How about Minnesota?
The Gophers, who were ranked No. 18 in the AVCA preseason poll and held the same position in the new poll released Monday after losing their opener with a five-set loss to Stanford on Sunday, defeated No. 1 Texas here in Milwaukee on Monday.
Fifth-seeded Stanford won again and enters its stay in Milwaukee with a 3-0 record. The Cardinal play at Marquette on Wednesday.
But speaking of Wisconsin, the Badgers, now ranked No. 6, lost their third straight fourth-set game to open the season and are 0-3 for the first time since 1990. And speaking of toughness, Wisconsin lost despite having a .341 batting average.
Selena Gomez surprised a volleyball team in Telluride, Colorado, Madi Skinner told us about her world travels since Texas won the NCAA title last December, and we take a quick look at the Power 4 conferences after the first weekend.
There are 18 NCAA volleyball games on Tuesday, including a matchup between No. 4 Louisville and No. 7 Penn State. Louisville is 2-0 after beating Wisconsin and then Tennessee. Penn State is also 2-0 after also beating Tennessee and then Temple.
Second-ranked Nebraska travels to Dallas to play SMU. Among the other games, No. 3 Pittsburgh plays at home against Buffalo, No. 23 Baylor plays Rice and Illinois plays Illinois State.
Saint Peter’s, which lost its last eight games of a 2022 season by a score of 31-1 and was 0-30 last year, opens at NJIT.
The AVCA Division I Poll came out Monday. Click here to see it. We won’t conduct our VolleyballMag media poll until preconference play concludes later this month.
State Farm Women’s College Volleyball Showcase
The two-day high-class tournament at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, hosted by Intersport and Fox, was a great conclusion to the first week of the season.
Especially for Minnesota, which went 17-13 under new coach Keegan Cook in 2023. Taylor Landfair, who led the team in kills, then transferred to Nebraska, where she recorded five kills in three games.
On Sunday, the Gophers lost to Stanford 26-28, 25-23, 16-25, 25-13 and, after a 13-13 tie, also 15-13.
Going into the fifth round against Texas on Monday, Minnesota left no room for doubt, walking away with a 22-25, 25-19, 25-20, 13-25 and 15-7 win.
“Transitions are hard, for coaches, but especially for athletes. I’m really happy for this moment where these guys have stuck with us,” Cook said. “They had a chance to go somewhere else and play somewhere else, and they stayed together.”
“You train a lot of games to give the children moments like this. I’m happy for them.”
Julia Hanson had a great game with 19 kills, one ace, three blocks and 13 digs. McKenna Wucherer had 12 kills, two assists, two aces, four blocks and nine digs. Lydia Grote had nine kills, one assist, three blocks and eight digs. And Calissa Minatee – deadly on the slide – had a career-high nine kills and one error in 14 attacks, one dig and six blocks.
Melani Shaffmaster had another outstanding game. The setter had six kills, a .400 batting average, 44 assists, four aces, three blocks and 17 digs. Libero Zeynep Palabiyik had 22 digs and six assists.
Minnesota, which beat a top-ranked team for the first time since beating Stanford in 2019 and had a batting average of .211, had seven aces and 14 service errors.
Two-time NCAA champion Texas, which opened Sunday with a four-set win over Wisconsin, hit .183 and had four aces and eight errors. Madi Skinner led with 19 kills, hit .164 and had two blocks and 12 digs. Jenna Wenaas, one of the players who transferred from Minnesota and became a key figure in Texas’ NCAA title game last year, had 13 kills, one assist, one ace, two blocks and 19 digs. Ayden Ames had seven kills in 18 errorless attempts, two assists, one ace, seven blocks and three digs. Reagan Rutherford had seven kills and hit .357, plus one assist and two blocks. Libero Emma Halter had 21 digs and three assists, plus two aces.
Minnesota travels to Texas this week to play Baylor on Friday and TCU on Saturday. Texas hosts Indiana on Thursday and Miami on Saturday.
Wisconsin will also be in Waco, Texas, where it plays TCU on Friday and Baylor on Saturday. The Badgers have a lot to learn after their 26-24, 18-25, 25-22, 25-22 loss to Stanford, which hit .316 and had 10 aces.
Elia Rubin continued her strong start to the season, this time with 20 kills, a .349 batting average, an assist, three aces and 15 digs. Ipar Kurt, starting at the other outside position, had 16 kills, a .324 batting average and had an ace and two digs. Sami Francis had eight kills with one error in 15 attacks, an assist and a block, and Jordyn Harvey had seven kills, four aces — three in a row during the fourth set — and a dig. Setter Kami Miner had three kills in six errorless attempts, 47 assists, an ace, a block and 12 digs. Libero Elena Oglivie had 14 digs and five assists.
Sarah Franklin led Wisconsin with 18 kills, a .304 batting average, and three assists, one block and 11 digs. Devyn Robinson had 10 clean kills in 23 attacks, three aces, three blocks and four digs. CC Crawford, starting for the first time, had eight clean kills in 19 attacks, along with one assist, four digs and four blocks. Setter Charlie Feurbringer had her best game with five kills in six clean attempts, 39 assists, one ace, one block and six digs.
Anna Smrek, the 2.06 m tall right winger who has had her ups and downs, was not used.
Across the country
Also on Labor Day, No. 18 Georgia Tech Institute swept Carolina Coastwho hit .055. Biana Bertolinio led Georgia Tech with 10 kills, an ace, 11 digs and a block… Texas A&M swept Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Logan Lednicky, who had five blocks, and Morgan Perkins each had 12 kills. Perkins made one error on 20 attacks, one ace, one dig and one block… Indiana fought to a 25-16, 31-33, 25-16, 27-25 victory over the guests University of California behind 16 kills by Candela Alonso-Corcelles, who had one assist, three aces, nine digs and two blocks, one solo … McNeese hit South in four, with McKenzie Moore having 13 kills and Kimaya Webb and Kayla Wilson each having 11. Webb hit .444 and had an ace, three digs and five blocks, one solo.
Madi Skinner, world traveler
How much fun was it being Madi Skinner?
She started at Kentucky and won the NCAA title alongside her sister Avery in the spring of 2021. Then the now-experienced outside hitter transferred to Texas, which has won two consecutive NCAA titles. In December, she was the MVP in Tampa. And then, well, just think about where she was.
We interviewed her a few days after the NCAA season while she was visiting her sister in Chieri, Italy, where Avery plays professionally. Madi was VolleyballMag’s national player of the year.
We saw her in Paris when we watched Avery at the Olympics and agreed that we would list all of her travels when we got here to Milwaukee.
She was ready.
“I actually have a list,” she said, because Texas sports information director Kevin Rodriguez asked for it.
“That doesn’t include trips to see my boyfriend, because nobody cares about that as much as I do,” said Skinner, who has 137,000 followers on Instagram, so they could. Still…
“Italy, New York City, Brazil, I was briefly in LA, Hungary, Slovenia, Italy, LA, San Francisco, NYC, Washington, DC, Paris, France, Austin, and here we are.”
This of course included Texas’ trip abroad, her time at the USA gym in Anaheim and a trip to the White House.
“I’ve been all over the place, but it’s been really, really fun,” Skinner said.
Records of the first week of the conference
The SEC went 30-11 through the first week. Alabama, Florida, Arkansas and Auburn all went 3-0. The only winless team was Tennessee, which opened with losses to Penn State and Louisville.
Four teams in the Big Ten also made it through with a 3-0 record: Indiana, Michigan, Nebraska and Purdue. Only Wisconsin is winless with a 0-3 record. Overall, the B1G is 31-11.
The ACC, on the other hand, was able to send eight teams into the race with a 3-0 record: Boston College, Cal, Florida State, Miami, North Carolina, Stanford, Syracuse and Virginia. The ACC reached a total of 40-10 last week. No team remained winless.
And the Big 12 has six teams that are 3-0: Arizona, Arizona State, Baylor, BYU, Kansas and Utah. No team has gone winless and the Big 12 is 33-8 overall.
Selena Gomez watches Telluride HS play volleyball
Selena Gomez was in the Colorado resort. The children of the Telluride team put up a sign inviting her to come to a game. The Today show reported on it and showed a video.
There was also a story in Billboard.
