#4 Pitt swept #10 Oregon in Eugene. They have a very strong team and their senior leader & setter Fairbanks made very precise passing (34 assists), had 10 digs, & 3 aces. National FOY/1st team AA 6'4" Babcock showed up big also with 6 Blocks, 8 kills, & 3 aces. Not to be outdone her fellow soph 6' 2" Stafford (3rd team AA as a Freshman) had 13 kills and also 3 aces. Those 3 are dynamite but I was also impressed with their 6th year Puerto Rican player Vasquez Gomez 6'1" (9 kills & a block) and 5th year Florida xfr Bre Kelly (6'4") 7 kills and 4 blocks. They will be a handful. The Ducks were totally outclassed the 1st set (25-12) but at least kept the next two sets competitive (27-25 & 25-23).
This was a rare 1st game match between now arguably the two confences with the best teams as the ACC & Big 10 have 8 teams in the Top 10 rankings who are either from the ACC (#4 Pitt, #5 Stanford, #6 L'Ville) or the Big 10 (#2 Nebraska, #3 Wisconsin, #7 PSU, #8 Purdue, & #10 Oregon). The ACC also has 4 more teams that got votes in the AVCA rankings (#14 GTech, #20 FSU, #30 SMU, & #42 Miami) while the Big 10 has 6 more ranked or teams w/votes (#18 Minnesota, #21 USC, #31 tOSU, #35 UCLA, #40 Indiana, & 41 Washington). That's 10 of the 18 Big 10 programs considered upper tier while 7 of the 18 ACC teams have similar pedigree. ND has to at least get to that level by the end of the year as things are only getting harder to compete in the ACC. Hopefully ND shows up against lesser conference foes Santa Clara and Nova today
It is amazing what conference realignment has done to Volleyball considering the PAC12 was the leader in National Championships (17 total from 4 different teams) before 10 schools were gobbled up by other conferences. The Big 10 who had been 2nd at 13 NCs from 3 schools (PSU. Nebraska, & Wisconsin) loaded up with 4 big time VBall programs from the PAC who have all played in NC matches. The Big 10 has clearly the strongest VBall conference which those preseason rankings show and historically the Big10 school now account for 21 National Championships while 12 of their 18 schools have been to at least 1 final 4, led by Nebraska who's been to 17.
Still the conference that gained the most in volleyball due to this realignment was clearly the ACC. Prior to the 3 schools added, ACC teams had never won a National Championship and their 15 teams had only been to a total of 6 Final 4s (Pitt 3, L'ville 2, FSU 1). That was a pittance compared to the old PAC 12 (54 F4s) and those 14 Big 10 schools (50 F4s). They had only been to 1 NC game which L'vlle got to since it played Pitt in the semifinals of the 2022 tournament but lost in the final to then Big12 school Texas. By adding Stanford the ACC now goes from 0 NC's to 9 which makes them second of all the 4 Power Conferences. They also did well with getting Cal who has a VBall history that matches L'Ville with a National runnerup in 2010 and the semis in 2007. So total Final 4 appearance is also now third at 25, just 2 behind the SEC who went from 12 to 27 by adding Texas. The SEC is still behind the ACC with only 5 championships as the 4 Texas NCs is adding to the 1 SEC championship by Kentucky. The one Power conference who got worse in realignment was clearly the Big12 who went from 4 NCs/20 F4s down to no championships and 6 F4s as they only had 1 each from Kansas and Baylor but 3 from recent add BYU and the only PAC add who helped was Arizona who only made the semifinals once, back in 2001. Their top ranked team is BYU at #16 with 5 more out of their 16 team even getting votes in the preseason AVCA rankings.
It will be interesting if the SEC can build with adding Texas to create a deeper and more effective Volleyball conference and start trying to take the "best conference" mantle from the Big 10. The preseason ranks have them almost at par with the ACC at the top ( #1 Texas, #9 Kentucky, & #11 Florida) with a total of 5 more teams (#15 Tennessee, #19 Arkansas, #25 Georgia, #34 Auburn, & #37 Missouri). That makes 8 out of their 15 teams upper tier. The only SEC school without Vball is Vandy, but they have hired coaches, have signed recruits, and plan on competing in the 25/26 SEC season. Clearly the SEC is investing in this women's sport like they have with Soccer, Softball, Basketball, and Gymnastics. It will be hard for the ACC to keep up and even harder for ND to become elite.