No. 1 Texas Volleyball at Long Beach State
Texas: 0-0 | LBSU: 0-0
Friday, Aug. 25 – 8 p.m. CT
Walter Pyramid | Long Beach, Calif.
No. 1 Texas Volleyball vs. Loyola Marymount
Texas: 0-0 | LMU: 0-0
Saturday, Aug. 26 – 3 p.m. CT
Walter Pyramid | Long Beach, Calif.
THE MATCHUPS
Texas opens the season with a pair of matches at Long Beach State’s Walter Pyramid, first against The Beach and then versus Loyola Marymount. The Longhorns and LBSU have only played five times, with the Beach holding a 3-2 advantage in the series. Texas has won the last two meetings, in 2009 and 2010. Texas and LMU will meet for the first time ever.
REIGNING NATIONAL CHAMPIONS
The Longhorns enter the season as the reigning National Champions after defeating Louisville in straight sets to win the 2022 national title. Texas returns five starters from the title-winning team, including first team All-Big 12 players Asjia O’Neal, Molly Phillips and Madisen Skinner. The 2022 National Championship was the program’s fourth after winning the AIAW title in 1981 and NCAA titles in 1988 and 2012.
PRESEASON RANKINGS
Texas begins the 2023 season as the No. 1 ranked team in the AVCA Preseason Coaches’ Poll for the fourth time (2023, 2021, 2017, 2013). The Longhorns appear in the top four of the AVCA preseason poll for the 17th-consecutive season and are ranked in the top two spots for the 10 time in the last 17 seasons. Texas, who was picked first in the Big 12 Coaches’ Poll for the 13th consecutive year, is one of four Big 12 teams in the top-25 as Baylor came in at No. 15, BYU is ranked 17th, and Houston is No. 19. The Longhorns will face a pair of top-10 preseason teams early in the season, playing at No. 7 Minnesota on Aug. 29 and hosting No. 3 Stanford on Sept. 3. Texas is also scheduled to play preseason ranked teams No. 14 Ohio State, No. 21 Washington State and No. 23 Rice.
PRESEASON AWARDS
Madisen Skinner was selected as the Preseason Big 12 Player of the Year and was joined by Asjia O’Neal, Molly Phillips and Jenna Wenaas on the preseason All-Big 12 team. Skinner makes it the fifth time in the last six seasons a Longhorn has been picked as the preseason player of the year and marks the 16th overall time a Texas player has received the honor.
CONSISTENT SUCCESS
Texas has been the model of consistency for well over a decade now, being the only Division I volleyball program to have ended each of the last 17 seasons ranked in the top 10. The Longhorns have spent each of the last 205 AVCA polls ranked in the top 10, while the last time Texas was not ranked in the top 10 was Oct. 11, 2010. The Longhorns have also finished in the top 5 in 14 of the last 17 seasons, including 11-straight years from 2008-18. Texas also has the nation’s longest active streak of NCAA Regional Semifinal (“Sweet 16”) appearances with 17-straight. Of the last 17 regional semifinal appearances, the Longhorns have advanced to 16 NCAA Regional Finals, 11 National Semifinals and six National Championship matches.
CHAMPIONSHIP PEDIGREE
After clinching the 2022 Big 12 title, Texas has won 28 conference championships, including 15 Big 12 titles and 13 Southwest Conference Championships. The 2022 title was a record sixth-straight Big 12 Championship for the Longhorns, who have won or shared 11 of the last 12 league championships and 14 of the previous 16.
RETURNING ALL-AMERICANS
Texas landed six players on the AVCA All-American teams last season and returns three of those players for the 2023 season. Asjia O’Neal, who landed on the first team, is joined by third-team selection Madisen Skinner and Honorable Mention All-American Molly Phillips. Logan Eggleston (first team), Zoe Fleck (first team) and Saige Ka’aha’aina-Torres (HM) also received All-America recognition last season.
EFFICIENCY
Texas led the country with a .336 hitting percentage last season, led by Asjia O’Neal, who ranked second nationally with a .443 hitting percentage. The Longhorns have led the country in hitting percentage in four of the last five seasons. In 2021, Texas tied a program record and led the NCAA with a .343 team hitting percentage. The Longhorns have hit over a .300 clip in each of the last eight seasons from 2015-22, all ranking in the top-10 single season marks in program history.
ROAD WARRIORS
The Longhorns have won 30 of their last 32 road matches dating back to the 2019 season. Since the 2011 season Texas has produced a 111-20 (.847) record in true road matches, with only five of those losses coming to unranked teams.
RANK AND FILE
UT owns a 139-57 (.709) record against ranked opponents over the last 19 seasons (2004-22) and boasts a 64-13 (.831) home mark against ranked opponents at Gregory Gymnasium (61-13) and the Frank Erwin Center (3-0) during that span. The Longhorns went 10-0 last season against ranked opponents.
HOME COURT ADVANTAGE
A large part of the Longhorns winning 11 of the last 12 Big 12 Championships has come down to winning at home. Over the last 13 seasons, Texas has produced a 197-12 (.943) record in home matches. In that same span, the Longhorns have gone 105-1 in home league matches. The Longhorns’ only home Big 12 loss since 2010 came against Oklahoma on Oct. 25, 2014. Texas has won 66-straight home matches in Big 12 play, dating back to the 2014 season. During that streak, the Longhorns have had 53 sweeps and only dropped a total of 17 sets.
ATTENDANCE
Texas ranked fifth nationally and first in the Big 12, with a program record average attendance of 4,364 last season. The Longhorns finished the season with 12-straight sellouts at Gregory Gym and 14 overall. In the NCAA Regional Final against Ohio State, Texas set a Gregory Gym attendance record with a crowd of 5,344. Texas has led the Big 12 in attendance for the last 12-consecutive seasons.
USA VOLLEYBALL HALL OF FAME
Jerritt Elliott, the winningest coach in Texas Volleyball history, joined USA Volleyball’s Hall of Fame in 2023. Elliott received USA Volleyball’s All-Time Great Coach Award, which recognizes individuals for success and excellence in volleyball coaching over an extended period. With 561 wins at Texas, Elliott surpassed Mick Haley as the winningest coach in Longhorns’ history. Elliott also picked up his 600th career win last season and enters the 2023 season with a career record of 611-122.
SPEAKING OF USA VOLLEYBALL…
Asjia O’Neal donned the red, white and blue over the summer, making her senior national team debut in the 2023 Volleyball Nations League. O’Neal, along with Chiaka Ogbogu, helped lead USA to a fourth-place finish at the tournament. Former Longhorns Logan Eggleston and Zoe Fleck also played for the national team, winning a bronze medal at the 2023 NORCECA Women’s Pan American Cup. Eggleston and Fleck were also joined by new Longhorn assistant coach Cursty Le Roux, who served as an assistant coach for Team USA.
HONDA INSPIRATION AWARD WINNER
Asjia O’Neal was named the winner of the 2021 Honda Inspiration Award, presented annually by the Collegiate Women Sports Awards (CWSA). O’Neal recovered from open heart surgery in 2020 to help lead Texas to the runner-up finish at the NCAA Tournament. The heart surgery took place in January 2020 and was her second to repair a leak in her mitral valve, a condition she was born with. The surgery, which lasted more than eight hours, was extremely successful and there was no more leakage. O’Neal worked back to full strength and finished second in the Big 12 Conference with a .411 hitting percentage to go with 222 kills. She was named first team All-Big 12 and first team AVCA All-Region, as well as an Honorable Mention All-American. She also excelled in the classroom, being named to the Academic All-Big 12 First Team as a Corporate Communication major.