Big Ten Weekly Volleyball Central – Oct. 22-28
https://bigten.org/wvb/standings/
• The Big Ten Conference and Big Ten Network (BTN) announced a newly created In-Season Volleyball Challenge. Partnering with Discover®, the official credit card of the Big Ten Conference, the inaugural Discover In-Season Volleyball Challenge will debut during the 2025 regular season conference schedule, starting Oct. 1, encompassing all 18 Big Ten Volleyball programs. Select conference matches played during the month of October will count toward the Discover In-Season Volleyball Challenge. Each team will play five designated challenge matches throughout the month, with the winner determined by the highest win total across the five games. Designated matches for the challenge will be noted on the adjacent schedule.
• The Big Ten | Discover In-Season Volleyball Challenge concludes next Friday, October 31. As of Wednesday, Nebraska (3-0) and Purdue (3-0) sit atop the standings. Nebraska hosts Northwestern on Friday and visits Wisconsin on Halloween for its final pair of Challenge matches. Purdue heads to Illinois on Friday and Michigan State next Friday to conclude its October slate. Tiebreaking procedures will be used in the event that two or more teams have matching records at the conclusion of the Challenge.
• Eight Big Ten volleyball programs were among this week’s AVCA/TARAFLEX Top 25, announced on Monday: #1 Nebraska, #11 Purdue, #12 Wisconsin, #18 Penn State, #20 Minnesota, #22 USC, #23 Indiana, #25 UCLA. Illinois is receiving votes in this week’s poll. Eight Big Ten teams are among the latest top 25 in terms of RPI: #2 Nebraska, #10 Purdue, #13 Indiana, #14 Minnesota, #16 Wisconsin, #19 Penn State, #21 USC and #22 Illinois.
• The NCAA DI women’s volleyball selection committee announced its in-season top 16 rankings on Sunday. Six Big Ten programs are among the 16, including: #1 Nebraska, #8 Purdue, #12 Wisconsin, #14 Indiana, #15 Penn State and #16 Minnesota.
• Nebraska’s Andi Jackson and USC’s Taylor Deckert were each named to Michella Chester’s Starting Rotation for Week 8. Jackson was named the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week on Monday and Deckert was selected as this week’s Freshman of the Week.
• Purdue head coach Dave Shondell and associate head coach-recruiting coordinator Kathy Jewell reached their 500th win with the program as Purdue swept Rutgers on Sunday. The win puts Shondell 12 wins away from tying Gene Keady as Purdue Athletics’ all-time leader in wins (512).
• The Michigan vs. Nebraska match on Sunday set a program attendance record for the Wolverines, with 12,707 fans. It also set an attendance record for the most-attended match in the state of Michigan. Michigan State also set a program record, welcoming the Huskers in front of 11,578 fans at the Breslin Center.
• For the first time since Oct. 3, 1997, a top-25 volleyball match will be played in Bloomington as No. 23 Indiana hosts No. 20 Minnesota on Friday on Big Ten Network.
• As of Wednesday, Nebraska (.332) and Wisconsin (.310) lead the nation at No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, in terms of hitting percentage. Indiana is eighth (.292), followed by Purdue at #12 (.287), Minnesota at #20 (.275) and Michigan at #23 (.272).