NCAA volleyball stunners: Arizona St. sweeps Stanford, OSU wins at WSU

On a ground-breaking Sunday for NCAA women’s volleyball when Wisconsin’s tall timber gave viewers an eyeful on a “Big 4” TV network, one of the favorites for the national championship was felled.

The No. 2-ranked Badgers took no prisoners in their Big Ten border-war blowout over Minnesota on Fox TV that seems likely to shatter the record for viewership of a regular-season volleyball match and might even challenge the all-time mark.

On the flip side, No. 3 Stanford struck a major speedbump, scoring just 51 points in a loss to Pac-12 upstart Arizona State. Another huge West Coast upset saw No. 6 Washington State stumble on its home court against conference back marker Oregon State.

Stanford’s first Pac-12 defeat, and such a lopsided one to boot, could have major implications in the VolleyballMag.com Super 16 Media Poll that comes out Monday morning, and comes on the heels of the Cardinal’s being named No. 2 (behind Nebraska and over Wisconsin) in the second rankings released Sunday by the NCAA’s selection committee.

The Sun Devils — tied with No. 8 Oregon at two games behind Stanford in the loss column — stamped themselves as Pac-12, legit, while the Ducks found smooth sailing on the road as a national TV audience on ESPN looked in.

Meanwhile, the four main contenders in the Atlantic Coast Conference — Louisville, Pittsburgh, Georgia Tech and Floria State — gained more separation in the standings.

Arkansas continued Florida’s woes in the Southeastern Conference, winning in Gainesville for the first time in program history. Tennessee stayed a game back of the Razorbacks, and Auburn remained relevant in the SEC race with a month remaining in the regular season.

Also on the flagship ESPN channel, Oklahoma stunned Iowa State in the Big 12.

And two teams with “zeroes” that won’t go away quietly continued their futility. Saint Peter’s came oh-so-close before dropping the fifth set 15-10 to 9-17 Manhattan in the MAACC, tumbling to 0-26. Hampton is 0-16 after being swept for the second consecutive day in the CAA by 5-18 Elon, while hitting .037.

The stat line of the day went to Wisconsin senior Sarah Franklin, who amassed 21 kills, averaging seven per set, on perhaps the sport’s TV biggest stage ever and in front of a sold-out crowd of 7,229 at Wisconsin Field House in Madison. Franklin had one error in 44 swings (.455 efficiency), served two aces and had four block assists.

Speaking of the big stage, the number to eclipse in TV viewership for the Minnesota-Wisconsin tussle is the 612,000 that recently tuned in to Nebraska and Wisconsin on cable Big Ten Network, the most watched regular season college-volleyball match in history.

Expectations of exceeding the all-time record of 1.188 million set when Wisconsin and Nebraska battled in the 2021 NCAA final should be tempered by the absence of eight top 30 TV markets. The coverage map on Fox for the match that had NFL football as its lead-in did not include New York (the nation’s No. 1 market), Atlanta (7), Boston (10), Seattle (12), Miami (18), Cleveland (19), Pittsburgh (26) and Nashville (29).

Just the New York, Atlanta and Boston markets excluded roughly 11.9 million TV households. Additionally, the Fox station in Los Angeles (the No. 2 market with 5.8 million TV homes) opted to air the volleyball match on a secondary digital channel, affecting the potential spillover from the NFL game. Given those significant caveats, a viewership approaching 1 million, even on a broadcast platform, should be considered a significant accomplishment. The overnight Nielsen ratings for Sunday’s programming typically come out on Tuesday morning.

Also on Sunday, the NCAA selection committee disclosed the second edition of its top 10 between the first and second sets of the Oregon-Washington match on ESPN. The top 10 (with previous ranking in parentheses): 1. Nebraska (2); 2. Stanford (4); 3. Wisconsin (1); 4. Louisville (5); 5. Washington State (6); 6. Oregon (7); 7. Texas (9); 8. Pittsburgh; 9. Arkansas; 10. Tennessee. The first four theoretically are in line to host NCAA regionals through the Elite Eight. The teams in 8–9-10 are new to the committee’s rankings.

BIG TEN: Standing 6-foot-4, Franklin was the most stout of the Northern pines for Wisconsin (20-1, 11-1 Big Ten), receiving 40% of the team’s sets in a 25-13, 25-20, 25-19 victory over Minnesota (10-10, 6-6). Exerting significant influence at the net as the Gophers hit .107 (including minus-.023 in the first set) were 6-9 Anna Smrek (six kills, four block assists), 6-7 Carter Booth (four kills, two solo blocks, four block assists) and 6-3 CC Crawford (six block assists). Behind that gigantic block, libero Julia Orzol collected 15 digs, helping the Badgers to a 61-44 advantage in that key stat.

Wisconsin Coach Kelly Sheffield noted how the match, despite its one-sided score, should have played well with casual fans on TV.

“There’s a little bit of something extra when you’re trying to grow the game, and grow the sport and get more eyeballs on it,” Sheffield said. “With the way that they played upstairs today, I don’t know how you can watch that match and see the effort that both teams gave defensively – the work, and the athleticism, and the strength and the environment itself and not say, ‘Man, I probably need to tune in a little bit more to this sport.’ “

Earlier on Sunday afternoon in a Big Ten match seen on over-the-air Fox in parts of the country, Michigan (4-17, 2-10) pulled off a mild four-set upset against visiting Ohio State (8-13, 5-7), delighting 5,901 at the Crisler Center in Ann Arbor. The Wolverines got 19 kills, two aces and nine digs from Kendall Murray. … Northwestern (11-11, 5-7) sent Indiana (16-9, 6-6) to an 0-2 weekend in the Prairie State, prevailing in five sets (15-10 in the tiebreaker) behind sophomore Averie Henderson’s 21 kills and 14 digs.

PAC-12: The Pac-12 race got more complicated when Stanford (18-3, 11-1) ran into a buzzsaw at Arizona State (21-3, 9-3), which limited the high-powered Cardinal to .194 hitting during a sweep while ripping at a .311 clip. Latvian national Marta Levinska did the most damage for the Sun Devils, who had fallen out of the VBM Super 16, with 17 kills on .371 hitting and 12 digs. … Washington State (18-5, 8-4) suffered a weekend to forget on its home court against its Pacific Northwest rivals to the South, losing in four to Oregon on Friday and in five to Oregon State (9-13. 4-8) on Sunday. Peyton Suess’ 18th kill put an exclamation point on a 15-13 deciding set for the Beavers. … In another national TV match, Oregon (19-4, 9-3) hit .442 in sweeping host Washington (13-10, 4-8) before a crowd of 4,588 in Seattle. Morgan Lewis had a gaudy .652 hitting percentage (15 kills on an errorless 23 swings) for the Ducks. … Also, Skylar Fields cracked 24 kills as USC (14-8, 8-4) topped host Utah (9-13, 4-8) in a four. … UCLA swept at Colorado and visiting California won in three against Arizona.

ACC: The quartet with one or two losses in the ACC held serve. Opposite Aiko Jones (10 kills on 18 errorless attempts) paced a balanced attack for No. 5 Louisville (20-2, 11-1) in a sweep of visiting Miami (15-7, 8-4). … No. 7 Pitt (20-3, 11-1) rolled over visiting Wake Forest (17-6, 7-5) in three. Olivia Babcock notched 14 kills on .462 hitting. … Fourteen players saw court time for No. 11 Georgia Tech (19-3, 10-2) during a sweep at struggling Syracuse (2-20, 0-12). … Florida State (16-8, 10-2) held Notre Dame (10-10, 4-8) to .111 hitting 10-10, 4-8) in a road sweep. … Also, visiting North Carolina State took a contentious four-setter against North Carolina. … Clemson won in three at Boston College and host Virginia pulled out a five-set victory (15-11 in the tiebreaker) against Virginia Tech.

SEC: No. 15 Florida (14-5, 6-4) took another punch to the solar plexus in the SEC, getting starched in three by No. 10 Arkansas (20-3, 10-1) as 3,023 watched at its O’Connell Center. Up next for the listing Gators, last week lost middle Anna Dixon for the season after already losing setter Alexis Stucky, are key home dates with Tennessee and Kentucky. The Razorbacks took a breakthrough first victory in Gainesville and improved to 5-50 in the all-time series. Jillian Gillen and Maggie Cartwright each notched 12 kills and Taylor Head chipped in with 10. … No. 12 Tennessee (18-3, 9-2) took care of business on its home court, dispatching Texas A&M (14-7, 6-6) in three behind Morgahn Fingall’s 15 kills. … Madison Scheer bombed 21 kills as visiting Auburn (17-5, 7-4), which boasts an RPI of 25, defeated skidding Alabama (10-12, 0-11) in four. … Host Ole Miss topped Missouri in a four-setter. … Georgia won in three over visiting Mississippi State, as did host LSU over South Carolina.

Oklahoma caught a case of “good amnesia,” according to Coach Aaron Mansfield, in bouncing back from a sweep the day before to deal Iowa State a damaging Big 12 loss before a national ESPN audience and a crowd of 2,103 at the Hilton Coliseum in Ames.

“It felt like (Saturday’s match) early on, so I was really proud of our team’s response,” Mansfield said after the Sooners rallied from a 22-15 hole in the first set to prevail 26-24, then took the next two 25-23, 25-20. “The easy thing to do would have been to fold, but we had some good amnesia and were able to put yesterday past us.”

Oklahoma (9-12) won for just the second time in 11 Big 12 matches, while Iowa State (14-7, 5-5) has dropped four of its last five and sustained damage to its No. 58 RPI after being limited to .135 hitting.

The Sooners took the good with the bad from outside hitter Alexis Shelton, kiddingly called a “rally killer” by Mansfield. The 6-foot-2 sophomore pounded 21 kills in the three sets on 49 attempts but racked up 13 errors, chipping in a solo block and two block assists. Lydia Burts had 10 kills on 19 swings with three errors.

In the only other Big 12 match, Houston (12-7, 5-5) held host Cincinnati (11-10, 4-7) to minus hitting (26 kills against 27 errors) and outscored the Bearcats 75-44.

Around the nation

A showdown of teams at the top of the Metro Atlantic standings saw host Quinnipiac (16-7, 12-2) take a half-game lead over Fairfield (15-6, 11-2). Ginevra Giovagnoni paced the Bobcats with 20 kills and 17 digs in the four-setter. … SMU (18-6), which is 23rd in the RPI, held on to first in the American Athletic at 12-1 with its eighth consecutive victory, Middle hitter Emma Clothier notched 10 kills on 15 swings with one error and added six block assists in a sweep of visiting South Florida. … Wichita State (16-6, 10-2 AAC) pulled out a five-setter (15-11 in the tiebreaker) at Memphis. … Binghamton (13-9) went to 6-1 in the American East, a game up on UMBC (11-7) when the former swept visiting NJIT and the latter fell in four at New Hampshire. …

Nina Cajic logged 12 kills, five aces and 11 digs as Towson (19-5) upped its Coastal Athletic mark to 12-2 by defeating North Carolina A&T in four. Delaware (18-4, 11-3 CAA) kept pace with a four-set victory at North Carolina-Wilmington. … Thirteen players for Army West Point (13-9, 10-3) shared in the fun of a home-court sweep of Holy Cross that kept the Black Knights tied for first in the Patriot League. … During a day that had 12 Southwestern Athletic matches played in two locations, Alabama State (13-12) improved to 12-0 in the league by beating Grambling in three and Alcorn State in four in Daytona Beach, Florida. In Jackson, Mississippi, Alabama A&M (10-16) topped Texas Southern and Southern, both in four, to move to 9-3.

Monday, Tuesday

Monday’s limited slate includes six matches in the SWAC and WAC-leader Stephen F. Austin at UT Arlington.

Tuesday, there are seven matches, including Horizon-leading Milwaukee at Green Bay, Big West-leading UC Santa Barbara at Cal Poly and Wyoming at Colorado State in the Mountain West.

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