As I write this, Nebraska’s volleyball team was just defeated by SMU, so I’m not exactly in the best mood. The Huskers weren’t the only top team to get caught up in early season fever, though, and it’s been a surprisingly up-and-down start to the season.

If you’ve read our season preview (of course you have!), you’ll know there were a plethora of good volleyball games to start the year off with, and many of them didn’t disappoint. Unless, of course, you’re a Badger fan…but we’ll get to that.

The AVCA First Serve Showcase

As promised, last Tuesday’s volleyball event was great. The #2 Nebraska Cornhuskers beat the #9 Kentucky Wildcats in four sets. Meanwhile, the #6 Louisville Cardinals defeated the #3 Wisconsin Badgers. The Badgers’ serving problems continued and Louisville took advantage of the opportunity for a big win to start the season.

Kind of…: As a Wisconsin fan, it wasn’t even disappointing at the time. Losing a home game against Louisville is anything but shameful. And you could rationalize it with things – serving, receiving, etc. – that are actually solvable. At least in theory.

Opening weekend

The first real volleyball weekend also offered some surprises: Many teams took part in small tournaments across the country to kick off the season. This is how the placed teams performed:

Friday: #8 Penn State @ #15 Tennessee (PSU 3 – Tenn 1)

Friday: #4 Pittsburgh Panthers @ #10 Oregon (Pitt 3 – Ore 0)

Friday: UCLA @ #14 Georgia Tech (UCLA 3 – GT 2)

Sunday: #3 Wisconsin vs. #1 Texas (Tex 3 – Whisky 1)

Sunday: #18 Minnesota against #5 Stanford (Stan 3 – Minny 2)

Monday: #3 Wisconsin vs. #5 Stanford (Stan 3 – Wisky 1)

Monday: #18 Minnesota vs. #1 Texas (Minny 3 – Tex 2)(!!!!!)

There were a few more notable results on Tuesday:

#7 Penn State beats #4 Louisville 3-0

Unranked SMU defeats #2 Nebraska 3-0

I caught some of it and I’m glad I didn’t see all of it. It was just a chaotic, undisciplined game by the Huskers that was super disappointing. Coach John Cook said after the game, “We got punched in the face and then they just kept hitting.” It will be interesting to see how Nebraska responds – the good news is that it’s still early in the season and as you can see above, very few top teams have come out unscathed already. That takes some of the pressure off of undefeated seasons and all that comes with high expectations. But it’s still a pretty bad loss and this will be an opportunity for quite a gut decision. We hope they can turn things around quickly.

Kind of…: Like my esteemed co-author, I’m glad I didn’t watch the entirety of my favorite team’s last game, the loss to Stanford. Again, nothing shameful, Stanford is really good, the only team to win both games at the Women’s College Volleyball Showcase. But 0-3 is 0-3, and even if that was all against top-10 competition, it doesn’t feel good.

As for the conference, though, the depth looks fantastic. Minnesota beat No. 1 Texas, Penn State beat No. 4 Louisville, unranked UCLA beat No. 14 Georgia Tech in Atlanta. Nebraska and Wisconsin should be way ahead, but it doesn’t look like that right now, to say the least.

And nationally? The new ratings dropped on Monday. In the 48 hours since, No. 1, No. 2 and No. 4 have lost. It’s not unusual for elite teams to have slow starts, especially with the portal, as they have to evaluate all of their pieces and put them together in the right way. Texas last year is a good example. But that’s different most years.

B1G has eight ranked teams and three more receiving votes. It will be really interesting to watch the rest of the non-conference season and see how much more parity we get.

Next

The Big Ten has a very handy composite schedule that you can view here. Some highlights from this week include (all times CDT). Kudos to the SEC Network for stepping up their coverage of college volleyball!

Thursday, September 5:

• #25 UCLA Bruins at #17 Tennessee (6:00 p.m., SEC Network)
• #20 USC Trojans at #11 Creighton (6:00 p.m., FS1)
• #ARV Indiana at #1 Texas (8:00 p.m., SEC Network)

Friday, September 6:

• #6 Wisconsin at #ARV TCU (4:00 p.m.)
• #7 PSU at #9 Kentucky (6:00 p.m., SEC Network)
• #18 Minnesota at #23 Baylor (7:00 p.m.)

Saturday, September 7:

• #ARV Washington at #ARV Georgia (3:00 p.m.)
• #18 Minnesota at #ARV TCU (4:00 p.m.)
• #6 Wisconsin at #23 Baylor (7:00 p.m.)

It looks like it could be an interesting season. I hope you are already interested in volleyball. If not, there are many more opportunities in the future!