NCAA Volleyball Final Four

Safe travels, there was sleet and snow last night, and bitter cold today/tonight.

 

Thanks for the comment, I was beginning to wonder if this was my own private thread.

It was worth staying to see the final. Texas and Stanford both looked like they really belonged there. And if I'm a fan of Women's Volleyball, and not just the Huskers, then I should enjoy watching those other teams perform at an incredibly high level. Right? And I did.

At the liquor store on the way back to the hotel Sig found a very dusty boxed gift set of Glenfiddich 18-year old single malt Scotch, complete with two glasses, and marked down from $95 to $76. Judging by the dust, it had been sitting on the back of that shelf for a very long time. He offered the young lady $60 cash and she said OK.
We got coffee and a bowl of whipped cream from room service and (after getting wet and frozen on the walk) had Scotch coffee with real cream in the nice crystal glasses. We got nice and tipsy and warm and horny; left the drapes open, turned the thermostat up to 75 and crawled naked into bed, made slow whoopee 'til we fell asleep.

Got a late checkout, and drove to Indy, where we got (through Priceline) a room at the Westin for $98.

 

@Lindy , did you play organized volleyball at any point? Or how was it that became such a fan?

 

At 5'1" I'm probably too short. I'd need a ladder to touch the top of the net. I did have a cousin and a niece that played for Wichita State.

The only organized sports that I played were several years of soccer and one year of cross country. I enjoyed soccer and being short was no real handicap and I was pretty agile.

I got into volleyball as a fan here in Lincoln, where University of Nebraska women's volleyball is a real big deal. I also got egged on by my cousin. Most of the Big 10 schools are quite good, and the level of competition is high. Husker girls regularly pull in crowds of 8,000 plus and there are several hundred fans that attend many of the away games.

 

Until I was 17, we lived within 40 minutes or so of Bradley University, and I occasionally went to games. The father of a good friend of mine was a Shocker. So I grew up on MVC sports.

 

Well, it's time to resurrect this thread. NCAA Volleyball Final Four is this week.

Expectations were muted this year in Huskerville. This was supposed to be a "rebuilding year" for the Lady Huskers. They proved it by losing their first two matches.

Then proceeding to win 30 of the next 32, including the last 17 in a row, including 10 against ranked teams, including the #1 ranked team.

So on the Final Four for the third year in a row. Not too bad for a rebuilding year.

Thursday afternoon I'm meeting my c ousin from Topeka at the Tournament in Kansas City. A lot more convenient (3.5 hour drive) than last year in Columbus, Ohio. Tickets paid for (Thursday and Saturday games) She's supposed to find us a hotel. Should be a fun time. She likes to party.

 

Last night's match was awesome. Nebraska won the first, Penn State the second and third, Nebraska the fourth and fifth. I'd post some links, but can't get this Marriott computer to let me upen more than one window at a time. It was the longest NCAA volleyball match ever on record at nearly three hours.

And beating Penn State for the 7th straight time.
Including three times when they were ranked Number One. Priceless.

Volleyball: Huskers Going for a National Championship

 

I forgot to post the results: Coach got drenched in Gatorade.
Nebraska played great as a team, and won their fifth National Championship:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2Ibf7fhonc


And here's the whole game Nebraska vs. Florida

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz9eTOsQY2o

 

Great game Saturday night! And great sex Sunday morning. Drapes open and bright sun coming in shining right on the bed. SpringHill Suites, fourth floor, south side. Perfect sun! I don't think anyone could see in. Darn!

 

Well, the Husker Volleyball girls are at it again. In the regional last week Nebraska swept Hofstra and then Missouri. A volleyball match is the best of five sets. So, a match can be three, four, or five sets. Winning the first three is called a sweep. Friday and Saturday this week the Huskers swept Kentucky and then Oregon.

So the girls are going to the Final Four for the fourth year in a row, winning all the marbles in 2015 and 2017. See my posts above from those years. The Finals are in Minneapolis this year. My crazy cousin Chrissy thinks she might have a ticket for me and a place to stay. Here's hopin'. Should be a fun time. Again.

Here's a recap of this years NCAA Tournament so far:

2018 NCAA volleyball tournament -- Match by match results from regional semifinals, regional finals

 

Hung over in Minneapolis.

It's hard to win a volleyball match (3 sets) when you spot your opponent the first two. But that's what the Husker girls did! They lost 22-25 and 16-25 to Illinois. Sixteen was their lowest score all year. There was no joy in Huskerville.

Oh well. This was supposed to be a rebuilding year. Four of this year's players were still in high school last year. Three more were transfers. So to even be in this Final Four was somewhat of a miracle.

Teams with six losses aren't supposed to get here.

But after being down 2-0 Nebraska won the next three sets 25-23, 25-20, and 15-11!

Same as last year (I was there) Nebraska won a five set semi-final.

Then I got drunk and stupid.

Final is Saturday night against No. 1 seed Stanford. Go Big Red!

 

Well, it's time for my annual resurrection of the NCAA College Volleyball thread. Nebraska is at it again, having been in every NCAA Volleyball Tournament since 1982! I'm off to the game, Huskers playing Ball State in tonight's first round.
'One of the best volleyball environments in the world': How it feels to play Nebraska in the first round

 

Nebraska swept Ball State 25-13, 25-18, and 25-10 and will play Missouri tomorrow night. Not bad for a team that has no seniors on the roster. No seniors, period. None on the scout team, none sitting on the bench, none just still in school finishing out their scholarship. It will be interesting to see how far they can take this.

 

Husker Volleyball has a record 267 game sellout streak but reserves a few hundred single tickets for each home game, starting at $12 reserved or $9 general, which usually means standing room in the upper gallery. They average a little over 8,000 attendance and have held the NCAA attendance recor for the last eigtht years. Usually can scor tickets at about face value just by going to the Bob Devaney Arena just before game time, but maybe not a pair together.

 

Wow, that's very impressive. Both the sellout streak and the average attendance over that long of a time period. For reference, I looked up the average NCAA D1 men's basketball attendance. Across all 32 conferences it is 4593 per game. When you break it out across each conference, Nebraska Women's Volleyball, falls behind only the very biggest conferences' ( Big Ten, ACC, SEC, Big East, Big 12, PAC-12) average. So out of the 32 conferences it would be #7 in average attendance. That's pretty cool.