Volleyball Today: Future NCAA sites; big win for Arizona; AU gets underway

The NCAA dropped its list of upcoming championships and that includes sites for the 2026-27 and 2027-28 seasons in women’s volleyball, men’s volleyball and beach volleyball. 

In NCAA Division I volleyball, unranked Arizona knocked off BYU, ranked No. 20 in the AVCA top 25; and Kentucky, No. 13 in the VolleyballMag Super 16 Media Poll, held off visiting Oklahoma in five as the pesky Sooners continued to take ranked SEC teams to the limit.

Texas, Wisconsin, Arizona State and TCU all won.

And Marist came so close, but the Red Wolves lost in five at Siena to drop to 0-13.

Athletes Unlimited begins its volleyball season on Thursday in Mesa, Arizona.

It all follows in this edition of Volleyball Today:

NCAA sets volleyball championship sites

Margaritas on the River Walk … 

The NCAA announced 240 national-championship sites across a multitude of sports for the next few years, including women’s volleyball, men’s volleyball and beach volleyball.

The women are headed back to San Antonio for the 2026 NCAA Division I Women’s Volleyball Championship, the first time in that Texas city since 2011 when UCLA beat Illinois in the final. Then in 2027 it’s back to Columbus, Ohio, where the final four and AVCA convention have been conducted in 2016 and 2021. 

The final four is in Louisville this season and back in Kansas City (and the world’s best BBQ) in 2205.

The men will play their championship in Las Vegas for the first time when that event heads to Nevada in 2027 and 2028. 

The tournament is in Columbus next May and at UCLA in 2026.

Beach volleyball, which has only been held in Gulf Shores, Alabama, heads to Huntington Beach next spring and in 2026, but returns to the Redneck Riveria in 2027 and 2028. 

Click here for the complete NCAA news release.

NCAA volleyball Thursday

There are two Big 12 matches when Kansas, ranked No. 8 in the VolleyballMag Super 16 Media Poll, goes to Colorado, and Kansas State is at Texas Tech.

Three of the Big Ten’s ranked teams are in action as No. 2 Nebraska goes to Illinois, No. 3 Penn State is home for Maryland and No. 11 Oregon is at Ohio State.

There are four unbeaten teams left, 3-0 South Dakota State, 12-0 Pittsburgh, 12-0 Washington and 9-0 San Jose State.

Two of them play Thursday when South Dakota State is home for Kansas City in The Summit League and San Jose State goes to Colorado State in the Mountain West.

In the Sun Belt, Georgia Southern (10-1) opens conference play against Marshall (9-6. 0-2 and Arkansas State (12-2, 2-0) plays at Southern Miss (6-8, 2-0).

There’s a full slate in the West Coast Conference including Loyola Marymount at Santa Clara.

The five matches in the Southland include Southeastern Louisiana at McNeese.

Winless watch: 0-15 Hampton is home for a CAA match against Elon.

Arizona upsets BYU; Kentucky survives

Arizona (12-2, 1-2) not only won its first Big 12 match, but its 25-13, 23-25, 25-21,18-25, 15-13 victory over No. 20 BYU marked the first time the Wildcats beat a ranked team in two years. Jaelyn Hodge led with 20 kills as she hit .340 and had an assist, five blocks and 10 digs. Journey Tucker, who had five kills in nine errorless attacks, had a career-high 11 blocks, one solo. Avery Scoggins had two kills, 40 assists, four of her team’s seven aces, a block and 12 digs. The Wildcats hit .241. BYU, which hit .168, got 24 kills from Claire Little, who hit .302 and had three of her team’s eight aces, two blocks and a match-high 17 digs … 

No. 14 Arizona State (13-2, 2-1 Big 12) beat visiting Utah (12-2, 2-1) as Savannah Kjolhede had 12 kills in 15 errorless attacks in the 17-25, 25-13, 25-19, 25-15 victory. Kjolhede had two digs and five blocks, one solo. Claire Jeter, who had one error in 27 attacks, and Geli Cyr, who had two errors in 35 swings, had 10 kills apiece. Jeter had two assists, two aces, five digs and nine blocks, two solo, and Cyr had an assist, an ace, three blocks and 17 digs. Mary Shroll had 23 digs, an assist and two aces. Arizona State his .201. Utah, which hit .104, got 12 kills from Kamryn Gibadio and 11 from Emrie Satuala … 

No. 22 TCU (10-3, 2-1) also won in the Big 12, coming away with a 25-21, 25-19, 21-25, 19-25, 15-7 victory at Houston (6-7, 1-2). Melanie Parra led the Horned Frogs with 22 kills, six blocks and 15 digs. Jalyn Gibson had 13 kills, hit .355, and had an assist, an ace, 18 digs and five blocks. Houston’s Angela Grieve had 17 kills, an assist, three aces and 14 digs. TCU hit .213 and Houston .160 … 

Also in the Big 12, UCF swept visiting West Virginia and Iowa State defeated visiting Cincinnati in four …

Oklahoma (7-4, 1-2), picked 11th in the SEC preseason coaches poll, opened SEC play with a five-set loss to Florida, which had to pull off a reverse sweep to win, then the Sooners upset formerly ranked Tennessee in four, before losing in five Wednesday at No. 13 Kentucky (8-6, 2-1). The Wildcats got 25 kills — six in the fifth set — from Brooklyn DeLeye in the 25-21, 23-25, 23-25, 25-18. 15-13 victory. DeLeye hit .385 and had a block and 10 digs but had no aces and five serving errors. Molly Tuozzo had 20 digs, seven assists and four aces, and Emma Grome had three kills in six errorless tries, 41 assists, an ace, four blocks and eight digs. Her team hit .216. OU, which hit .243 and had two aces and 16 serving errors, got 17 kills from Alexis Shelton and 14 from Kamile Gibson. Kari Geissberger had eight kills but hit .000 and had seven blocks. Kelli Jo Burgess had six kills with one error in 13 swings and eight blocks. Oklahoma not only had a better hitting percentage, it held a 15-0 blocks advantage, one more kill than Kentucky (59-58) and more digs (53-46) … 

Also in the SEC, Texas (8-3, 2-0) hit .364 and swept visiting South Carolina (9-4, 0-2) as Jenna Wenaas had 13 kills in the 25-23, 25-23, 25-21 victory. She hit .324 and had two assists, two aces, two blocks and six digs. Madi Skinner had 11 kills, hit .563, and added an assist, a block and six digs. South Carolina’s Alayna Johnson had 16 kills and Riley Whitesides had 13 … 

In the only Big Ten match, Wisconsin (8-4, 2-1) swept at Rutgers (5-9, 0-3) as the Badgers hit .370 in the 25-18, 25-14, 25-18 result. Sarah Franklin had 12 kills, five digs and a block … 

The lone ACC match saw North Carolina improve to 11-1, 3-0 with a 25-16, 25-21, 25-23 sweep at Duke (6-8, 2-1). UNC, which hit .333, got 11 kills from Chelsea Thorpe, who hit .500 and had a block and five digs. Mabrey Shaffmaster had 10 kills, hit .353, an had an assist, two of her team’s eight aces and 11 digs. Duke’s Kerry Keefe had 13 kills with one error in 29 attacks, an assist, two blocks and four digs … 

UAlbany hit .361 in its sweep of Le Moyne as Shynelle Woroniuk had 15 kills, hit .306, and had an assist, four of her team’s 10 aces, 10 digs and a block … Rider hit .455 in its MAAC sweep at Saint Peters. The Broncos had 43 kills with eight errors in 77 swings. Paige Giehtbrock had 13 kills, hit .400 and had four aces, five digs and a block, and Brynn Johnson had 10 kills with no errors in 14 attacks to go with three digs and two blocks …

And Siena (2-12, 1-2 MAAC) kept visiting Marist (0-13, 0-3) winless as four players had 10 or more kills in the 24-26, 25-23, 25-18, 19-25, 15-12 victory, 17 by Salme Adeele Hollas. She hit .382 and had an assist, two aces, two solo blocks and 11 digs. 

Athletes Unlimited begins fourth season

AU gets underway in Mesa, Arizona, as pro volleyball players begin a five-week season in which they play for individual points and each week new teams are drafted.

Action begins at 8 p.m. Eastern when Team (Morgan) Hentz plays Team (Natalia) Valentin-Anderson, followed by Team (Brooke) Nuneviller vs. Team (Bethania) De La Cruz at 10:30 p.m.

The matches can be seen on Bally Sports regional networks and on Volleyball World TV.

Good news for viewers: Kevin Barnett is back as the play-by-play guy and those duties will also be handled by one of the better announcers you may not know, Greg Mescall.

For more: https://auprosports.com/volleyball/schedule/2024/

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