The next leg of Nebraska’s “race for the roses” will take place in Lincoln.
Nebraska volleyball earned the No. 2 overall seed and the opportunity to host the first four rounds of the NCAA Tournament at the Devaney Center. Four wins at home will earn them a trip to Louisville for the third time this season.
Senior captain Lexi Rodriguez said it was “super cool” to see Nebraska’s name pop up on the screen early in the selection show on ESPN.
“I think just being the number two seed overall is a celebration for us and just another testament to how much work we’ve put in since the beginning of the season,” Rodriguez said. “It’s super exciting to get to celebrate here and to be a top-four seed means we get to play at home, so that’s always super exciting.”
Nebraska will open NCAA Tournament play against SWAC champion Florida A&M (27-6) on Friday at 7 p.m. CT.
No. 8 seed Miami and South Dakota State will also visit Lincoln for the first weekend. The first-round winners will face each other on Saturday at 7 p.m. in the round of 32.
“You’re playing good teams, and there’s going to be a lot of great matches, like Holly [McPeak] said,” Coach John Cook said. “It’s really, really balanced and competitive. It’s going to probably be the most dynamic results-oriented tournament ever, and so I don’t get too worked up on it. We’ve just got to find a way to get two wins this weekend and worry about next week. You know, you’re going to play great teams … We owe Florida A&M because they beat us in ’04.”
The Rattlers shocked the Huskers at the NU Coliseum in 2004, winning 3-1 in the only previous meeting between the two programs. Cook brought the loss up with his team, and many of the players said they hadn’t been born yet.
Florida A&M will be a familiar opponent for at least one Husker as Merritt Beason played against the Rattlers in each of her first two season at Florida.
The other seeded teams in Nebraska’s region are No. 2 Wisconsin, No. 3 Arizona State, No. 4 Baylor, No. 5 Dayton, No. 6 Texas A&M and No. 7 Georgia Tech. The Huskers have already swept the Badgers twice and the Sun Devils once this season.
Pittsburgh is the overall No. 1 seed, Penn State the No. 3 seed and Louisville the No. 4 seed. There was little drama surrounding the top seeds heading in, with the only one in question being the fourth No. 1 seed between Louisville, Stanford and Creighton, and the trickle down to the two and three seeds from there.
“It felt pretty good,” Cook said of the final product. “Every bracket is tough. You’re going to have to beat great teams, but that’s what we have to do in the Big Ten, so we’re used to it. I just feel like the committee did a pretty good job. They were predicting back there who was going where, and our guys were pretty accurate with how the seeds played out … We knew there was a chance we could get Wisconsin in our bracket, we knew there was chance we could get Texas in our bracket, Creighton. Those are kind of the three that were hovering in that area. I think it’s going to be a fun tournament to watch.”
The Huskers went 29-2 during the regular season and 19-1 in conference play, sharing the Big Ten title with Penn State. Nebraska’s two losses came to SMU, which earned a No. 2 seed, and the Nittany Lions.
Nine Big Ten teams qualified for the NCAA Tournament. In addition to the Huskers, Nittany Lions and Badgers, No. 4 seeds Purdue and Oregon, No. 6 seeds USC and Minnesota and unseeded teams Illinois and Washington also made the field. The Huskies are among the last four teams in.
In total, nine of Nebraska’s 11 nonconference opponents made the tournament, seven of which were seeded teams. Nebraska also faced a tournament team in 10 of its 20 conference matches.
“It was a crazy season,” Rodriguez said. “Our preseason was, I felt like, the toughest I’ve ever been a part of, and I feel like it was one of the toughest that Nebraska has had in a while. To get some of those early wins against top-10 opponents I feel like really prepared us for a long Big Ten season. And then I feel like the Big Ten with the travel schedule and with everything is pretty difficult, but I think we handled it really well, and we performed week after week. I’m just really proud of our team for how great we did all year.”
Cook likes to split the season up into three parts — the nonconference, the Big Ten and the NCAA Tournament. With two legs of the race down, the team will have a few days to gear up and prepare to enter the third phase.
“I think there’s always a little bit of a change,” Rodriguez said. “Obviously you have preseason where it’s like you’re kind of getting used to things, getting used to playing again, lineups, all that stuff. And then Big Ten is just a dog fight for a couple months long. And then now it’s the finish line, it’s the race to the end, and I think it’s kind of that switch of like, ‘OK, everything we’ve done, we just have to find a way to do it for three more weeks and find a way to consistently be good over the last games that we have left.’ So I think a little bit of a of a mind switch, but I think overall, just trying to stay in routine, stay with the same mindset of ‘OK, we’ve been doing this, we have the confidence and we can get the job done.’”
After a month spent mostly on the road — Nebraska only played three matches at the Devaney Center in November — the team is excited to settle in to potentially play four times at the Devaney Center in the next two weeks. Cook issued a challenge to the fan base.
“I’m putting it on our crowd: they’re going to will us to Louisville,” Cook said. “They better will us to Louisville; that’s their assignment. We haven’t played very many [home] matches in the last month, so they should be pumped … There’s just a lot of excitement, so tickets are going to probably be tight, and I’m probably going to have to take care of our student section, whatever I need to do to get those guys fired up.”
