Women's volleyball starts Jan 22 - UM ranked #24

I get it, this is one of those sports with a relatively limited following unless you are Nebraska and PSU (in the Big Ten, at least) fan. But our ladies are actually pretty good! 

In any case, it appears that the Big Ten very quietly released the 2021 spring volleyball schedule at the end of December, but they didn't even care enough to issue a press release on it. The last posting on the Big Ten's volleyball site is from August 11, 2020. 

Let me first preface anything that follows with a caveat that I'm a casual fan, only really getting into the last couple of years when my daughter started playing club vball. 

The schedule is conference games only and consists of 2 games per week against the same team in the same venue. Michigan starts its season with 2 games at home against Penn State on the 22nd/23rd. Two weeks later, they play 2 games at Northwestern. 

The exception to the single venue rule is for the "local" matchups which do not occur on consecutive days, but still within that same week. Michigan plays at msu on 1/28 and home against msy on 1/30. Every team has a local counterpart. osu-PSU, Nebraska-Iowa, Minny-Wisco, Illinois-Northwestern, Purdue-IU, Rutgers-Maryland, and Michigan-msu, of course. 

I honestly don't know enough about the players/roster to give any sort of real preview, but based on my poor recollection of watching a handful of M games last season, as well as reviewing last season stats:

• Jr OH Paige Jones is the star of this team. She was 3rd team AA last season and led the team in kills and kills/set by a mile, with a strong (but not outstanding) hitting percentage of .252. 
• Looking for MB Jess Robinson and OH May Pertofsky to really step up to bolster that front line. Both are sophs now and had promising FR seasons. If they can maintain their strong hitting percentages while garnering more kills, that'll make for a strong front row. 
• My uneducated self that that D and passing were the teams weaknesses, although my daughter agreed. This will still probably be a weakness, as we're very young. The most experienced player on the back row is SO Amber Beals who played all of 14 sets last season. Otherwise, we have true frosh Brooke Humphrey and RS FR Hannah Grant listed as DS/Libero. 
• I'll also be closely watching our setters where we're also very young. SO Maddie Dowd is the only one with any Division I collegiate experience - 6 sets played. SO Jenni Liu is a JC transfer for Blinn College and started there (originally from Berlin, so maybe the whole German athlete thing works as well for vball as it does for bball). We also have FR Scottee Johnson on the roster. I didn't think we set as crisply and accurately as the top teams in the conference last year, so this will be key to getting our front row good opportunities. 

As far as rankings go, the Big Ten is very strong. 

1. Wisconsin

5. Nebraska

7. Minnesota

9. Penn State

13. Purdue

24. Michigan

Those rankings also happen to follow the final conference standings last year, and the closeness of ranking of NU, Minny, and PSU reflect how they finished - tied for 2nd behind Wisco with 17-3 conference records. Also, Wisco lost to Stanford in the national championship match last season, so yeah - they're good. 

Of the 22 games scheduled, I'd be thrilled if Michigan could pull off a 14-8 record, although I feel like it may really be more like 12-10 given our youth. 

Oh - and no fans in the arenas. You'll have to get your fix on BTN or... I don't know, whatever other networks happen to televise vball. Maybe FSN? 

If you've made it this far, wow... That's crazy.