- The 2022 Big Ten Conference season reaches the quarter pole this week, highlighted by five matches televised live on the Big Ten Network, including doubleheaders on Wednesday and Friday. The latter twinbill offers a pair of Top 25 contests, with No. 13 Penn State visiting sixth-ranked Ohio State (6:30 p.m. ET), and No. 11 Minnesota traveling to 24th-ranked Michigan (8:30 p.m. ET). All BTN matches can also be seen live on the FOX Sports app, while the remaining conference contests this week will be streamed live on B1G+.
- The Big Ten remains the national leader with seven schools appearing in this week’s American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) poll, tying a season high. In fact, the Big Ten has had seven schools ranked in the AVCA Top 25 in five of the first eight weeks of the season. Included in this week’s poll is No. 24 Michigan, which returns to the Top 25 for the first time since Aug. 30, 2021 (when the Wolverines were ranked 23rd). Northwestern and Illinois are also receiving votes this week, marking the third time in the past four weeks that a season-high nine Big Ten schools are earning mention in the AVCA poll.
- Wisconsin head coach Kelly Sheffield will reach a personal milestone Wednesday when his Badgers travel to Indiana for 8 p.m. (ET) contest on BTN. It will be Sheffield’s 300th match at the helm in Madison, where he has a 243-56 (.813) record in 10 seasons. Sheffield will be the latest Big Ten coach to cross a coaching milestone, with three others hitting their marks last weekend — Michigan State’s Leah Johnson logged her 350th career match, Minnesota’s Hugh McCutcheon worked his 200th career Big Ten contest and Ohio State’s Jen Flynn Oldenburg earned her 50th career win.
- The NCAA Division I women’s volleyball committee revealed its first regular-season top 10 rankings on Sunday, with the Big Ten leading all conferences by placing four among the top 10 — No. 4 Nebraska, No. 6 Ohio State, No. 9 Purdue and No. 10 Minnesota. The committee will offer a second glimpse into how it views the teams later this month.
- In conjunction with its regular-season reveal, the NCAA has begun issuing regular RPI rankings and as of Monday, the Big Ten is the national leader with seven schools in the RPI top 15 and an eighth (Northwestern) at No. 34.
- Northwestern picked up a landmark win on Sept. 28 with a 3-2 victory at No. 7 Minnesota. It was the Wildcats’ first-ever road win at a top-10 opponent, as well as its first victory over the Golden Gophers in Minneapolis since 2005, while snapping Minnesota’s 13-match series winning streak.
- The Big Ten remains firmly established as the nation’s leader in attendance with nine conference programs appearing in the top 25 of the latest NCAA attendance rankings, including four of the nation’s top five schools — No. 1 Wisconsin (8,597 fans/match), No. 2 Nebraska (8,181), No. 4 Minnesota (4,715) and No. 5 Ohio State (3,872). By comparison, the next closest conference in terms of Top 25 attendance programs is the Pac-12 with four.
- Wisconsin set the NCAA regular-season single-match attendance record on Sept. 16 when 16,833 fans packed the Kohl Center for the Badgers’ five-set thriller against Florida. That mark topped the previous record of 15,797, set nine days earlier for Nebraska’s 3-2 win over Creighton at the CHI Health Center in Omaha (home of the 2022 NCAA Final Four).
- Maryland continues to lead the country in blocks per set (3.32), while Nebraska has climbed into the top spot in the nation in opponent hitting percentage (.117). Individually, Maryland’s Rainelle Jones (1.73 blocks per set) and Wisconsin’s Danielle Hart (1.63) remain 1-2 in the country in blocking, while Michigan’s Jess Robinson has held steady atop the national hitting percentage chart at .498.
- The Big Ten has announced the most robust volleyball television package in its history with a record-setting 55 matches scheduled for linear television coverage (47 on Big Ten Network, six on ESPN2/ESPNU, two on FS1), with the possibility of further broadcasts to be announced at a later date. In addition, all non-televised Big Ten volleyball home matches are scheduled to be broadcast live on B1G+, the Big Ten Network’s subscription streaming service (bigtenplus.com).
- On Aug. 1, the Big Ten Network announced a groundbreaking, multi-year distribution partnership with Volleyball World that will enhance the promotion and coverage of Big Ten Conference volleyball across the globe. As part of that agreement, 70+ Big Ten volleyball matches will appear worldwide on VolleyballWorld.tv. There will also be live streaming of nearly 50 televised Big Ten Network volleyball matches outside of North America and certain Caribbean islands, as well as worldwide streaming of an additional 28 matches from B1G+ inventory, with those matches airing concurrently on B1G+.
- For the 16th consecutive season, Big Ten volleyball honored more than 70 Academic All-Big Ten standouts in 2021, as a record-setting 153 volleyball student-athletes were recognized, including a pair of Academic All-America selections in first-team honoree Sydney Hilley (Wisconsin) and second-team choice Diana Brown (Illinois).
