Iowa State’s time in the AVCA top 25 will likely be short lived, because the No. 23 Cyclones were upended Thursdsay night by red-hot UC Santa Barbara, which beat a ranked team for the first time in seven years.
Among the other winners Thursday were No. 6 Texas, which beat No. 19 Ohio State; No. 7 Oregon, which won in five at No. 8 Pittsburgh; No. 9 Minnesota; No. 15 Tennessee; No. 17 Purdue; No. 22 Houston; and No. 24 Auburn.
Line of the night: Washington freshman outside Kierstyn Barton had a total of 39 kills in the Huskies’ first eight matches. In a five-set win at Cal Poly, Barton, who didn’t start, had 26 kills as Washington rallied from being down 10-7 in the fifth and won its eighth in a row after losing its season opener.
Thursday’s results and top performances follow, and so does another note about how well NCAA Division I women’s volleyball is doing on TV, but first a look at Friday’s schedule.
There are 11 matches in the Big Ten alone as most teams wrap up the pre-conference season. Among them, No. 13 Penn State plays UMBC and Purdue plays host to USC, where Illinois — which lost to USC in five — plays UCF. In the battle of New Jersey, Rutgers plays Princeton.
There are 12 matches in the Big 12, including the match of the day when No. 11 Washington State plays at Texas. No. 12 BYU plays at Utah Valley, No. 18 Baylor gets Ohio State and No. 20 Kansas is home for both Bellarmine and New Hampshire. Iowa State tries to bounce back against Ohio and Oklahoma plays UCLA.
The ACC has 13 matches, including No. 10 Georgia Tech playing Georgia and Florida State facing TCU.
In the Pac-12, Oregon plays James Madison, and both its unbeatens are in action when 10-0 Arizona State plays Little Rock and 9-0 Cal plays Montana State. Washington plays Pepperdine and Colorado, which lost in five at home to Colorado State on Thursday, goes to CSU for the rematch.
The SEC slate includes No. 16 Arkansas playing Buffalo and St. John’s, Tennessee playing Evansville and No. 24 Auburn facing UAB.
The Big East’s No. 14 Creighton plays High Point and No. 25 Dayton of the Atlantic 10 plays Northern Illinois and Northern Iowa.
There is also conference play Friday. In the Metro Atlantic, Siena opens at Marist and in the Patriot League, Holy Cross is at Lafayette, Army West Point is at Bucknell and Navy is at Loyola Maryland.
And a wonderful note from the Patriot League:…
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