Volleyball Today: Minnesota beats Texas; Selena Gomez; Madi Skinner’s world

What about Minnesota?

The Gophers, ranked No. 18 in the preseason AVCA rankings and the same in the new rankings released Monday after opening play with a five-set loss to Stanford on Sunday, beat No. 1 Texas on Monday in Milwaukee.

Fifth-ranked Stanford won again and is 3-0 against No. 1 Milwaukee. The Cardinal will play at Marquette on Wednesday.

But speaking of Wisconsin, the No. 6-ranked Badgers lost their third straight fourth-set game to open the season and are 0-3 for the first time since 1990. Speaking of tough stuff: Wisconsin lost despite hitting .341.

Selena Gomez surprised the volleyball team in Telluride, Colorado, Madi Skinner gave us the inside scoop on her travels around the world since Texas won the NCAA title last December, and we took a quick look at the Power 4 conferences after the first weekend.

Tuesday will feature 18 NCAA volleyball matches, including No. 4 Louisville vs. No. 7 Penn State. Louisville is 2-0 after beating Wisconsin and then Tennessee. Penn State is also 2-0 after beating Tennessee and then Temple.

Second-ranked Nebraska travels to Dallas to play SMU. Among other games, No. 3 Pittsburgh is home to Buffalo, No. 23 Baylor travels to Rice and Illinois is home to Illinois State.

Saint Peter’s, which has lost its last eight games of the 2022 season with a 1-31 record and was 0-30 last year, begins its season at NJIT.

Also, AVCA Division I Survey released on Monday. Click here to view it. We won’t have our VolleyballMag media poll until pre-conference play concludes later this month.

State Farm Women’s College Women’s Volleyball Showcase

The two-day, high-level tournament at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, presented by Intersport and Fox, was a great conclusion to the first week of the season.

Especially for Minnesota, which went 17-13 under first-year coach Keegan Cook in 2023. Taylor Landfair, who led the team in kills, transferred to Nebraska, where she has five kills in three matches.

On Sunday, the Gophers lost to Stanford 26-28, 25-23, 16-25, 25-13, and in a tie 13-13, 15-13.

On Monday, the fifth match against the Texas team took place, in which Minnesota left no doubt and won 22-25, 25-19, 25-20, 13-25, 15-7.

“Transitions are tough, for coaches, but especially for athletes. I really love this moment for these guys, that they stuck with us,” Cook said. “They had a chance to go somewhere else and play somewhere else, but they stayed together.

“You practice a lot of games to have moments like this for these kids. I’m happy for them.”

Julia Hanson had a great match with 19 kills, an ace, three blocks and 13 digs. McKenna Wucherer had 12 kills, two assists, two aces, four blocks and nine digs. Lydia Grote had nine kills, an assist, three blocks and eight digs. And Calissa Minatee — a deadly slugger — had a game-high nine kills with one error on 14 digs, a dig and six blocks.

Melani Shaffmaster had another great match, the setter had six kills, hitting .400, 44 assists, four aces, three blocks and 17 digs. Libero Zeynep Palabiyik had 22 digs and six assists.

Minnesota, which beat a top-ranked team for the first time since beating Stanford in 2019 when it shot .211, had seven aces and 14 service errors.

Two-time NCAA champion Texas, who opened with a four-set win over Wisconsin on Sunday, hit .183 and had four aces and eight errors. Madi Skinner led the way with 19 kills, hitting .164 and having two blocks and 12 digs. Jenna Wenaas, one of the players who transferred from Minnesota and became a key part of Texas’ run to the NCAA title last year, had 13 kills, an assist, an ace, two blocks and 19 digs. Ayden Ames had seven kills on 18 error-free attempts, two assists, an ace, seven blocks and three digs. Reagan Rutherford had seven kills and hit .357 to go with an assist and two blocks. Libero Emma Halter had 21 digs and three assists to go with two aces.

Minnesota travels to Texas this week for a Friday game against Baylor and Saturday’s matchup with TCU. Texas is home to Indiana on Thursday and Miami on Saturday.

Wisconsin will also be in Waco, Texas, where it will play TCU on Friday and Baylor on Saturday. The Badgers have a lot to decide after a 26-24, 18-25, 25-22, 25-22 loss to Stanford, which hit .316 and had 10 aces.

Elia Rubin continued her strong start to the season, this time with 20 kills and a .349 average, an assist, three aces and 15 digs. Ipar Kurt, starting at the sophomore outside line spot, had 16 kills, hit .324 and had an ace and two digs. Sami Francis had eight kills with one error on 15 attacks, an assist and a block, and Jordyn Harvey had seven kills, four aces — three in a row in the fourth set — and a dig. Setter Kami Miner had three kills on six clean plays, 47 assists, an ace, a block and 12 digs. Libero Elena Oglivie had 14 digs and five assists.

Sarah Franklin led Wisconsin with 18 kills, hitting .304 and having three assists, a block and 11 rebounds. Devyn Robinson had 10 kills without errors on 23 attacks, three aces, three blocks and four rebounds. CC Crawford, making her first start, had eight kills without errors on 19 attacks, as well as an assist, four rebounds and four blocks. Setter Charlie Feurbringer had her best game with five kills on six errorless attempts, 39 assists, an ace, a block and six rebounds.

Anna Smrek, the 203cm right defender who had her ups and downs, did not play.

All over the country

Also on Labor Day, No. 18 Georgia Tech swept Carolina Coastwho hit .055. Biana Bertolinio led Georgia Tech with 10 kills, an ace of an ace, 11 saves and a block… Texas A&M swept Texas A&M-Corpus Christi like Logan Lednicky, who had five blocks, and Morgan Perkins had 12 kills each. Perkins had one error in 20 attacks, an ace, a dig and a block… Indiana They fought hard and won against the visiting team 25-16, 31-33, 25-16, 27-25 University of California, Davis behind 16 deadly attacks by Candela Alonso-Corcelles, who had an assist, three aces, nine saves and two blocks, one solo… McNeese defeat South in four, as McKenzie Moore had 13 kills and Kimaya Webb and Kayla Wilson had 11 each. Webb averaged .444 and had an ace, three rebounds and five blocks, one solo.

Madi Skinner, traveler

How cool was it to be Madi Skinner?

She started at Kentucky and won an NCAA title with her sister, Avery, in the spring of 2021. Then, the now-senior attackman transferred to Texas, which won two straight NCAA titles. She was named MVP in Tampa in December. And then, well, just think about where she was.

A few days after the NCAA season, we interviewed her while she was visiting her sister in Chieri, Italy, where Avery plays professionally. Madi was named VolleyballMag’s Female Player of the Year.

We saw her in Paris watching Avery at the Olympics, and we agreed that once we got to Milwaukee we’d make a list of all her trips.

She was ready.

“I actually have a list,” she said, because Texas State Sports Information Director Kevin Rodriguez asked for it.

“That doesn’t include going to see my boyfriend, because no one really cares about that as much as I do,” said Skinner, who had 137,000 Instagram followers, so they could. Nevertheless…

“Italy, New York, Brazil, I was in Los Angeles for a bit, Hungary, Slovenia, Italy, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Washington, Paris, France, Austin, and here we are.”

Of course, this included the overseas trip Texas took, a stay at the USA Gym in Anaheim and a visit to the White House.

“I was all over the place, but it was really, really cool,” Skinner said.

Records from the first week of the conference

The SEC went 30-11 through the first week, with Alabama, Florida, Arkansas and Auburn all going 3-0. The only team without a win was Tennessee, which opened the season with losses to Penn State and Louisville.

In the Big Ten, four teams are also 3-0: Indiana, Michigan, Nebraska and Purdue. Only 0-3 Wisconsin is winless. The B1G is 31-11 overall.

However, the ACC had eight teams start 3-0: Boston College, Cal, Florida State, Miami, North Carolina, Stanford, Syracuse and Virginia. The ACC went a combined 40-10 last week. No team had a win.

And the Big 12 has six 3-0 teams: Arizona, Arizona State, Baylor, BYU, Kansas and Utah. No team has a win, and the Big 12 is 33-8 overall.

Selena Gomez watches a volleyball game at Telluride HS

Selena Gomez was at a resort in Colorado. Telluride kids put up a banner asking them to come to the game. The Today show has a story with some video footage.

There was also an article in Billboard.