What to know about No. 3 Wisconsin's top-10 battles at Fiserv Forum (2024)

Things aren’t going to get any easier for the University of Wisconsin volleyball team. And that’s just the way that coach Kelly Sheffield likes it.

Starting out with matches against three of the top six teams in the country presents quite a challenge but Sheffield believes it’s just what the Badgers need to hone their own lofty aspirations.

“Quite frankly, I don’t think anybody is ever interested in it being easier,” Sheffield said. “A competitor shouldn’t want it easier. Sometimes people want to be let off the hook by easier things. It’s not about wins and losses, it’s about getting better and keep finding ways of getting better.”

Sheffield notes that Texas opened its season last year with a loss to Long Beach State and was just 5-3 after homecourt losses to Stanford and Washington State. But in December the Longhorns were the class of the country as they beat the Badgers and Nebraska in the NCAA Final Four for their second consecutive national title.

“The teams that have been the last one standing for years, there’s been growth over the course of the season,” he said. “All of them have had losses that probably had people wondering, 'My gosh, are they any good.' Those aren’t permanent. It’s about getting better.

“And there has to be an urgency to getting better no matter where you’re at. That’s why I get excited about this competition. You get your peoples’ attention, win or lose. When you’re playing elite competition, win or lose, there’s constant urgency to get better at things. That’s why I’m glad that it’s not getting easier.”

In reviewing the loss at Louisville, Sheffield saw plenty of things his team has to improve on. But there also were some areas that may not have been quite as bad as they appeared at first blush.

“We missed a ton of serves but a majority of them were closer than I thought in the moment,” he said. “We had a few balls in the net but by far the majority of our missed serves were just by a couple inches. Just when you’re missing so many, you get a little frustrated. But when we’re missing by an inch or two we try not to get too worked up about that, especially at this point in the season.”

Sheffield was pleased with freshman setter Charlie Fuerbringer’s debut.

“I really liked how Charlie approached the match and how she conducted herself,” he said. “I really liked how she approached it.”

Although he called the match sloppy, as the teams combined for 81 errors of one type or another, he was excited about how the Badgers played for most of the first two sets.

“I thought our hitters stopped hitting good shots as the match was progressing,” he said. “I thought we were explosive for the first part of the match and even the second set when they won. We were exploding on the ball and getting up and getting the block to make one move and us hitting somewhere else.

“And then by the end we’re hitting right at people. We’re not reading the block. We’re hitting it right in the middle of the court. Whether that’s fatigue or mentally we were just in a different place there. I was frustrated with the way the last few points of the match were scored. When the match was on the line and balls getting blocked, we’re just watching balls hit the floor. That tells me it was a team that was frustrated for whatever means, or tired, rather than just being gritty. That’s not something we’re used to seeing.”

One of Sheffield’s primary concerns is getting his team healthy. Outside hitters Sarah Franklin and Julia Orzol and opposite Anna Smrek have all been dealing with ankle injuries and Sheffield gave Franklin and Orzol three days off from practice to hopefully expedite their recovery.

“We’ve got some players that, A, need to get healthy and, B, need to get in the practice gym,” he said. “We looked like we had some players who hadn’t been practicing, which is just a fact. We’ve got to get healthier so we can get some connectivity to our play.”

While the matches are technically at a neutral site, Sheffield is counting on a big lift from what figures to be a lopsided Wisconsin crowd. And with both of the Badgers’ matches televised on FOX — the Stanford-Minnesota match Sunday and the Texas-Minnesota match Monday will be on FS1— Sheffield hopes the event will provide yet another boost to the sport’s exposure.

“We need the energy in that building to feel like a Bucks playoff game and send a message to these huge television networks to keep putting this sport on TV,” he said. “People showing up and people watching is important. I’m sure they will because Wisconsin volleyball fans are crazy.”

Texas Longhorns

2023 record: 28-4

Key players: OH Madisen Skinner, S Ella Swindle, L Emma Halter, MB Reagan Rutherford.

Series history: The Longhorns lead 5-4.

Overview: Coming off back-to-back national championships, the Longhorns enter this season as the favorite to make it a three-peat. Coach Jerritt Elliott returns five starters from that team and has supplemented that group with three major transfers— Rutherford (Kentucky), setter Averi Carlson (Baylor) and outside hitter Whitney Lauenstein (Nebraska).

Rutherford, who was a member of Kentucky’s national championship team as a freshman and was a third-team All-American the past two years, is expected to fill the void left by departed middle blocker Asjia O’Neal. She was a preseason first-team All-SEC selection this year, along with Skinner, Swindle and Halter.

Swindle was just the third true freshman setter to win a national title and the first since 2016. But she faces competition for the job with the arrival of Carlson, a two-year starter at Baylor and the 2021-22 Gatorade National Player of the Year in high school.

Another familiar face for Wisconsin fans is outside hitter Jenna Wenaas, who played three seasons at Minnesota before transferring to Texas last year.

Player to Watch: Madisen Skinner, 6-2, 5th year.

Skinner, also a member of Kentucky’s national championship team, will be going for her fourth ring this year. She was the Final Four Most Outstanding Player, VolleyballMag.com National Player of the Year and an AVCA first-team All-American last season. She had 18 kills and six service aces against the Badgers in that semifinal match. She is the younger sister of U.S. Olympian Avery Skinner.

Stanford Cardinal

2023 record: 29-4

Key players: S Kami Miner, MB Sami Francis, L Elena Oglivie, OH Elia Rubin

Series history: The Cardinal lead 5-0.

Overview: The Cardinal is making Milwaukee something of a second home, playing four matches in a span of six days. Stanford opened its season with a 3-0 win Friday over UW-Milwaukee 25-20, 27-25, 25-17 and will close out the trip against Marquette on Wednesday. Rubin led the Cardinal against the Panthers with 14 kills, while Ipar Kurt, a redshirt freshman from Istanbul, Turkey, had 11 kills in her collegiate debut. Miner did not play against UWM. The school’s website just said that she was unavailable. Freshman Taylor Wu started in her place.

With the disbanding of the Pac-12 Conference, the Cardinal will be playing its first season in the ACC. Miner, Francis, Oglivie and Rubin were all named to the preseason All-ACC team. The ACC coaches picked Stanford to finish second behind Pittsburgh and just ahead of Louisville.

Player to watch: Kami Miner, 6-foot, senior.

Assuming she’s able to play, Miner is widely regarded as the top setter in the nation. She was the Pac-12 Setter of the Year and an AVCA first-team All-American the past two seasons. She was the setter for the U.S. National Team that took the silver medal at the Pan American Cup in the Dominican Republic, where she was a teammate of Wisconsin’s Sarah Franklin and Carter Booth.

She is the daughter of Harold Miner, known as “Baby Jordan” during his collegiate career at USC, but he never lived up to that Michael Jordan comparison as his NBA career was cut short after four years due largely to a knee injury.