Pitt Volleyball, and Olivia Babcock in particular, is ready for the spotlight
And if you stick around to the end, there's a fun story from Sunday's match.
If you’ve been a Pitt Volleyball fan online for the last few years, you’ve no doubt seen occasional mention — particularly after a major win or big attendance mark — that Pitt is now a Volleyball School. Heck, you can even buy Volleyball School merchandise from Zack D’Ulisse’s Pittsburgh Clothing Co.
But this year felt like the first time the idea that “Pitt is a Volleyball School” went from a winking social media reference to something more legitimate. And now the Panthers have an opportunity to truly take the spotlight in late November and December, make a push for the National Championship, and maybe grab a National Player of the Year award for Olivia Babcock — who certainly had a Sunday that proved the case.
“Quite frankly, Olivia, it was probably one of the best games in Pitt history,” said head coach Dan Fisher after Babcock’s boffo performance in a sweep over Miami. “If you factor in her serve, how many kills she had, and how many blocks and how high a percentage she hit, it was about as dominant I’ve seen in a while from Liv.”
It was a weekend of dominance from Babcock. Over six sets — all team wins of six points or more over Miami and Florida State — she totaled up:
39 kills on 59 swings (good for a ludicrous-for-a-pin .525 hitting percentage)
Had seven total blocks
Notched six aces, giving her 56 on the season — a new Pitt record in the rally scoring era
“I love watching her serve,” said middle blocker Bre Kelley, who also turned in an excellent weekend with 15 kills on .750 hitting with 9 total blocks. “It gets me so hyped.”
It gets the Pitt crowd hyped too. The sold-out Fitzgerald Field House (yes, sold out on a Steelers-Ravens Sunday) went gaga for Babcock’s back-to-back aces in the third set to put Pitt ahead for good.
“I’ve just been working on having a more consistent mindset when I go back [to serve],” said Babcock. “And we also do spin school, which is just adjusting to different types of tosses, because I have to know it won’t be perfect every time.”
Perfect isn’t needed — Babcock has been all-around excellent, and this was the weekend that she took a firm lead for National Player of the Year. If it wasn’t clear when she went a perfect 8 kills on 8 swings in the second set against FSU (“It’s not easy to have a perfect set,” said Fisher), it certainly became clear when she totaled up 14 kills on her first 17 swings against Miami. Taking over matches against quality opponents? That will take you from ‘one of the frontrunners’ to ‘the frontrunner.’
Babcock has the opportunity to become the first Pitt athlete to win a National Player of the Year Award — recognizing Nino Bonaccorsi and Keith Gavin’s National Championships in wrestling — since Larry Fitzgerald won the Walter Camp Award in 2003. (And if I’ve missed someone over these past 21 years, please leave a comment.)
Volleyball School, For Real
When I say that the “Volleyball School” tag is becoming legitimate, it starts with attendance. Sunday was the 7th straight Field House sellout for Pitt — and they’ve already sold every available ticket for the home finale against Georgia Tech on November 30. Pitt will wrap up the 2024 regular season with:
8 straight Field House sellouts
Just over 56,000 total home attendance (about 3,740 per match)
Two crowds over 11,000 at Petersen Events Center
10 of the 22 biggest home crowds in program history
Likely top 10 attendance in the NCAA for the first time ever
And they’re not done yet; here comes the spotlight at the right time for a Pitt team that has pulled off six straight sweeps of ACC opponents.
“It’s pretty rare to be a team in November and December that’s still getting better, and I think it’s happening,” said coach Fisher this weekend.
The Pitt Football home season ended in deflating fashion against Clemson. Playoff visions hit a hard reality check in November.
Men’s soccer? Their path to the College Cup just arrived on Monday — with the #2 overall seed and the opportunity to host matches all the way through the Quarterfinals. Those will be fun, but capacity at Ambrose Urbanic Field limits attendance to around 1,500.
Men’s hoops? They’re cooking. That 24-point win over WVU in the Basket-brawl pushed Pitt into the KenPom Top 20 with a stretch of tough tests against LSU, Wisconsin (probably), Ohio State and Mississippi State forthcoming. However, given their upcoming home schedule (VMI, Eastern Kentucky, Sam Houston) they’re unlikely to draw a significant crowd at the Petersen Events Center until the new year.
Pitt Volleyball will be catching most of the blue-and-gold buzz around Oakland for the rest of 2024, as long as they can survive and advance in the NCAA Tournament. I’ll remind readers to pencil in the evenings of December 6 and 7 as likely first- and second-round matches at The Pete.
I’ll tell you what a Volleyball School does: it shows up big for the Tournament (December Madness, I call it). Home court advantage only matters if you make it matter. See you there.
Postscript
Okay, this needed its own section. And if you already follow me on Twitter or Bluesky, you can skip this part and get on with your day — I already threaded it on those platforms as the chain of events unfolded.
There’s an old adage that states “When you go to a baseball game, you have a chance to see something you’ve never seen before.”
Well, how about volleyball? And how about an emergency line judge?
The saga began when Babcock, already in a groove early in the first set, ripped a spike off a Miami player and into the face of the line judge — no time to react. A lens popped out of the official’s glasses, which is not ideal given that the history of fans taunting referees is littered with references to them needing spectacles.
So we were in the most unusual delay of my time watching Pitt Volleyball. After close to 10 minutes, the line judge already having left the floor, we watched a security guard remove his yellow jacket, grab a flag, and take over line judge duties for the remainder of the opening set.
Two social media followers informed me that the Break Glass In Case Of Ref Emergency replacement was no pretender, but rather a gentleman who has plenty of experience officiating volleyball, including high school and Division II college matches. It appears one of the refs recognized him and called him over to fill in, a la the Zamboni driver who becomes NHL Emergency Goalie.
He acquitted himself well (there was only one semi-close call), and the original line judge returned for Set #2, glasses and all.
So, what are the takeaways here? (1) You’re never safe from an Olivia Babcock spike. (2) Pittsburgh has become enough of a volleyball town that NCAA officials are hiding in plain sight, ready to jump in at any time.