For the third straight year, Illinois head coach Chris Tamas made the trip to Chicago for Big Ten Volleyball Media Days, taking part in the third annual event on Monday.
Tamas, who returned to the U.S. on Sunday following a visit to Paris for the 2024 Olympics, was joined by student-athletes Caroline Barnes and Raina Terry, the latter of whom was making her second appearance at Big Ten Media Days. Illinois was one of nine schools to attend Media Days on Monday, while the other half of the league is slated to participate on Tuesday.
Addressing topics that included the conference’s recent expansion, the plethora of new faces on this year’s roster, and Tamas’ trip to Paris, the Illini made the most of their visit to the Windy City ahead of the start of their 2024 campaign later this month.
Here are a few takeaways from Illinois’ appearance at 2024 Big Ten Volleyball Media Days.
Tamas wants to handle the expanded Big Ten Conference like business as usual
The Big Ten grew from 14 to 18 member institutions on Friday with the official additions of Oregon, UCLA, USC, and Washington, but Tamas does not expect things to change too much with the welcoming of four new programs.
“We’ll handle it the same,” Tamas said. “The big difference is you don’t get a return shot on a lot of them. I think that’s going to be an interesting thing moving forward because you could catch someone at the beginning of the season when you’re on a roll and maybe there’s an injury somewhere and all of a sudden someone is out and that could kind of change how that rolls.
“A couple of trips might be a little bit tougher than the other ones, but it’s going to be relatively the same.”
Illinois will make its lone trip to the West Coast early in the season, traveling to take on newcomers Oregon and Washington during the opening week of conference play, Sept. 27-28. The Illini will be playing their first road match against the Ducks since 2016, while the Orange and Blue will return to Seattle to take on the Huskies for the first time since 2019.
Washington is somewhat of a familiar face for the Illini in recent years, as the two programs have met on the court in two of the last three seasons.
UCLA and USC will each pay a visit to Champaign in November. USC is slated to take on the Illini at Huff Hall on Nov. 8, when Illinois looks to avenge a five-set…
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