The 2024 season of upsets and reverse sweeps continued Thursday when Michigan State did both.
The Spartans, winless in the Big Ten, pulled off a reverse sweep at USC, the No. 14 team in the VolleyballMag Super 16 Media Poll.
It was a good night for the visiting teams as the other four ranked teams in action won: No. 3 Penn State in five at UCLA, No. 8 Wisconsin at Indiana, No. 13 Arizona State at Arizona and No. 21 Utah at Kansas State.
Friday’s schedule, highlighted below, has a battle extraordinaire in the ACC when No. 1 Pittsburgh (17-1, 7-1) plays host to No. 4 Louisville (16-2, 8-0). The last time they played, in the 2023 NCAA regional final, Pittsburgh won in a reverse sweep to get to the national semifinals. They split their regular-season matches, with Louisville sweeping at home and then Pitt winning another reverse sweep in the rematch at home.
There were, of course, other reverse sweeps as Arkansas State did it to Troy in the Sun Belt and Utah Valley did it at Grand Canyon in the WAC.
Lines of the night: They happened in defeat.
In Fresno State’s Mountain West win over visiting Nevada, Nevada’s Gabby McLaughlin had 31 kills, hit .328, and had three aces and 10 digs.
Sam Houston won its Conference USA match at Jacksonville State, but JSU’s Kayla Williams had 30 kills, an ace, seven digs and three blocks.
And Grand Canyon’s Tatum Parrott, in that aforementioned reverse-sweep defeat, had 29 kills, hit .309, and had an ace, 23 digs and three blocks, one solo.
Athletes Unlimited starts the fourth round of its five-week season in Mesa, Arizona, with two matches. At 7 p.m. Eastern, Team (Morgan) Hentz plays Team (Bethania) De La Cruz-Mejia in a match that can be seen on the FanDuel Sports Network and Volleyball World TV. At 9:30 p.m., Team (Brittany) Abercrombie plays Team (Leketor) Member-Meneh. It can be seen on ESPN+. Click here for more.
We also have some coaching news in this edition of Volleyball Today:
NCAA volleyball Friday
The ACC takes center stage with the aforementioned Louisville-at-Pitt battle. Sadly, that match won’t be on a linear network and can only be streamed on ACCNX.
Sixth-ranked Stanford is home for Cal, No. 11 SMU is home for Notre Dame, No. 17 Georgia Tech is home for NC State, No. 19 Florida State is at North Carolina, Virginia Tech is at Boston College, Wake Forest is at Clemson and Miami is at Duke.
TCU, No. 16 in the VBM Poll and No. 18 in the AVCA’s, goes to No. 23 Baylor in the Big 12, where No. 21 BYU is at…
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