The #20 ranked Minnesota Golden Gophers volleyball team returns home to Maturi Pavilion on Wednesday night to hist the Illinois Fighting Illini. It’s a huge match between a pair of closely ranked opponents
in both the conference and nationally. Minnesota is the higher ranked team nationally coming in at #20 in this week’s AVCA Poll, while the Illini are receiving votes. Minnesota currently is ranked #12 in the nation in RPI, while the Illini are 26th. But, Illinois has the better Big Ten record coming into the match with a 7-3 record in conference play to the Gophers 6-4 tally. It’s a critical match for both teams as they start the second half of the conference season and continue to position themselves for postseason seeding.
Minnesota is coming off of a split weekend in Indiana. The Gophers knocked off the #23 ranked Indiana Hoosiers in Bloomington 3-1 on Friday night before blowing a 2-0 lead at #11 Purdue on Sunday and falling 3-2. Against Indiana it was Minnesota’s star Julia Hansen taking control. He led the way with 17 kills on the night. Right behind were a pair of freshman who recorded career bests. Kelly Kinney picked up 15 kills on the night with fellow freshman Carly Gilk adding 12.
Minnesota took that aggressive attitude into the first two sets in West Lafayette on Sunday picking up 25-19 and 25-17 wins to jump out to a 2-0 lead. Purdue came storming back in the third set, but the Gophers battled back and had a chance to finish off the Boilermakers up 25-24 before they gave up three points in a row to fall 27-25. That seemed to energize the Boilermakers who led most of the way en route to a 25-221 fourth set win sending the match to a tiebreaking fifth. Minnesota seemed to again have the match in their grasp jumping out to a 8-2 lead, and then after Purdue battled back the Gophers had a second chance to win the match up 14-13, but again could not pull it out and the Boilermakers would eventually pull ahead for a 18-16 win and the reverse sweep of the Gophers.
The loss stings for Minnesota as it was a chance to improve on their seeding in the eyes of the NCAA committee. When the NCAA released their initial Top 16 teams prior to the weekend in Indiana, the Gophers came in 16th, which would be good enough to host the final home first and second round pod in the NCAA tournament. A huge road win over Purdue would have been a big boost to those chances. Now the Gophers have a much more limited range of error that begins with their match against a tough Illinois team on Wednesday. After the match with the Illini the Gophers face four ranked opponents in a row with a trip to Madison to face #12 Wisconsin in between home matches with #22 USC, #1 Nebraska, and #18 Penn State.
As for the match against the Illini, Minnesota will look to build on their 46-40-1 all-time lead in the series. The Gophers have been the better team for quite some time. Minnesota has won 10 in-a-row and 14 of the last 15 against the Illini. The lone loss in that stretch came in 2017.
Illinois started the Big Ten season 7-1 including a win at Purdue. But they dropped their last two matches last week—a 3-0 sweep by the Boilermakers in the return game in Champaign, and then a 3-0 sweep to Michigan at home. Both teams could really use the win to help their resume as the regular season hits the second half.
The match is set for a 7 PM first serve and it will air live on Big Ten Network.
