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Buoyed by 2020 Olympian Dana Rettke and five more returning starts from a 2018 Elite Eight team, the Wisconsin Badgers were ranked fifth overall in the AVCA Preseason Poll. They’ll have their work cut out for them in the absolute meat grinder of a Big 10 conference, as Nebraska (no. 2), Minnesota (no. 3), Illinois (no. 6), Penn State (no. 8), Michigan (no. 15) and Purdue (no. 17) were also in the initial top-25 poll.
#AVCA Top-25:
— AVCA (@AVCAVolleyball) August 13, 2019
1. Stanford
2. Neb
3. Minn
4. Texas
5. Wisc
6. Illinois
7. Kentucky
8. Penn St
9. BYU
10. Florida
11. Oregon
12. Pitt
13. Wash
14. USC
15. Mich
16. Marquette
17. Purdue
18. Creighton
19. Tenn
20. Baylor
21. USD
22. Wash St.
23. Cal Poly
24. Arizona
25. Louisville
No, that's half the top-10 from one conference, you counted right. In addition, non-conference foes Washington (no. 13), Baylor (no. 20) and Marquette (no. 16) made the list as well.
Last year’s champion Stanford is ranked at the top of the poll, with back-to-back Player of the Year Katheryn Plummer looking for a hat trick.
Wisconsin returns to the Field House to start their season August 24th, where they take on their most difficult opponent: themselves.
For the ℍ-straight season, we are ranked Top-10 in the preseason poll‼️ pic.twitter.com/8q8ecXgWlb
— Wisconsin Volleyball (@BadgerVB) August 13, 2019
The non-existential portion of the season begins at the Big 10 / ACC Challenge in Chapel Hill August 30th against Florida State before playing host to North Carolina on the 31st.
We will have more coverage of the volleyball team as the season draws closer.