BIG TEN PRIMED FOR A BIG RUN IN 2022 NCAA WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL TOURNAMENT

by | Dec 8, 2022 | Headlines, Women's Volleyball | 0 comments

BIG TEN WEEKLY RELEASE – DEC. 7  2022 NCAA WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL TOURNAMENT – REGIONAL SEMIFINALS
DATE MATCH LOCATION TIME (ET) TV

Thursday, Dec. 8 NO. 2 NEBRASKA vs. No. 3 Oregon
(Louisville Quadrant) KFC Yum! Center
(Louisville, Ky.) 11 a.m. ESPNU

NO. 2 MINNESOTA vs. No. 3 OHIO STATE
(Texas Quadrant) Gregory Gym
(Austin, Texas) Noon ESPN2

NO. 1 WISCONSIN vs. No. 4 PENN STATE
(Wisconsin Quadrant) UW Field House
(Madison, Wis.) 6 p.m.
(approx.) ESPNU

2022 NCAA WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL TOURNAMENT – REGIONAL FINALS DATE MATCH LOCATION TIME (ET) TV
Saturday, Dec. 10 NO. 2 NEBRASKA/No. 3 Oregon vs.
No. 1 Louisville/No. 4 Baylor
(Louisville Quadrant) KFC Yum! Center
(Louisville, Ky.) 4 p.m. ESPNU

NO. 2 MINNESOTA/No. 3 OHIO STATE vs.
No. 1 Texas/No. 4 Marquette
(Texas Quadrant) Gregory Gym
(Austin, Texas) 6 p.m. ESPNU

NO. 1 WISCONSIN/No. 4 PENN STATE vs.
No. 2 Pittsburgh/No. 3 Florida
(Wisconsin Quadrant) UW Field House
(Madison, Wis.) 8 p.m. ESPNU

• Nearly one-third of the remaining schools in this year’s NCAA Tournament come from the Big Ten Conference as regional play begins with semifinal action on Thursday. No. 2 seed Nebraska will face third-seeded Oregon in Louisville, Ky., at 11 a.m. (ET) on ESPNU, before a pair of all-Big Ten matchups take center stage. At noon (ET), No. 3 seed Ohio State meets No. 2 seed Minnesota in Austin, Texas (live on ESPN2), and at approximately 6 p.m. (ET), top-seeded Wisconsin will play host to fourth-seeded Penn State in Madison, Wis. (live on ESPNU). Thursday’s winners will return to the court Saturday for the regional finals, as the Big Ten Conference seeks to extend its 15-year streak of sending at least one member institution to the NCAA national semifinals (Final Four).
• For the 13th consecutive year, the Big Ten Conference has seen five schools advance to the regional semifinals (Sweet 16) of the NCAA Tournament, with all five having distinguished postseason pedigrees. Minnesota is in the Sweet 16 for the 20th time in program history and 13th time in 14 years. Nebraska is making its NCAA-record 38th regional appearance and 28th in 29 seasons. Ohio State has reached its 19th NCAA regional and third in a row, while Penn State moved into the Sweet 16 for the 35th time and 19th time in 20 seasons. Defending NCAA national champion Wisconsin returns to the NCAA regionals for the 10th consecutive year and 20th time in program history.
• Of the eight Sweet 16 matches in this year’s NCAA Tournament, two will be all-Big Ten Conference affairs. In the Texas Quadrant, No. 3 seed Ohio State faces No. 2 seed Minnesota, while in the Wisconsin Quadrant, the host (and top-seeded) Badgers will take on No. 4 seed Penn State. Since 2011 (when Nebraska joined the Big Ten Conference), this marks the fourth time there will be two all-Big Ten matches in the regional semifinals.
• At least one Big Ten program has reached the NCAA national semifinals (Final Four) each year since 2007, with at least one member institution advancing to the NCAA national championship match 12 times in that 15-year span. What’s more, the Big Ten has sent two representatives to eight of the past 10 NCAA Final Fours (since 2012). Current Big Ten schools have won a total of 12 national championships (10 while competing as a member of the conference).
• Last year produced an all-Big Ten Conference national championship match as Wisconsin edged Nebraska, 3-2 to earn the program’s first NCAA title before a record-setting crowd of 18,755 fans at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio. The title matchup also drew 1.19 million viewers on ESPN2, the largest audience ever to watch a volleyball match on any ESPN network. It was the second all-Big Ten final in NCAA Tournament history, following the 2013 championship match, when Penn State defeated Wisconsin, 3-1 in Seattle.
• The Big Ten’s five host schools (top-four seeds) are the most from any conference in the country this season. The Big Ten also wound up with the second-most overall tournament berths for any conference behind only the SEC (7).
• Penn State’s Katie Schumacher-Cawley is the lone first-year head coach to lead her school into this year’s NCAA regionals. In her first season at the helm of her alma mater following the retirement of legendary Hall of Famer Russ Rose, Schumacher-Cawley has guided the Nittany Lions to a 26-7 record (the program’s most wins since 2018) and a fifth-place finish in the Big Ten Conference standings (13-7 record).
• Wisconsin extended its current winning streak to 20 matches with last week’s victories over Quinnipiac and TCU to open this year’s NCAA Tournament. The 20-match winning streak is the second longest in school history and ties for the second-longest active string in the country (San Diego-26, Stanford-20).
• The Big Ten Conference was well-represented among the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) regional awards announced Tuesday, with 32 players from 11 different conference schools earning all-region accolades. In addition, Minnesota’s Taylor Landfair was named the AVCA North Region Player of the Year and her teammate, Carter Booth, was chosen the AVCA North Region Freshman of the Year. In the AVCA Northeast Region, Ohio State’s Emily Londot was the Player of the Year, Purdue’s Eva Hudson was the Freshman of the Year and Wisconsin’s Kelly Sheffield was the Coach of the Year.
• On Dec. 3, Wisconsin announced that its match next season with in-state rival Marquette would be played Sept. 13 at the 17,385-seat Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, home of the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks. Both Wisconsin and Marquette have advanced to this week’s NCAA regionals and next year’s match will seek to challenge the NCAA regular-season single-match attendance record that Wisconsin set earlier this year in a Sept. 16 contest against Florida that was played at the Badgers’ basketball/hockey arena, the Kohl Center in front of 16,833 fans.
• Wisconsin captured the Big Ten Conference’s automatic qualification into this year’s NCAA Tournament and its fourth consecutive Big Ten Conference title (ninth all-time) with a 3-1 victory at Nebraska on Nov. 25. Only twice before had a school captured four Big Ten volleyball championships in a row, and both times it was Penn State (eight from 2003-10 and four from 1996-99), which also has a conference-best 17 titles all-time (the most recent coming in 2017). The only other school to earn even three consecutive Big Ten titles is Illinois (1986-88).
• With Wisconsin’s Nov. 25 victory over Nebraska, Badgers’ head coach Kelly Sheffield secured his fifth Big Ten Conference title, moving into a second-place tie for most career conference championships by one coach in Big Ten history. Penn State’s legendary leader, Russ Rose, won 17 Big Ten titles from 1991-2021, while Mike Hebert also won a combined five Big Ten championships during his tenures at Illinois (1983-95; four titles) and Minnesota (1996-2010; one title).
• That Nov. 25 match between Wisconsin and Nebraska in Lincoln also smashed the Big Ten Network viewership record for volleyball, with 587,000 viewers tuning in for the top-five showdown at a sold-out Bob Devaney Sports Center. The previous record came almost exactly one year earlier on Nov. 26, 2021, when 375,000 viewers watches Wisconsin defeated Nebraska in Madison. The Nov. 25 audience was also the largest to view an NCAA volleyball match on any television network to date this season and capped off a record-setting season for BTN, which averaged 125,000 viewers per Big Ten volleyball match, including eight regular-season matches that topped 200,000 viewers (with the Nov. 19 Wisconsin-Penn State match just missing that milestone with 199,000). All told, no fewer than 11 Big Ten regular-season volleyball matches drew audiences of greater than 200,000 viewers, including season highs on FS1 (246,000 for the Sept. 7 Nebraska-Creighton match) and ESPN (244,000 for the Oct. 16 Michigan-Wisconsin contest).
• The Big Ten Conference announced its 2022 Volleyball All-Big Ten Teams and individual honorees Nov. 30, as chosen by a vote of the conference’s 14 head coaches. Minnesota redshirt sophomore outside hitter Taylor Landfair was selected as Player of the Year, while Ohio State senior libero Kylie Murr was named Defensive Player of the Year, and Murr’s Buckeye classmate, Mac Podraza, was tabbed as Setter of the Year. In addition, Purdue outside hitter Eva Hudson was chosen as Freshman of the Year and Wisconsin’s Kelly Sheffield earned Coach of the Year honors (the lone award that featured separate voting by the conference coaches and a select media panel, both of whom chose Sheffield). The complete list of this year’s honorees, including the all-conference and all-freshman teams, can be found on page 5 of this release.
• In a stark example of the depth and parity in the Big Ten Conference this season, no fewer than 11 Big Ten programs had at least six wins in conference play and at least one of those victories came against a team ranked in the top 20 of the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) poll. In addition, four different unranked conference schools posted a road victory against a top-10 opponent this season.
• The Big Ten Conference remains clearly the most popular conference in the country in terms of attendance, placing a remarkable nine schools among the top 20 in the latest NCAA attendance rankings. Nebraska leads the country at 8,190 fans per match, just ahead of Wisconsin (7,828), with Minnesota fourth (4,758), Ohio State sixth (3,609) and Michigan State eighth (a record-setting 3,208). Penn State is next at No. 13 (2,699), followed by No. 15 Illinois (2,566), No. 17 Purdue (2,374) and No. 19 Michigan (2,309). By comparison, no other conference in the country has more than one-third as many schools in the top 20 of the NCAA attendance rankings as the Big Ten Conference (3 by the Pac-12).
• Wisconsin rose to a season-high No. 2 in the final regular-season American Volleyball Coaches (AVCA) Top 25 poll, holding steady with the handful of first-place votes it had for the final five weeks. The Badgers also continue to lead a strong group of six Big Ten Conference schools in the AVCA poll, with five of those squads in the top 11. The Big Ten has consistently led the country with its four top-10 and six top-25 programs this season, and at least one conference school has earned first-place votes in 10 of the 15 weeks this year (Nebraska has already spent two weeks at No. 1).
• In 2022, the Big Ten Conference featured the most robust regular-season volleyball television package in its history with a record-setting 55 matches on linear television (47 on Big Ten Network, six on ESPN2/ESPNU, two on FS1). In addition, all non-televised Big Ten volleyball home matches were broadcast live on B1G+, the Big Ten Network’s subscription streaming service (bigtenplus.com).
• On Aug. 1, the Big Ten Network announced a groundbreaking, multi-year distribution partnership with Volleyball World that will enhance the promotion and coverage of Big Ten Conference volleyball across the globe. As part of that agreement, 70+ Big Ten volleyball matches this season appeared worldwide on VolleyballWorld.tv. There was also live streaming of nearly 50 televised Big Ten Network volleyball matches outside of North America and certain Caribbean islands, as well as worldwide streaming of an additional 28 matches from B1G+ inventory, with those matches airing concurrently on B1G+.
• A total of 33 Big Ten Conference volleyball student-athletes were selected to receive Academic All-District honors from College Sports Communicators (formerly CoSIDA/College Sports Information Directors of America), it was announced Nov. 22. Six Big Ten programs (Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio State and Rutgers) produced the maximum four honorees, all of whom have attained sophomore status, spent at least one year at their current institution and maintain a minimum 3.50 cumulative GPA. These honorees are now eligible for Academic All-America consideration, with those accolades announced Dec. 21. The Big Ten has produced multiple volleyball Academic All-Americans in six of the previous seven seasons (all but 2016).
• For the 16th consecutive season, Big Ten volleyball honored more than 70 Academic All-Big Ten standouts in 2021, as a record-setting 153 volleyball student-athletes were recognized, including a pair of Academic All-America selections in first-team honoree Sydney Hilley (Wisconsin) and second-team choice Diana Brown (Illinois).

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