2026 Women’s Indoor Volleyball Thread

[GoHorns1]

Texas sweeps a$m.

poooooor Aggies, pooooor Aggies, pooooor Aggies…

[LonghornFan4Ever]

[Califashorn75]

Watching volleyball gives me anxiety. It's the only sport that does that. I can't watch it. 

[Beldar]

Three straight sweeps. Maybe the fair weather band wagon jumping fans jumped ship too soon.

 

[LonghornFan4Ever]

 

[mymy32]

Best I've seen them play. Henley finally seems to be figuring it out at the net, and she even had a few BICs today. 

It's interesting that they finally seem to be comfortable in the 6-2 when they clearly weren't comfortable at all at the beginning of the year. 

Onward. 

[SL Xpress]

On 11/1/2026 at 11:22 AM, HonkEm said:

I think you're underselling what happens every November and December in volleyball. The team that wins it all isn't always the most talented team on paper. It's usually the team that gets its serve-receive, serving, and setter play locked in at the right time.

A month ago this team looked dead in the water. Now they're sweeping SEC opponents and at least showing signs of improvement. Does that guarantee a Final Four run? Of course not. But declaring they have "no chance" to get through the Elite Eight feels a little premature.

If we're being honest, none of us thought the 2022 team was winning it all after some of those regular-season performances either.

I've watched enough Texas volleyball over the years to know that the team we're dissecting in early November is rarely the same team we see in the tournament. If championships were awarded based on October message-board evaluations, we'd have a lot fewer banners hanging in Gregory Gym. 🤘🏻

You mean the 2023 team.

The 2022 team only lost to Kansas and looked like a juggernaut for most of the season.

We've beaten South Carolina, Georgia, and Texas A&M. None of those teams remotely resemble Nebraska, Pitt, and Louisville.

Now, if we managed to get in what looks like the Florida regional, sure.

I will give A&M credit that they just beat Kentucky and Tennessee, so they were playing well coming into Gregory. I loved the win. But I still do not believe we have the serving to beat a regional host. And we're still rated as one of the last 4 subregional hosts, so unless we continue winning, including into the SEC tournament, we'll be facing a regional host in the Sweet Sixteen round. 

It all comes down to serving. Can this team be a better serving team come tournament time? Adding Anderson and Harris - neither of whom are utilizing the top spin jump serve they were showing off at the start of the season - has helped, because we don't have Kujundzic serving any more.

Harvey was one of our most effective servers against the Aggies. Even got a nice dig a la O'Neal when she was in the back row, and also laid up a nice assist. 

That 2023 team was a very good serving team all year long, and simply ratcheted it up a notch. And they still had to fight off a couple of match points against Tennessee in Palo Alto in the 4th set in the Sweet Sixteen round. 

Same with A&M last year, that barely beat Louisville in the Sweet Sixteen in a match that Louisville probably should have won, then upset Nebraska, before looking dominant in the Final Four. But the key to those teams were good serving. I'm still unconvinced we're a good serving team. We're just better than we were earlier in the year. 

When going against the top teams, you simply have to get them out of system on a regular basis when you're at the serving line, or you're going to have a series of first ball side outs. We won't face another team that resembles a #1 through #3 seed until the SEC tournament. And I don't believe the SEC has anyone on the same level of the other top seeds. I thought Kentucky would be there, but I don't completely understand what has happened to them, other than they dearly miss Hudson from last year to go with Deleye. 

"If championships were awarded based on October message-board evaluations, we'd have a lot fewer banners hanging in Gregory Gym."

Actually, that's not true. We'd probably have more banners hanging in Gregory Gym. Most of the time we roll through our nonconference schedule and then dominate the Big 12, and are easily one of the top 4 teams in the country. We've ended up losing to some juggernauts over the years, including Penn State and Stanford, not to mention the Elite Eight loss to Nebraska in Gregory when they served us off the court. And on sheer talent we were probably better than the Kentucky team we lost to as well. 

Having this many losses is pretty much new territory for this program under Elliott since his earliest years. 

[SL Xpress]

On 11/1/2026 at 1:47 PM, Beldar said:

Three straight sweeps. Maybe the fair weather band wagon jumping fans jumped ship too soon.

 

Most satisfying win of the year for me.

But none of those 3 teams we swept are the standard. We're going to face a Nebraska/Pitt/Louisville type team in either the Sweet 16 round or the Elite Eight round, depending on the seed we earn and whether we win enough in the tournament. None of South Carolina/Georgia, or even A&M resembles those teams. Nothing against A&M, which is coming off two impressive wins against Kentucky and Tennessee (which was a grueling battle - seriously hat tip to the Aggies for outlasting the Vols)., but they're simply not at that level and haven't been all year long. They're not nearly as good as last year when we split against them on the season.