As Nebraska and Washington played into Sunday morning on the East Coast, Russ Rose wasn’t glued to his television, watching to see which team would face his unbeaten Nittany Lions in the NCAA volleyball final four.
“That’s a little too late for me,” Rose said by telephone Monday morning. “I watched it yesterday.”
Considering how his Penn State team has swept all 36 opponents this season, Rose has had very few late nights since celebrating the program’s second NCAA championship a year ago.
With two wins this week at Qwest Center Omaha, top-ranked Penn State would join exclusive clubs as only the fourth champion to not lose a match and the sixth to defend its title.
No team, however, has made it through a season without dropping a set. Penn State is 108-for-108 this year; its average margin of victory a comfortable 25-16.
“I don’t look at us like we’re mythical characters or anything,” said Rose, downplaying the significance of the number of sets lost, or in the case of Penn State, not lost.
“We’ve navigated the season to this point,” he added. “It’s about winning.”
Penn State certainly has hit upon a winning formula. The Nittany Lions are hitting .403 as a team and threaten to break the 25-year-old NCAA record of .406.
Opponents, meanwhile, have hit just .079 against Penn State and average fewer than nine kills a set. Of the 1,756 rallies that opponents have won, Penn State gave them 325 — 1 of every 5 — on serving errors.
“Where’s their weakness?” asked Nebraska coach John Cook, pointing to the six Nittany Lions named to the all-Mideast Region team.
“They hit the ball hard, and they’re playing at a very fast tempo,” he added. “They’re trying to play like men do, and there are not many teams in college that can do that as well as they can.”
Fourth-ranked Nebraska (31-2) is a decided underdog in Thursday’s sold-out match, but a dangerous one, given the confidence gained from Saturday’s stunning comeback and the comfort of playing at home this week.
Nebraska has won 96 straight matches within the borders of the Cornhusker State, where the Nittany Lions are a familiar face. NU swept Penn State in Omaha early last season, and in 2005, the Huskers beat the Nittany Lions in Lincoln.
“We’ve haven’t played Nebraska very much in Pennsylvania, that I know of, over 30 years,” Rose countered, his polite way of saying that Nebraska hasn’t returned any of the Nittany Lions’ recent visits to the Great Plains.
The one and only time that Nebraska has played at Penn State in the 16-match all-time series was back in 1993.
While Nebraska’s fans are certain to have the Qwest Center buzzing Thursday night, much of the talk in the volleyball world Monday still centered on Nebraska’s come-from-behind win at Washington.
“That’s something we didn’t do the last two times we went there,” Rose said. “You certainly have to applaud the effort.”
Now Nebraska’s mission is to find a way to take down Penn State. The Nittany Lions are led by a trio of players, all who have been named the Big Ten player of the year in their careers.
Outside hitter Nicole Fawcett, this year’s winner, averaged 3.75 kills per set while hitting at a .380 clip. Middle blocker Christa Harmotto, the 2007 winner, is the nation’s leader in hitting percentage (.498).
Junior outside hitter Megan Hodge, who was voted the conference’s top player as a freshman, leads Penn State in kills this season.
Add to the mix Alisha Glass, one of the nation’s top setters, the efficient Arielle Wilson in the middle and 6-foot-5 opposite Blair Brown, and you have a lineup as imposing as any in recent memory.
Of course, the team with the best talent doesn’t always win. Ask Nebraska, which Cook said “blew it” last year as one of the favorites to repeat as national champion.
“We know that there’s pressure with those expectations and trying to live up to how good everyone says you are,” Cook said. “They’ll be feeling it at the final four. There’s only one way they have a successful season, and that’s if they win it all.”
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