season press conference, Cook was raving about the servers he has at his disposal. Again, we will have to wait and see if this is just rhetoric trying to build confidence in his team (Trust It, Big Girl) or reality. But I don’t think they have enough to beat Wisky. I have the Fightin’ Schwartzenbachs at number 2 in the B1G and number 2 in the country at the end. All of that, of course, depends on the seedings and match ups when tournament time comes around. I do like the idea of a tournament ‘bubble’ in Omaha if COVID is still an issue in April. Otherwise, a gaggle of B1G teams could end up in the same regional ‘pod’ to try and reach the Final Four. Let the games (and fun) begin.

Drewnick opting out leaves the team a bit thin at setter, especially in the year of the COVID. Evans now becomes backup, a freshman walk-on who herself is coming off a significant injury. Also curious to see how this affects the double sub when Hames is getting abused on the front row. It appears that Schwartezbach will assume the blocking role left open by Anezka's departure, but can Evans fill in for Drewnick? I seem to recall that it was mentioned that in one of the 'Conversation with the Cooks' podcasts that Knuckles was learning how to two hand set vice bump set in certain situations. I don't know if she would be proficient enough to run an offense in an emergency situation. Base on Cook's response to a general question about the topic (COVID protocols depleting a certain position) in his pre-season press conference, I would lean towards 'NO' as the answer. And an OBTW, according to the BTN website both Indiana-Nebraska matches are being televised next Friday and Saturday at 6 PM EST. Friday is on BTN proper, Saturday is on BTN plus.

As the ugliness and uncertainty of COVID bleed over into the new year, some of the weirdness associated with it has apparently affected the coaches for the initial AVCA rankings. I didn’t expect Nebraska to be ranked so low. All the major players returning, upgrading the offensive ‘issue’ with the 2nd middle via transfer and incoming freshman, losing a talented coach, but replacing her with another talented coach familiar with the program who was instrumental in the 2017 title run….adds up to something higher than number 5 which is what they finished the 2019 season at. Minnesota was another team I expected to be in the top 5 but was slotted slightly outside. The lost one outside and one middle, but return Pittman in the middle who was 1st team All-American (yes, Strivins got hosed), can replace the outside with the 2020 No. 1 overall recruit (as deemed by Prep Volleyball), and still have Samedy at the opposite pin. Lot of talent still there. Texas at No. 2 is somewhat understandable having played 14 matches already (2 were postponed), being unbeaten, and defeating Baylor twice on the Shorthorns home court. To be clear both matches were 5 setters and multiple sets went either deuce or extras. However, the Burnt Orange has shown a propensity at ‘spitting the bit’ come tournament time the past few years. Stanford at No. 3 makes no sense aside from name brand recognition. It’s true they had the number 1 recruiting class in 2019, however, you don’t get much playing time as freshman when your starting line up consists of 5 senior / grad transfer All-Americans, all of whom exhausted their eligibility last year including their setter Gray and perennial POY candidate Plummer. That’s an extraordinary amount of talent and experience to replace. Some may compare it with what Nebraska lost in 2016 (the Rolfzen twins and Wong-Orantes) and the National Championship the next year in 2017, but Nebraska DID return an experienced All-American setter in Hunter and Ms. Fearless, one Mikela Foecke. And that 2017 team was the exemplification of the phrase ‘catch lighting in a bottle.’ When Anika Albrecht ‘figured it out’ with the help of Hildebrand (see the UCLA back to back matches), the team set off on an incredible run, and rarely looked back (aside from the inexplicable Northern Iowa loss). Truly a team where the whole was much greater than the individual pieces. The odds of that happening with this edition of the Color Cardinal are minuscule. I don’t see Stanford making a Final Four appearance this year. Kentucky at No. 4 is a beneficiary of playing a schedule in the fall (even though abbreviated) and remaining unbeaten when others were sitting. The SEC is a better conference than most and having a two game lead heading into spring is substantial, but 8 games does not erase the fact the Wildcats were taken out by Washington in the Regional SEMI-finals last year. However, Kentucky did have the number 1 recruiting class in 2020 (according to PrepVolleyball) and the do have a returning senior setter in Madison Lilley (2nd Team All-American), so it may be too harsh to judge them on last year’s early exit. If I had a vote, which fortunately for the ACVA I don’t, my top ten would be: 1) Wisconsin 2) Texas 3) Nebraska 4) Minnesota 5) Washington 6) Baylor (yes they had a bad loss to Kansas, but they still have Yossiana Pressley) 7) Kentucky 8) Penn State 9) Utah 10) Purdue Maybe a little too B1G centric (Purdue may be a reach), but given that the B1G has placed two teams in the Final Four in 8 of the last 9 tournaments and factoring in the talent coming back (particularly with the Big Four), the bias is somewhat warranted. For what it’s worth, I have Stanford at 11 just outside the top 10. As far as the remaining 10 thru 25, I find it odd that the ACC has four teams included in the poll. Again, the league is likely getting some benefit of playing in the fall. However, like the SEC (and unlike the Big 12 which played a 16 game schedule), the ACC played only 8 games. Hardly a significant sample size. In general, and the reason for this is not easily understood, the ACC is a very weak volleyball conference often times having only one or two teams in the top 25. They’ve had one team reach the Final Four in tournament history which is the same number of Final Fours that the University of Texas @ Arlington (Go Mavericks) has. It is even rare that they have a team reach the Regional Finals, notwithstanding Louisville’s improbable run last year in the Texas Regional. Not a rich volleyball tradition. Pittsburgh is the bellcow of the league and they lost two All-Americans and two more All-Conference veterans from the 2019 squad and currently sit at 4-4 after the shortened fall season. The past few years, the quagmire from 15-25 has been the property of the PAC-12, often having between 5 and 7 teams in that area of the rankings. But this year the PAC-12 only had UCLA in that region of the poll. I’m not sure if the pollsters are discounting the depth that typifies the conference or if this is a down year in general for the league. And I was a little surprised that no other B1G team was in the RV (Receiving Votes) category. Ohio State has a new coach and may be an unknown, but they did have a top 10 recruiting class in 2019, have new facilities, and last year’s record was impeded by a rash of injuries. Michigan State is another team that should have a seasoned squad ready to take the next competitive step and compete for a tournament berth (at least in a normal 64 team tournament year). But there was no love for the conference after Michigan at 24. Pre-season polls don’t mean much. But it does get fans of the sport back into the discussion and is yet another indicator that the season is little over a couple of weeks away. Here’s to a successful season for the Fightin’ Schwartzenbachs.

The schedule is out, and the anxiety is relieved to a certain extent. It also is a marker that the volleyball season is one step closer to reality, although it doesn’t take an eidetic memory to recall that the B1G cancelled football within days or releasing its schedule. Hopefully those in power have learned something from the disastrous response to the football season. It appears that Nebraska, again, got a slightly favorable draw in the scheduling process. Nebraska had a schedule disadvantage in 2017 and 2018, but was redeemed somewhat in 2019 by only playing Penn State and Minnesota once. If you limit the discussion to the Big Four (Nebraska, Minnesota, Penn State, and Wisconsin), this season the Huskers are the ones to host 4 of the 6 matches (Minnesota and Penn State) being played amongst the four teams. Minnesota & Wisconsin are an even split at 3 home, 3 away since their home and home ‘rivalry’ match is against each other, and Penn State only hosts Wisconsin while playing the Gophers and the Big Red on the road. Additionally, the Huskers avoid Purdue which appears to be clearly the next best unit after the Big Four and the only team to beat the Huskers last season that didn’t play in the National Title game. They also don’t face Michigan State which I had in a group just below Purdue and a contender for a tournament berth, but based on AVCA rankings that just came out, I may have to reassess. In contrast, the other Big Four contenders miss the following opponents on their schedule: Wisconsin: Ohio State, Maryland Minnesota: Indiana, Rutgers Penn State: Northwestern, Iowa Nebraska starts out by playing some middle to lower tier teams in the conference (Indiana, Northwestern, Maryland, Rutgers) which should allow team skills and chemistry to develop and mature prior to the showdowns with Minnesota and Wisconsin in back-to-back weekends. This is all said with the understanding that, at least initially, home court this season doesn’t have the value it would normally. Still overall, the scheduling benefit, however slight, is with the Huskers. Looking forward to the matches and the high level of play that typifies the B1G. I may even invest in B1G plus subscription to garner more contests to watch (I still enjoy listening to the John Baylor play-by-play call and commentary on the Husker website).

Hate to see Szabo go. Best block on the team, and by all indications, a great teammate. Never developed enough offense to get more playing time. With Davis and Szabo gone, that leaves two scholarship slots open for 2020, one of which is Kalynn Meyer. Hard to believe but there is a top player in the 2020 class which hasn't committed yet to my knowledge. Sophie Fischer, a 6'5" outside from South Carolina decommitted from North Carolina and I don't believe signed with anyone on November 13th. The schools vying for her are now apparently all B1G. Maryland, Penn State, Minnesota, and the Huskers. Another website said she made an official visit to Nebraska recently. She was South Carolina Gatorade POY as a junior, but I'm not sure if she repeated that title this year (or if they have even announced the winners for 2019).

This post is written from a perspective of a fan who is over 500 miles away and has no contacts on the team or remotely related to the team (no insider info). Most (essentially all) of the content is observation and speculation, both from a distance. Hopefully some die hard volleyball fans will be willing to wade through the content and provide their own insights. Congrats to Stanford and their gaggle of senior All-Americans for the Color Cardinal’s ninth title. An incredible four year run which even surpasses the Foecke / Maloney era at Nebraska. Four straight final fours and three titles in four years. Ultimately, last year’s championship was the difference between Plummer era at Stanford and the Foecke era in Huskerland. 3 points. 29 feet. Congrats to Wiskey for winning the conference and making a run to the NCAA Championship, but not so much for their performance on the biggest stage. Stanford came out and punched them, then toothless Badger went into the corner, whimpered, and covered up. A complete dichotomy of how they were playing up to that point. Apparently there is no Foecke-like person in the Wiskey roster to gather the troops together, breathe deeply, and punch back with some heavy, heavy kills. The pressure of B1G play should have prepped them for the occasion, but apparently “wetting the bed” is not solely reserved for playing Ohio State in early November. Believe it or not, the results of the Nebraska Volleyball 2019 season were average to maybe even slightly below average. Which is the ridiculousness the state of the program is in since Cook took over in 2000. 29½ victories 4 defeats, regional final. That is an average year for Nebraska Volleyball. Cook has 588 wins and 80 losses in now 20 seasons at the Husker helm. So 28 and 5 and making the regional final could be considered a slightly below average season. The caveat to that is the B1G is a much tougher conference than the Big 12 was back in the day, even though the Big 12 was a much better conference in the first decade of the century than it is now. The fact the Huskers ended up 5th in the final AVCA poll is a minor irritant. Nebraska was unlucky enough to get paired with another B1G foe in the regional finals while Minnesota drew the Texas regional and the obviously overrated Shorthorn squad from the inept Big 12 conference which didn’t even make their own final. Nebraska beat Minnesota on the Golden Rodents home floor in November. The Big Red should have been rated above said Rodents at 4, but really, that IS the definition of “quibbling.” I thought the big hole to fill this season would be the crater left by Foecke, and to be clear, it wasn’t completely filled, particularly Foecke’s physicality. However, I was pleased with the improvement Lexi Sun made from her sophomore to junior year. Some of that can placed on her health (the sophomore season was one coming back from injury), but much can be placed on her improvement in shot variety and selection. And I was more than pleased with the maturation process of one Madi Kubik. Probably a difference in 70 to 80 points in hitting average at the start of the year to the end of conference play. I don’t know how much she can improve physically, but she has all the other intangibles to becoming the next Nebraska outside with National team pedigree. The hole that I thought would be easier to fill turned out to the biggest deficit between the 2019 version and 2018 team. I underestimated the impact that Kenzie Maloney had on the overall defense. I admit that Kenzie Knuckles is a talent and I don’t want to denigrate her play, but there is a significant disparity between a freshman and an All-American senior who toiled behind arguably the best libero in Nebraska history in HER freshman and sophomore years. For a refresher, go watch replays of the 2018 Kentucky regional semi-final match and the 2018 Oregon regional final match. Maloney’s play is stunning. Karch Kiraly was doing color for those matches, and quite frankly I’m surprised Maloney didn’t get an invite to the National team tryouts, given all the “issues” the US National team has with the libero position. The middle’s probably took a minor step back in 2019, but that is for explainable reasons. With no Foecke, Stivrins became the object the opposition’s attention for a large chunk of the year, getting doubled much of the time and allowing the pins more one-on-one situations. Schwarzenbach was hobbled offensively by her broken thumb and the ungainly club on her hitting hand. That impeded any progress she could have made offensively, which still makes that portion of her game an unknown. With Capri Davis departing for UT@AustinSucks, it appears that any serious competition at the opposite is gone. But with Jazz Sweet’s level of play in the latter half of the year, it becomes more of a non-issue. Jazz has always been an underrated blocker in my book, but her offensive output in the 2nd half of the season was encouraging. She probably benefits the most from the diversity in the offense resulting in single blocks as opposed to doubles. I do wish she would watch the absolute fearlessness (and viciousness) that Annie Drews (opposite on the National team) plays with and try to emulate it. That would take Jazz to the next level. Nicklin Hames is a talent, but just how extraordinary a talent remains to be seen. My gut tells me she isn’t a Poulter or Carlini type talent (the top two setters on the National team which happen to come from B1G schools), but she may rival a Kelly Hunter (who “only” got POY recognition from both PrepVolleyball and VolleyMob her senior year). There was an improvement from freshman to sophomore season (even with the additional duties of being a captain), but there were also times that connections just weren’t there, particularly with the middles. She is clearly the best defender at the setter position in the NCAA, but she is also a liability as a blocker when she rotates to the front, even though she did make improvements in that area of her game. The absence of Banwarth on the staff will have an impact on the team especially with the development of the libero (Knuckles) play. There is no doubt Knuckles, Miller, Hames, and Densberger (and even Kubik and Sun) could have used another year of tutelage from Kayla. However, the big shoes to fill in the future for the next assistant will be recruiting. The 2021 Class is shaping up to be one of the all-timers in Nebraska volleyball history and Kayla was largely responsible for those recruits. Schools being able to communicate to new recruits and make offers has been delayed by new NCAA rules, but the 2022 class official visits can start on September 1st of 2020. I’m not sure how the new rules apply to the volleyball camps the Huskers host during the summer. Nebraska already has one commit with Bekka Allick (apparently that commitment beat the new timeframe that the NCAA established), but the new assistant will need to be able to step in immediately and start establishing relationships with the high school juniors targeted by the Husker staff. 2020 is shaping up to be another Final Four year for the Huskers. As is often mentioned, the Big Red is returning everyone. No one graduates. With the continued improvement of the pins (Sun, Kubik, and Sweet), this should be a team that has a hitting percentage at or near .300 which should put it top 5 nationally. Last year Nebraska ranked 8th in the nation for opponents hitting percentage, so one would think another year of maturation should improve that standing. Top 5 in hitting percentage and in opposition hitting percentage (especially in a conference as competitive as the B1G) should spell an uber successful season with a deep run in the tourney. It will be interesting how Riley Zuhn on the pin and newcomer Kalynn Meyer in the middle fit into the rotation (if at all). I don’t know if there is someone else on the outside that would allow Riley Zuhn to redshirt, but in the long run that may be the better option than having her play a handful of sets as she did in 2019. There is some commentary on other websites that Meyer “isn’t ready” and “is a ways off.” I don’t know how accurate those assessments are, I just know she is an extraordinary athlete. All-American volleyball, All-State basketball, and her excellence at the throws in track and field is nothing short of astonishing. Her discus throw of 176’08” at state (as a junior in high school) would have placed her 2nd at the 2019 B1G outdoor track & field championships. And for those questioning the compatibility of those marks, the weight of the disc for women’s high school events is the SAME as the collegiate and international weights. Meyer is strong, but NOT built like a typical thrower you see in shot and discus (a heavier body type). She is built more like Stivrins and looks like she can put a hurt on a volleyball and anything that gets in it’s path on the way to denting the floor. If Meyer can develop a power offensive game early and if Schwarzenbach continues to struggle with that part of her game, it would not surprise me to see Meyer substituted in spots where an offensive spark is needed, with Callie rotating in when the emphasis is on blocking and defense. Callie is too gifted defensively to completely shut out of the rotation. The 2020 volleyball scene looks bright for Nebraska, however, the top of the B1G is shaping up to be among the elites nationally (again…still). It may be more definitive than last year and closer to the dominance of 2018. It would not surprise me to see Wisconsin, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Penn State ranked in the top 5 in the pre-season AVCA poll. Stanford loses too much (their highly ranked freshman didn’t get much seasoning this year), Texas will be ranked behind the B1G teams mainly due to the disappointing end to the season and their inability to win late in the tournament the past few seasons. The only other team that may join the B1G teams in the top 5 is Baylor which has 2 first team All-Americans returning (Lockin at setter and the freak that is Yossiana Pressley, AVCA POY on the outside), but they lose Stafford, their 1st team All American middle. Wisconsin loses their opposite (Duello – All-Conference 2nd team) and libero (Clark All-American Honorable Mention in 2018), but returns setter (Hilley All-American 1st), outsides Loberg (AA - HM) and Haggerty (AA – 2nd), middles Hart (AC – 2nd) and of course potential POY Raddke. They have three highly touted recruits coming in (Hammill at setter, Robinson in the middle, and Demps on the outside), but outside hitter Jade Demps is likely the only one to significant playing time in replacing Duello at opposite. Minnesota loses one outside (Hart – AA 3rd), one middle (Morgan – AC 2nd), and sometime injured setter (Miller), but returns a setter that saw significant action (McMenimen), middle Pittman (AA – 1st), outside Rollins (3rd on the team in kills and kills/set), libero McGraw (AA – HM) and opposite Samedy (AA – 2nd) who is another POY candidate. The notable recruits incoming include outside Landfair (6’4” No. 1 overall recruit by PrepVolleyball), outside Weenas, and setter Shaffmaster. Landfair probably sees time right away. The Rodents will have a decision to either go with a setter with some experience in McMenimen or their highly recruited 6’3” freshman in Shaffmaster and take the lumps the B1G learning curve requires. The Cult that IS Penn State loses White (AA – 2nd) at libero and their team leader for the past two years, and a gaggle of their defensive specialists, but return a ton of talent. This includes Parker at opposite (AA – HM), Hord in the middle (AA – 1st), Gray in the middle (AA – HM) and Gabby Blossom at setter (AC – 2nd). The outsides were 4th and 5th in team kills and only Cathey (5th in kills) returns. It will be interesting to see who steps up to the leadership role and to see how significant the loss of experience on the back row affects Penn State’s defensive play and stats. The Lions do have three recruits that might see significant playing time in defensive specialist Bilinovic (replacement for White?) and outsides Fitzpatrick (6’1”) and Van Den Elzen (6’4”). The Cultist are still pursuing 6’4” outside Sophie Fischer (South Carolina Gatorade POY) who recently decommitted from North Carolina. She has also visited Nebraska, Minnesota, and Maryland. It appears she didn’t commit on November 13th and has not signed. In summary………The top tier of B1G teams is stacked. The next tier of B1G teams includes Michigan and Purdue. I expect that they will be in the top 16 and hosting on the first weekend of the NCAA tournament. THE Buckenidiots should be much improved and possibly a top 25 team, if the coach can get out of his own way (he has done it before). Michigan State and Northwestern should compete for tournament berths with Indiana being more of a longshot to make the field. I see Illinois dropping dramatically and being in the bottom third of the conference. And I’ll miss the robotic arm and general fearlessness of one Jacqueline Quade. It will be more difficult to win the B1G than to make the Final Four. As has happened in 7 of the past 8 Final Fours, I expect multiple B1G teams to make it to Omaha. The only question is how the selection committee chooses to distribute the B1G teams in the bracket. In 2018 there were 5 B1G teams in the top 8, and 4 ended up on the same side of the bracket. The asininity of the selection committee never ceases to amaze. The top teams in the B1G for the 2020 season are good enough that if they start out in separate regions, it would not be surprising (albeit not likely) to see Omaha shaping up as a Final Four B1G tournament. But I’m sure if that possibility comes up, the selection committee will screw it up. My predictions for the 2019 season weren’t particularly prescient. I had Stanford winning (who didn’t), with the Huskers 2nd in the tournament. I had Wisconsin and Nebraska a coin flip in the B1G, with Minnesota 3rd and Penn State 4th. The Rodents and The Cultist did better than I anticipated, especially with the loss of their setters from the previous year. I had the Illini 5th but still in the top 10. I knew the loss of Poulter would be big, but I didn’t see the loss to be canyon-like big. I nailed the Shorthorns, but missed on Baylor, which played solidly all year. Pitt was a much better team than last year, however playing in that crappy ACC conference hurt them in the tourney (that and an inexplicable seeding). I didn’t forecast Creighton to be in the top 10 discussion (or even top 25) much of the year after losing Kloth and Winters. Kudos to Coach Booth and her ability to sustain the program at such a high level. Of course, I really missed on Oregon. I thought they would separate themselves from the other PAC-12 teams and complete with the Color Cardinal. They ended tied for 2nd to last in the conference at 5 – 15 (9 – 20 overall). Very odd. Congrats to the 2019 version of Husker Volleyball. It is a likeable team; the players are easy to root for and the consistent excellence the program exhibits is admirable. But with consistency produces expectations. Anything less than a Final Four in 2020 will be considered a disappointment (and I’m shaking my head as I type that sentence). Here’s to the Fightin’ Schwarzenbachs making it to a 9th straight regional final, and a 5th Final Four in 6 years. #DestinationOmaha

And where the volleyball program makes a profit for the athletic department. As opposed to the women's basketball program which is in the red in the amount of 1 - 2 million dollars annually. Yes, you have to look at other schools, conferences, and sports to determine the appropriate market rate for a specific coaching position. But Nebraska Volleyball is an outlier. At this point, I believe Nebraska Volleyball still is the only Olympic sports team that is profitable to the their Athletic Department in NCAA college athletics. Not even the Connecticut Women's Basketball can make that claim. And this has been the case since volleyball has moved into Devaney. I've made the argument that Cook's salary should be closer to 1 million a year, based on the profitability of the volleyball program. I hope with this next round of facilities upgrade that Moos looks at expanding Devaney for volleyball, and starts to look at revenue streams for beach volleyball. I think Nebraska fan will support it.

If you're looking for a recent player to fill the gap, I would look at Wong-Orantes. When she was a player, Cook would sometimes just have a conversation with her in "coach speak" with the rest of the team in the background, her knowledge of the game was that advanced. She was a grad assistant on a couple of men's teams (Long Beach State?), but this fall she is overseas playing pro. Brings alot to the coaching side, no idea if she brings anything to the recruiting side. Having no specific insight to the program, and literally being thousands of miles away, I don't think it will be either Hunter or Wong-Orantes. Maybe in the next iteration of coaching changes. Of course my dream pick would be Jordan Larson. But she is not ready to retire yet. She is still playing at a high level and still commanding good money. And she really wants the gold in the 2020 Olympics to cap off one of the more incredible careers in indoor American Women's Volleyball history. Congrats to Kayla. The SEC is reading the tea leaves and realizing that women's volleyball will overtake women's basketball within the decade. Their conference is gearing up for it and is trying to play catch up with the B1G. The SEC has the money to do it. The PAC-12 should be on notice. Their TV contract sucks by comparison, and I can't tell you how many times I tuned into a PAC-12 match being played on a basketball court. Let's see, I could go to a school that has volleyball only facilities and thousands of rabid fans for home matches, or I could play on a marked up basketball court in front of hundreds. Not a difficult decision.

The absence of Davis this year may have inadvertently pushed the development of Kubik along. Early in the season (before she got hurt), Davis was subbing in for Jazz when she rotated to the left pin, and subbing quite a bit for Kubik when Madi rotated out of the back row, particularly if Kubik was having issues with the block. With Davis injured, Kubik had to stay in and figure out how to get her shots down, which she did as the season progressed. Still there were matches where Kubik or Sun were just 'off' and it would have been nice to have someone as explosive as Davis come in and jack a couple over the block. Her leaving probably doesn't impact the team as much with the improvement of Sun and Kubik on the outside. Like most Husker fans, I dislike Texas, but it is a good spot for her to land, since it is a premier volleyball program and it is closer to home (see McClellan to Auburn and Atherton to North Carolina for less desirable transfer spots). The fact that Cook trains his outsides to be 6 rotational players is probably another reason Elliot, the Texas coach, saw Davis as being a valuable add. For the first time this year, he (Elliot) had two outsides that were 6 rotational players. He probably liked the latitude it gave him substitution wise. I know either last year, or two years ago, in an early season match against Stanford, he got caught at the substitution limit in an extended set, and had to rotate a shorter defensive specialist through the front row which ended up costing him the set and the match. Also, Elliot probably didn't like that Lexi Sun left Texas because she didn't feel he (Elliot) was preparing her for the next level. You have to be a six rotational player to play overseas as a pro or to play on the National team. There are no pin hitters on the national team from Texas. There are four from Nebraska. As someone mentioned in a previous post, good luck to Capri. Not so much for Texas.

Being seeded at 5 is probably one higher than I thought Nebraska would be. I am disappointed (again) that the committee didn't try to avoid all B1G regional finals (last year was Illinois - Wisconsin and Nebraska - Minnesota except that the Gophers choked in the regional semis). For as unfavorable as the regional final match up is, the 3rd round match is actually pretty good with Hawaii as the 12 seed. Wisconsin has it even better with aTm somehow being selected as the 13 seed. My guess is that aTm doesn't make it out of the 1st weekend (see the Rice Owls). As far as the top 4 seeds, I didn't think that the committee would reward a crappy conference like the Big 12 with two top seeds. Not only did they reward the conference with two top seeds, they rewarded them with THE two top seeds. Pitt also plays in a crappy conference (the ACC) but the reality is that the Big 12 has ZERO depth. But instead Pitt gets a 6 seed, has to go to the West Coast for the 2nd weekend, AND has to play the 8th ranked Penn State squad that somehow ended up an 11 seed even though they finished tied for 2nd in the B1G at 17-3. This is the 'reward' Pitt gets for being 29-1 in a power 5 conference (albeit a weak one). The committee places too much reliance on the RPI. The RPI actually rewards teams in weak conferences. Baylor beating a 11-5 Oklahoma squad looks a lot better than a Wisconsin beating a 7-13 Oklahoma squad, which is what the Sooners record would have been if they played in the B1G (and that's probably being generous). Other observations. Penn State at 11 is a joke. Washington at 15 - 5 in the PAC-12 should not be the 8 seed over Florida, Kentucky, and Penn State. Again too much weight on the RPI and too much credit for wins over Wisconsin in September when the Badgers were in the middle of a four game losing streak. Oklahoma in the tournament over California is also puzzling. 10 -10 in the PAC-12 and 20-10 overall is a better resume' than 11-5 in the Big 12. Plus California swept Oklahoma 3-0, even though that was also a September match. Oklahoma beat literally no one of substance. They split with Iowa State and lost twice to Baylor and Texas in conference. As mentioned before, they lost in 3 to California, in 3 to Colorado State, and their "best" victories in non-conference where 5 setters over Oregon State, Indiana, and Arizona State. Iowa State in the tourney is even more mystifying. 8-8 in the Big 12, and with only one solid win in non-conference over Northern Iowa, and losses to UCF, Penn State (in a sweep), and LSU. The Big 12 should only have two reps. In the first weekend I don't see a ton of upsets, but probably more than last year. As mentioned before, look for Rice to come out of the aTm group. I also like Colorado State over 8 seed Washington, and San Diego over 12 seed Hawaii setting up a rematch with the Huskers. Marquette and 16 seed Purdue is a coin flip, and I would like to jump on the Illini bandwagon with Jacqueline "Swing Away" Quade, but I think they've actually regressed in the past few weeks. Losing to Northwestern on the final game of the regular season is not a good look.

I didn't see this one coming. Another for the class of 2021. In volleyball recruiting, this would qualify as a 'late add'. Welcome one Whitney Lauenstein, a local from Waverly, to the Husker volleyball family: https://www.omaha.com/sports/college/huskers/teams/volleyball/waverly-junior-whitney-lauenstein-fulfills-a-dream-by-committing-to/article_f0dc1290-b13e-5aef-99db-d49224a1dd6d.html This one is a bit confusing to me. i assumed, going by the numbers, Ms. Lauenstein would be a walk-on, but she is indeed a scholarship player. This is the 2021 class currently (at least what I've been able to keep track of): 2021 Alexis Rodriguez DS SCH 5’ 04” U18 USA Team 2021 Lindsey Krause OH SCH 6’ 03” U18 USA Team 2021 Kennedi Orr S SCH 5’ 11” U18 USA Team 2021 Rylee Gray MB SCH 6’ 04” 2021 Ally Batenhorst OH SCH 6’ 04” Made USA tryouts 2021 Whitney Lauenstein OH SCH 6’ 02” The 2021 class is loaded. Four of the six were invited for the U18 USA National Team tryouts and three of the six actually made the team. That team won the gold in September this year by the way. Again the numbers don't add up to 12 scholarship players (they actually exceed by a couple). The Huskers should be losing 3 scholarship players after 2020. And I don't know the rules well enough to know how a medical redshirt counts against the total number of scholarships. Anezka Szabo already has a medical redshirt and would otherwise have exhausted her eligibility in 2020.

Even with Meyer being the only scholarship player, it is still going to be a crowded field in 2020. No one is slated to leave, so a scholarship player will have to red shirt. The only other player that was recently in Nebraska's sights for this class was Lauren Ware, a two sports star out of North Dakota. Her scholarship was going to be in basketball, but she wanted to play both sports. She ended up committing to Arizona. This class won't be highly ranked, but the 2021 class will likely be a top five, if not the top ranked recruiting class in the country, assuming all the verbals remain committed.

USA Women's team claims silver at at the FIVB World Cup. https://www.teamusa.org/USA-Volleyball/Features/2019/September/29/US-Women-Claim-World-Cup-Silver-with-10-1-Record Much like other World Cups, this is a once every 4 years event. Unlike other World Cups, the women's volleyball is a round robin affair with the top 12 ranked teams in the World. Every team plays every other team and the winner is the one with the best record / points total / points/set winning percentage. China was unbeaten, and the US came in at 10-1 to claim 2nd. Couple of observations. Poulter is now the number one setter on this team. Pretty amazing considering the competition. Beating out Carlini is impressive considering she (Carlini) is a legend in her own right and was largely responsible for Carli Lake, who set team USA to bronze in the last Olympics, to resign from team USA. Kiraly is still experimenting but I think he realizes that the TEAM plays much better with Larson and Robinson on the outside, even though Hill and Bartsch-Hackley may be more physically imposing. He started Larson and Robinson on the outside in 7 of the 11 matches and often in the tougher matches. Additionally, I think Kiraly is starting to crack on his insistence that Courtney is his libero. Against Russia, in a match that was crucial in securing the silver, Kirachy started Wong-Orantes (3 Nebraskans starting --- Robinson, Larson, Wong-Orantes). Kelsey Robinson was selected as outstanding outside and Andrea Drews was selected outstanding opposite. Drews continues to rack up the accolades, but Kiraly seems to have a short hook for her, especially when Thompson is available. 14 were on the World Cup roster, only 12 are allowed on the Olympic squad. My guess is you go down one middle and only carry one libero. The 3 middles are probably Ogdobu, Washington, and Akinradewo (coming back from a pregnancy). The four outsides are Robinson, Larson, Bartsch-Hackley, and either Hill or Foecke. The setters are Poulter and Carlini. The outsides are Drews and Thompson. The libero is an unknown. Courtney has been marginal at best. Wong-Orantes may not be that far removed from making the team. Regardless of who makes it, Robinson becomes the emergency libero. That group has more than a puncher's chance at a gold in 2020. Larson has a silver (2012) and a bronze (2016). I hope she gets her gold.

Comments on the red-white scrimmage Apparently not a sell out, but a pretty impressive showing for Husker fan as a volleyball scrimmage still manages to pull in the upper 7K in attendance. I do feel sorry for the players that had to endure the autograph session that followed the match. When they showed a clip of The Line for autographs, my writing hand instinctively started cramping up….a “sympathy” cramp as it were. It may be prudent next year for the team to autograph a few thousand group pictures prior to, in order to better manage the adulation onslaught. I would think that you would particularly want the “real life” interactive to be selective towards young girls who idolize the “big girls” on the team. It seems like Frost did something similar this year for Fan Day in football i.e. pre-signed some autographs but catered to younger fans at the actual event. It is poor form to couch all the subsequent comments with a caveat, but here it goes anyway. It is one day, one match. And not even a real match but a scrimmage amongst yourselves (we talkin’ practice) where nearly eight thousand friends just also happen to show up. But to come away with any dramatic new insight on this team seems like reaching a bit. And perhaps myopic. Particularly since all said “insights” are made by LISTENING to the match without the benefit of seeing it. The BIG story was the play of Capri Davis. 19 total kills with most of those coming AGAINST the Red squad. Per the coach, this KILL explosion is a rather recent development. On Thursday in practice, Ms. Davis went off and became nearly unstoppable. Whether this is a new level of play as the result of hours of practice and repetition, or this is just an athlete who is ‘in a zone’ for awhile and will eventually return to norm, remains to be seen. Davis had moments last year where she looked the part of a starter (see Creighton and 18 kills in a 5 set match), but she was too inconsistent. She (Capri) is an athlete on the freakish side (probably not Jordon Thompsonesque, but next level freakish) who was a bit raw coming out of high school. If the pieces are starting to fit together for her, then stand by for the pyrotechnics. I just happen to disagree with the announcers (John Baylor and Lauren Cook West) that you slide her into the rotation at the outside position. Put Capri at opposite, and if you absolutely want a lefty at right pin, then put in Jazz for one rotation, almost an inverse of the rotation Capri and Jazz did last year. Admittedly the views held for Ms. Sweet are largely based on her underwhelming performance last year. But the chatter on the audio broadcast was also underwhelming. Reports that she “struggled to get kills” in practice don’t engender thoughts of a breakout season. For the rest of the good, Hames distribution and the offensive presence of the middles was a solid positive, especially this early. Stivrins was perfect on offense (7 for 7, no errors) and Callie had double digit kills. That was a point of contention for most of last season (get the middles more involved) and now it simply is part of the game plan which should open up the pins. Sun and Kubik should benefit from this strategy. There was even some back row attacks from both sides (hats off to Nicole Drewnick for setting one early for the white team). Even with the loss of Foecke, the offense should be more efficient with Hames maturation in running the show. The USA National team could take a page from this offense. Coach Cook was also effusive in his praise of Riley Zuhn, particularly the fact she has dual roles as a middle and as an outside attacker. She’s a big girl that looks like she could pound the ball hard enough to make it (or you) cry. But she is also developing into an all-around player (digging, passing) that Cook can rely on as a six-rotational player for depth purposes. In fact, the head coach seemed more than pleased with the incoming freshman and the contributions and competitiveness they brought to practice, and the team in general. Lexi Sun had a solid game on the outside with 11 kills, but a hitting percentage below 0.300. Madi Kubik struggled a bit both attacking and passing. Probably a slight case of the yips since she (along with Kenzie Knuckles) was hyped as one of the best passers on the team. The not so good was the number of service errors. A 6/23 ace to error ratio won’t win many games in December. But this is a scrimmage in August and probably the biggest crowd that many of these freshman have played in front of, maybe by a factor of multiples. The only good thing to say is that I don’t recall any of the errors being serves into the net. They were aggressive errors i.e. often serves just a tad too long. It will be interesting this coming week to see who starts against Creighton. My opinion (that doesn’t matter by the way) you start your best seven, which, based on a very limited snapshot, appears to be Stivrins, Schwartzenbach, Sun, Kubik, Davis, Hames, and Knuckles with a flip of the coin between Densberger and Miller on who the first defensive specialist off the bench is (that will probably vary match to match and geared to whomever is serving better). Start Davis at opposite and if you feel the need, occasionally sub in Sweet when the position rotates to the right front (rotation 1). The B1G pre-season rankings should come next and just maybe the remainder of the TV schedule. Seems a bit late, but that may be due to the B1G agreement with Fox Sports (BTN2GO and BTN plus are now BTN +…………?). I had to laugh at an article on the NCAA website where a writer was ranking the five most likely teams to possibly go undefeated in route to a national title in volleyball this year in which he included Stanford (clearly the best team in their conference), Texas (plays in a weak conference), BYU (see Stanford), Kentucky (tougher conference than previous years and they play Florida twice this year), and …….wait for it……Illinois. Talk about randomness. https://www.ncaa.com/news/volleyball-women/article/2019-08-23/di-womens-volleyball-teams-best-chance-undefeated-2019 The writer goes on to talk about Quade (legitimate POY contender) and that the Illini return 7 of the top 9 rotational players. But he fails to mention the 2 that aren’t returning were All-Americans and that one of the All-Americans happened to be the setter (Poulter) who only ran the ENTIRE offense and is so good that she is now essentially the 2nd best setter on the National team. As Nebraska fan can attest to, a POY caliber setter is not a hole likely to be filled by a transfer from Auburn.