As the college
season’s nonconference matches begin, the action is in Eugene and Palo Alto
Biggest west coast draws of Week One:
- Fri | Aug 26 | 4:00PM | Eugene | #1 Nebraska vs. #10 Florida
- Sat | Aug 26 | 3:30PM | Eugene | #1 Nebraska vs. #2 Texas
- Sun | Aug 27 | 1:00PM | Palo Alto | #3 Minnesota @ #11 Stanford
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| This weekend, fans in Oregon's Matt Court will see the most-anticipated inter-conference matchups this side of the NCAA Tournament. -photo by Leslie Hamann |
If you’re a fan of women’s college volleyball, you’ve got to
get yourself to Eugene this weekend.
In most years, the Pacific Northwest—if not the entire West
Coast—is a nonconference wasteland. The Pac-12’s
elite—Washington, Stanford, UCLA and USC—rarely
wrangle top teams from the power conferences into their home gyms during August
and September. Two seasons ago, Wisconsin
came to Seattle and got waxed, prompting Badgers’ coach Kelly Sheffield to back out of a four-year deal with the Huskies
and USC.
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| Nebraska, Texas, Florida ... and Oregon's irrepressible Jim Moore -photo by Leslie Hamann |
But this weekend is different. #1 Nebraska and #2 Texas—the
two teams that squared off in last December’s title match (the Huskers won)
face off Saturday afternoon in Eugene, followed by #10 Florida vs. Oregon. The
night before, Nebraska faces Florida and Texas takes on the Ducks. That’s some
good volleyball, folks.
Down in Palo Alto, #11 Stanford,
#3 Minnesota and San Diego play a round-robin. Minnesota,
Nebraska and Texas were all in last season’s Final Four (Kansas was
the other), and all three are among the favorites to return, along with
Stanford, Washington, #4 Wisconsin, Florida and #12 UCLA.
The Huskies head to the Beltway this weekend for a Saturday
match at James Madison and a Sunday
game against American University. As
usual, Washington’s nonconference schedule is light on teams with imposing RPIs
… their own real marquee date is September 11 at Hawai’i.
Sadly, volleyball gets buried in the saturation of college
football coverage, and it’s tough to draw crowds before classes begin in late
September. Some schools in the Midwest pay opponents to come to their gyms for
nonconference volleyball matches. Many power schools are loathe to schedule
tough competition for fear of upsetting the RPI ratings used to seed the NCAA Tournament. And more than a few
schools are likely scared away by Washington’s nonconference record: since the
first weekend in 2001, the Huskies have only lost four nonconference matches:
twice to Texas and twice to Hawai’i. They are 141-4 since, likely to be riding
a 78-match nonconference win streak when they arrive in Honolulu.
If you can’t get to those Midwestern sites each December for
the Final Four (Columbus in 2016, Kansas City in 2017), you could do
worse than making a trip to Eugene this weekend.
