The only ranked team in action, BYU, blasted visiting Iowa State in the Big 12 on a Thursday night in which Omaha’s eight-match Summit League win streak ended and Pepperdine won a big West Coast Conference match.
The recaps and top performances follow — including 29 kills by UNLV’s Isabel Martin in a losing effort — but first a look at Friday’s NCAA Division I women’s volleyball schedule, one with a handful of key matches.
While the college volleyball world awaits Saturday’s Big Ten showdown between No. 1 Wisconsin at No. 2 Nebraska, the only other unbeaten, The Citadel, plays host to Samford. The Citadel is 20-0, 8-0 in the SoCon.
There are three B1G matches when No. 11 Penn State plays host to Iowa, Rutgers is at Minnesota and Illinois goes to Maryland.
The SEC has a showcase match when second-place No. 12 Tennessee (16-2, 7-1) goes to league-leading No. 7 Arkansas (17-2, 7-0). The battle behind them could tighten as AVCA No. 20 Kentucky (8-7, 6-1) tries to keep pace when it entertains Mississippi State (9-8, 2-5), VBM No. 15 Florida (12-4, 4-3) is at Texas A&M (14-4, 6-2) and Missouri (12-7, 4-4) is at AVCA No. 23 Auburn (14-4, 4-3).
There’s a full slate in the ACC, including No. 5 Louisville at Wake Forest, No. 7 Pittsburgh at NC State and No. 13 Georgia Tech home for Duke. Notre Dame is at Virginia Tech, Boston College is at Florida State, Syracuse is at Miami and North Carolina is at Clemson.
In the Pac-12, no ranked teams play each other as No. 3 Stanford goes to Oregon State, No. 4 Washington State is at USC, Washington goes to UCLA, No. 9 Oregon is home for Cal, No. 14 Arizona State is at Utah and Arizona is at Colorado.
The Big 12 slate includes Iowa State back at BYU, AVCA No. 22 Houston at Texas Tech, Kansas State at Oklahoma and Cincinnati back at West Virginia.
In the Atlantic 10, VBM No. 15 Dayton (20-2, 9-0) is home for Saint Louis, while VCU (11-8, 8-1) tries to keep pace when it plays host to Loyola Chicago.
St. John’s (15-5, 7-1) and tied with Marquette (11-8, 7-1) are tied atop the Big East and AVCA No. 15 Creighton is right behind at 6-2, tied with Xavier. St. John’s is at Georgetown, Marquette is at Butler, Creighton is at UConn and Xavier is home for DePaul.
SMU, which leads the American Athletic at 8-1, plays host to Rice (7-1), while the other team in second, 7-1 Wichita…
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