There are so many NCAA teams either on international trips or planning to do so. We have an update from Tim Kelly and Bring It USA.
Since our last NCAA Women’s Volleyball update on May 15, there have been several coaching deals, schedule layoffs, and more.
Coaching carousel
UCF Jenny Maurer, who had been UCF’s assistant head coach and recruiting coordinator for the past seven years, was promoted. He replaces Todd Dagenais, who left to become the head coach of the Pro Volleyball Federation Atlanta franchise.
Maurer (then Cafazza), who was head coach at Bradley when she moved to Orlando, was an All-American quarterback at Washington University’s Division III in her hometown of St. Louis. Before going to Bradley, she was the head coach at Lehigh, hired at the age of 30.
East Tennessee hired Delaware State Coach Dr. Bruce Atkinson. Last season, Delaware State won the MEAC and played Nebraska in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Atkinson was previously a coach at Winthrop, Towson and Hawai’i-Hilo. Takes over the ETSU program, which ended the season 21-8, 15-1 at SoCon. After the season, fourth-year head coach Benavia Jenkins left for Michigan to become assistant head coach.
Denver is still without a coach, and now the Summit League program is without a quarterback. Lorrin Poulter moved to Purdue for a year of college, and freshman Lauren Carter moved to Northwestern.
Denver’s spring lineup features two outsides, three right-backs, two middle blockers, and three liberos. Coach Tom Hogan resigned in early April after missing most of the 2022 season battling cancer.
Louisiana-Monroe Southland Conference and Dartmouth from the Ivy League also still have no coach.
Schedules
The Big 12 has announced its 2023 roster, and of course it has a different look with the addition of Houston, BYU, UCF, and Cincinnati. For that matter, the first game is Wednesday, September 20, when Houston goes to BYU.
Notably, Texas is home to BYU on September 28-29 and hosts Baylor on October 26-27. This is the last season for Texas and Oklahoma before they go to the SEC.
Click here to see Big 12 press release and schedule.
The ACC, Big Ten, Pac-12 and SEC have yet to officially announce their schedules, but teams are announcing their plans. Arkansas AND Kentuckyfor example, they have stories in their schedules.
Atlantic 10 and Conference USA schedules need to be available as schools from these conferences have announced, among other things, Western Kentucky.
91,000 for Nebraska?
The Huskers will play Omaha on August 30 at Lincoln Football Stadium. As we noted in our April 27 coverage, more than 82,000 tickets were sold in less than 48 hours.
Now Nebraska AD Trev Albert says the game could attract 91,000 spectators.
“Well, we’re very excited about that,” Alberts told the Huskers radio network. “We keep pinching ourselves again, asking, ‘Are you kidding me?’ But we’re still working on a few things, but we actually think the final total capacity will be 91,000.
read full story on Rival.com’s Inside Nebraska.
On tour with Bring It USA
The places they’ve been and the volleyball stories they’ll tell. This is straight from Tim Kelly of Bring It USA on Monday:
Washington State is leaving Croatia tomorrow.
BYU ends in Athens the next day
Texas Tech leaves Milan the next day.
Old Dominion from Lisbon the next day.
Tampa from Rome the next day.
SMU from Venice on 30tt.
USC is arriving in Sao Paulo tomorrow.
Loyola in Madrid 26.
Maryland arrives in Maribor on the 28th.
Hawaii arrives in Sao Paulo on the same day.
Bethel has been in Costa Rica since Monday morning.
Next week will be full of the following arrivals:
May 31 – Iowa, Athens; Cincinnati, Budapest.
June 1 – Creighton, Rome.
June 2 – Auburn, Milan; Rice, Sao Paulo.
June 3 – Wisconsin, Istanbul.
June 4 – Sonoma State, Rome.
Next week:
June 6 – Cornell College, Barcelona; Marquette, Warsaw; Ohio State, Athens.
June 7 – Sacramento State, Funchal, Madeira, Portugal; and UCF in Prague.
Later in June we have:
Georgia Southern (the only team going to Argentina), Louisville (Brazil), Wofford, Colorado, Stanford (Istanbul, Prague Maribor), Metro State and Fordham (the only DI team going to Japan).
We wrote about traveling teams in our last report, including TK on a camel.
