NCAA Women
December 2, 2023
Throughout this NCAA Division I women’s volleybal season, Fridays were usually something to behold. In these roundups we called them freaky Fridays.
The NCAA Tournament opened Thursday with 16 matches that included a minor upset and no matches that even went five sets.
Hello, Friday!
To wit:
TCU upset ACC co-champion Florida State.
Penn State beat 14th-seeded Kansas on its home court in a wild five.
Georgia Tech won a tremendous battle in five at 16th-seeded Florida.
Dayton won an up-and-down five-setter over Pepperdine.
And, in the biggest surprise, the NEC’s LIU — the 64th seed and only team in the field with a losing record — ultimately got swept at top-seeded Nebraska but not before actually leading as late as 19-18 in the third. That caused ESPN 5th Set host Sam Gore to later joke that “Nebraska survived LIU.”
That might have been the best line in the studio, but the best lines on the court?
Reagan Cooper of Kansas tied the 15-year-old school record with a career best 29 kills while hitting .464 against Penn State.
Purdue had too many to list.
Oregon’s Morgan Lewis had 14 kills with no errors in 21 swings to go with two blocks in a sweep of Hawai’i.
Kentucky hit .500 with 51 kills and 10 errors in 82 attacks in a sweep of Baylor.
And in the NIVC, Georgia Southern’s Ashlyn Lovett had 45 digs.
All that being said, here are the eight teams that have advanced to next week’s NCAA Tournament round of 16:
Georgia Tech
Kentucky
Louisville
Penn State
Purdue
Oregon
Texas
Wisconsin
And here are Saturday’s eight second-round matches to see who joins them. The times are Eastern and all can be seen only on ESPN+. We have the complete schedule and viewing links on our VolleyballMag.com TV & Streaming Listings page.
6 p.m. — Western Kentucy at Tennessee
7 p.m. — USC at Pittsburgh
7:30 p.m. — Minnesota at Creighton
8 p.m. — TCU at Arkansas
8 p.m. — Missouri at Nebraska
9 p.m. — Houston at Stanford
9 p.m. Arizona State at BYU
10 p.m….
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