The Pac-12 and Big Ten are scheduled to start their seasons in late January. They are both playing conference only. The SEC will do similar scheduling starting around the same time. they played about 4 teams each and will finish up conference play. The Big West (with most notably Hawai'i) has canceled the 2020-21 season. No word yet on whether any individual schools will try to play. The tournament is scheduled to begin around the first weekend in April and as of last report was to be a 48 team (not 64) field. The Big 12 and Sun Belt conference played a complete conference season in the fall. I believe they were working with the NCAA on when they could begin a spring season as the NCAA limits your season to 132 days. I think the intent is to at least play in March to get ready for the tournament. There were a couple Big 12 matches that didn't get played due to Covid, so those will likely be played in March. At this point, it's highly likely with a 48 team field that only Texas and Baylor will make the tourney from the Big 12. I don't think it's going to be possible to schedule any Big Ten, Pac-12 or SEC schools as they are all focused on conference and naming their auto-qualifier. So they will likely schedule matches against Texas State (auto-qualifier from the SunBelt) and possibly play each other again. Of course, this could all change tomorrow with Covid. I'm not thinking it's looking too likely to have volleyball played in California in a few weeks.
Yes coach Elliot said they plan on starting the spring portion of the schedule in the first week of March. We won't have many games due to other conferences going conference only. We might get at least 5 games in before the tournament but I don't expect alot afterwards. What I'm mostly worried about is our two international recruits getting to Texas for the spring season. Unless Texas has a set plan on how to get them here they might have to wait once again to get here.
AVCA Division II Coaches Top 25 Preseason Poll: August 20, 2019 | American Volleyball Coaches Association | American Volleyball Coaches Association, LLC Preseason poll for spring. Texas falls to #2. Weird poll as they are including the Big West Conference (Hawai'i, San Diego) and they've announced they aren't playing volleyball this academic year.
Another plus for Texas is that Melanie Parra will join the Longhorns this spring and will arrive January 10th
Glad that Melanie has arrived in Austin. Having her, a healthy Madison Williams (hopefully), as well as a healthy Naomi Cabello should bolster the roster despite the losses of Ashley Shook and Capri Davis.
Texas plays Rice on Tuesday, March 23rd at the Frank Erwin center. At least we now know Texas will be playing a couple of non-conference matches instead of just TCU before the tournament.
No. 2 Volleyball announces the addition of Malual and Parra - University of Texas Athletics The 2021 spring roster is up as well. No changes besides the addition of Parra & Malual and departures of Davis & Shook