Arizona starts 2nd half of Big 12 volleyball season with its final travel challenges

It’ll be another tough week on the court and on the road for the Arizona Wildcats. The team starts the second half of the Big 12 volleyball season with a road game and a home game against a top 15 team just one day apart just like it finished the end of the conference slate.

The Wildcats start the week on Wednesday at Texas Tech. They will charter home, practice on Thursday, then play No. 13 TCU in Tucson on Friday. The Horned Frogs will be coming off a matchup against No. 6 Arizona State on Wednesday.

“We all talk about it,” said Arizona head coach Rita Stubbs. “I was talking to [ASU head coach] JJ [Van Niel] before the match about it. He said, we’re getting ready to go into our craziness of travel. I don’t know what the solution is, because we know most of us cannot play on football game day, and the conference hasn’t decided whether we’re going to be labeled a Friday-Sunday conference or Thursday-Saturday…So there’s no definitiveness with that portion of it. Until we can get to that point, I don’t know how we can solve it, because at the end of the day, you don’t want to be out too early, because then you’re missing a ton of school and you don’t want to have play back-to-back.”

Stubbs said that there are a variety of issues affecting how the league is scheduled in addition to the conflicts with football. One is the fact that they’re an uneven league of 15 because Oklahoma State doesn’t play, so it makes travel partners a difficult concept for volleyball. Another is how distant some schools are from the bulk of the conference. They also want to play everyone at least once during the regular season.

Fortunately, much of this will be in the past for Arizona as the Wildcats enter what Stubbs refers to as “Set 4”—the back half of conference play. The last half of league play has fewer ranked opponents and more manageable travel.

In their final nine matches, the Wildcats have three matches against ranked opponents. They travel to ASU on Thursday, Nov. 13. They also have a home-and-away series left with No. 17 BYU. In the first half of the conference season, the Arizona played five matches against teams that were either ranked or receiving votes at the time of the match. It went 1-4 in those matches.

Up Next for Arizona Volleyball

Arizona Wildcats (11-8, 5-4) @ Texas Tech (9-12, 1-8)

When: Wednesday, Oct. 29 at 4 p.m. MST

Where: United Supermarkets Arena in Lubbock, Tex.

Stats: Arizona Live Stats

No. 13 TCU Horned Frogs (16-5, 6-3) @ Arizona Wildcats (11-8, 5-4)

When: Friday, Oct. 31 at 6 p.m. MST

Where: McKale Center in Tucson, Ariz.

Stats: Arizona Live Stats

The team will have almost a week off before they go to ASU. After the trip to Tempe, the Wildcats have six days before a road series at BYU and Utah. So, they will go 11 days with just one match, and that match is in state. They do not travel east of Lubbock, Tex. for the rest of the season and have five home matches.

On the court this week, the Wildcats will be presented with different challenges, but they’re challenges that most of the players have seen over the last two seasons. It starts with Texas Tech, which runs a 6-2 offense. Next up is TCU, which runs an offense similar to the one Arizona’s upperclassmen have seen in their rivalry games in recent years.

“I think [TCU’s] offense that they’re running now is similar to the offense that ASU ran the last two years,” Stubbs said. “So a faster ball, which requires the blockers and the defenders to be ready much faster. They, too, are in 6-2, so there are certain things about playing teams that are in a 6-2. The saving grace, if you will, this will be going into our third match against Texas Tech with a 6-2, and then potentially with TCU in a 6-2. So it’s not a lot of going back and forth, which gives us some breather in the midst of this crazy travel we have.”

The Wildcats really need to get a positive result in Lubbock. The Red Raiders are 9-12 overall and 1-8 in conference player. They are tied with Houston at the bottom of the league, although the Cougars defeated them head-to-head.

TTU has shown some fight at home, though. It took a set off Baylor and last week went five with Colorado, both of whom are ranked. It got its first Big 12 win last week when UCF came to town, so Arizona can’t look past the Raiders.

“I see a team that got that win that was uber important for them,” Stubbs said. “I see a team that is competitive at home, and I think it’s going to be a competitive match for us. We don’t take anything for granted. We’re going into our set four in terms of how we look at the season, and we know that we need to come out as winners in set four, so we’re ready to compete no matter who’s in front of us.”