Volleyball Today: Pitt tops Louisville, reverse sweeps galore, BYU thumps KU, S. Carolina beats Florida

Top-ranked Pittsburgh didn’t need five sets to beat No 3 Louisville this time. 

No, the Panthers won in four and clinched at least a tie for the ACC title.

BYU, which fell out of the AVCA top 25 last week, upset No. 10 Kansas, also in four.

A bunch of other teams needed five on Wednesday.

Reverse sweeps in this season of reverse sweeps? 

No. 6 Stanford pulled it off at No. 19 Georgia Tech.

No. 11 Purdue did it at No. 14 Oregon.

In the Big Sky quarterfinals, top-seeded Northern Colorado avoided a monumental upset to eighth-seeded Montana State when the Bears rallied from being down 0-2.

They weren’t reverse sweeps, but:

South Carolina scored one of the big upsets of the day when the Gamecocks beat No. 16 Florida in five sets for the second time this season;

Wisconsin, tied with Stanford in the VolleyballMag Super 16 Media Poll, beat visiting Ohio State in five;

No. 15 Utah had to win in five at Iowa State;

AVCA No. 16 Baylor needed five sets to win at Cincinnati;

And in the Big East Championship, Villanova upset UConn in five.

In the Mountain West, sixth-seeded Boise State upset No. 3 Utah State, but then said it will forfeit its semifinal match to second-seeded San Jose State on Friday. More on that follows.

Happy Thanksgiving as we bring you this all-NCAA edition of Volleyball Today:

NCAA volleyball Thursday, Friday

There are two matches on Thanksgiving Day as the Big Sky continues in Sacramento with semifinals as top-seededNorthern Colorado plays fourth-seeded Weber State and second-seeded Idaho State plays No. 3 Sacramento. 

Friday, the match of the day has No. 1 Nebraska (28-1, 18-0) at No. 4 Penn State (28-2, 18-1) in a match that will decide the Big Ten title. It’s the only time these powers play this regular season. Even with a loss, Nebraska is all but assured of being the No. 1 or 2 team in the NCAA Tournament. Penn State likely needs a victory to become a top-four seed. 

Also in the Big Ten, Purdue is at Washington, Oregon is at UCLA, Ohio State is at AVCA No. 15 Minnesota, No. 20 USC is home for Iowa, Illinois is at Indiana, Northwestern is at Michigan and Maryland is at Rutgers.

The ACC wraps up its regular season with a flourish as Louisville tries to bounce back at Stanford, which has positioned itself to claim a top-four seed with a victory. Pittsburgh, also all but assured a top-four seed, is home for Georgia Tech, No. 9 SMU is home for NC State, Boston College goes to Virginia and Notre Dame is at Cal. 

The Big 12 has six matches, including No. 8 Arizona State home for UCF, Kansas trying to bounce back at Iowa State, Baylor at West Virginia, No. 22 TCU at Cincinnati, BYU at Kansas State andArizona at Texas Tech, 

The only SEC match Friday has LSU at Alabama.

The Big East Championship continues at Creighton with the fifth-ranked Bluejays vs. fourth-seeded DePaul and second-seeded Marquette vs. No. 6 Villanova. Creighton, No. 5 in the RPI, will be rooting for Nebraska and Stanford.

All four Big West seeds held form Wednesday, setting up Friday’s matches between No. 1 Cal Poly vs. fourth-seeded Long Beach State and No. 2 Hawai’i vs. No. 3 UC Davis.

The Mountain West will have just one match, when top-seeded Colorado State plays fifth-seeded San Diego State. The winner plays SJSU on Saturday.

NCAA volleyball Wednesday

ACC: Pittsburgh (28-1, 18-1) beat Louisville (25-4, 17-2) in the KFC Yum! Center, site of next month’s NCAA Championship. Oliva Babock had 23 kills, hit .311, had two aces, five digs and five blocks, one solo, in the 25-23, 18-25, 25-20, 25-16 victory. Click here to read the Pitt recap and here for the Louisville account.

Stanford won the hard way at Georgia Tech 22-25, 20-25, 26-24, 25-18, 15-12 as Ipar Kurt had 20 kills, hit .381 and had three digs, and Sami Franci had 11 kills, hit .381, and had 11 blocks, one solo. Click here for the Stanford recap and here for the story from Georgia Tech which got 26 kills from Tamara Otene.

SMU swept at No. 21 Florida State, No. 25 North Carolina beat visiting Virginia in four, NC State kept itself barely in the at-large discussion with a four-set win over visiting Miami despite 24 kills from Flormarie Heredia Colon, Cal swept Syracuse, Duke swept Wake Forest, Clemson won in four at Boston College and Notre Dame beat Virginia Tech in four.

BIG TEN: Purdue won 19-25, 22-25, 29-27, 25-23, 15-13 at Oregon as Eva Hudson had 20 of her 28 kills in the final three sets. Click here for the Purdue recap and here for the Oregon story.

Wisconsin battled to a 25-23, 25-14, 21-25, 24-26, 15-12 victory over Ohio State as Sarah Franklin had 25 kills. Click here for the Wisconsin recap and here for the Ohio State story.

Penn State swept at Rutgers, AVCA No. 15 Minnesota beat visiting Illinois in four, No. 20 USC won in four at Washington, Indiana got 25 kills from Candela Alonso-Corcelles and beat visiting Michigan in four, Michigan State beat visiting Northwestern in four, and UCLA defeated visiting Iowa in four as Anna Dodson had 10 kills with no errors in 21 attacks to hit .421 and added an assist, a dig and four blocks, one solo.

BIG 12: BYU got a much-needed upset victory at Kansas. Read the BYU recap here and the Kansas recap here.

Baylor got past Cincinnati 18-25, 25-16, 25-23, 17-25, 15-6, Utah won 19-25, 25-23, 18-25, 25-21, 15-12 at Iowa State, No. 22 TCU swept at West Virginia, Colorado swept visiting Kansas State, Arizona beat visiting UCF in four and Texas Tech beat visiting Houston in four.

SEC: How about South Carolina, 16-10 overall and 7-8 in the conference, and two of those league wins were by five over Florida. The Gamecocks beat visiting Florida 25-20, 22-25, 26-24, 22-25, 15-13. Read the South Carolina recap here and the Florida account here.

13th-ranked Kentucky won in four at No. 24 Missouri as Brooklyn DeLeye had 19 kills, hit .359 and had five of her team’s 10 aces, five digs and a solo block. No. 12 Texas swept visiting Tennessee, Georgia beat Mississippi State in four as Bianna Muoneke and Erykah Lovett had 20 kills apiece, and Oklahoma won in four at Arkansas.

WEST COAST CONFERENCE: San Diego won in four at Pepperdine as Isabel Clark had 23 kills, 23 digs and two blocks to pull the Toreros into a second-place tie with Pepperdine. Pepperdine’s Grace Chillingworth had a career-high 29 kills, hitting .333 to go with an assists, an ace, a block and six digs. Birdie Hendrickson had 19 kills, hit .348, and had an assist, a block and 13 digs.

Loyola Marymount, which has already won the title, swept Oregon State, Santa Clara swept Gonzaga, Saint Mary’s beat Portland in four and San Francisco won in five at Washington State.

BIG EAST: Fourth-seeded DePaul swept No. 5 St. John’s and sixth-seeded Villanova upset No. 3 UConn 25-23, 19-25, 24-26, 25-21, 15-13 as freshman Campbell McKinnon had 15 kills, hit .324, and had two aces, seven digs and a career-high 11 blocks. Villanova, which lost to UConn twice in the regular season, is in the semifinals for the first time since 2019.

BIG SKY: The top seeds all won, but no one worked harder to advance than Northern Colorado with its 21-25, 22-25, 25-18, 25-21, 15-12 victory over Montana State. Gabi Placide had 20 kills, two blocks and 10 digs. The other three matches all went four as fourth-seeded Weber State got 21 kills from Ashley Gneiting and beat No. 5 Eastern Washington, second-seeded Idaho State beat No. 7 Northern Arizona and host No. 3 Sacramento State ousted No. 6 Portland State as Caitlin Volkmann had 22 kills, hit .395 and had an ace and 12 digs, and Bridgette Smith had 21 kills, two assists, four aces, three blocks and seven digs.

BIG WEST: Third-seeded UC Davis got 19 kills and four aces from Olivia Utterback and beat sixth-seeded UC Irvine in four on its home floor and fourth-seeded Long Beach State beat No. 5 UC San Diego in four as Natalie Glenn had 19 kills, hit .485 an had an assist, three block and seven digs.

MOUNTAIN WEST: Fifth-seeed San Diego State beat fourth-seeded Fresno State in four and will play top-seeded Colorado State on Friday. Taylor Underwood led SDSU with 16 kills, hitting .400, and had two digs and two blocks. Addison Haluska led Fresno with 22 kills, hitting .442, and had five digs and five blocks.

In the first semifinal, sixth-seeded Boise State knocked out third-seeded Utah State in a match between two teams that had forfeited their regular-season matches to San Jose, which would have been the Broncos’ next opponent.

At 10:58 p.m. Wednesday, Boise State released the following statement from its athletic department: 

“The decision to not continue to play in the 2024 Mountain West Volleyball Championship tournament was not an easy one. Our team overcame forfeitures to earn a spot in the tournament field and fought for the win over Utah State in the first round on Wednesday. They should not have to forgo this opportunity while waiting for a more thoughtful and better system that serves all athletes.”

Whatever that means.

Boise State has three seniors whose careers have ended with a forfeit, including senior opposite Paige Bartsch, who made the all-Mountain West first team and who had 14 kills, an assist, two aces, six digs and a block against Utah State.

San Jose State, the Mountain West and perspective

The sad situation in the Mountain West is more complicated than it should be and unfortunate. We offer two stories for your perusal, one that does a deep dive and the other a commentary.

This piece by ESPN.com’s Katie Barnes offers as good a look at what has transpired as you can get.

And this column by Sally Jenkins of The Washington Post is well worth your time.

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