Wisconsin volleyball: 2020 recruiting class receives another honor

Coming off a season where they were the national runners up and B1G champions, the Wisconsin Badgers volleyball was looking to make sure the momentum continued on the recruiting trail and according to Prepvolleyball.com and VolleyballMag.com, they have.

The Badgers were ranked No. 4 in the country by both publications for their 2020 recruiting class. The Prepvolleyball.com list is behind a paywall, but the VolleyballMag list isn’t and it has the top-5 as Minnesota, Kentucky, Texas, Wisconsin and Stanford. After reading about how good each of these classes are, I’d imagine both lists are similar.

Here is what VolleyballMag had to say about the Wisconsin class:

The national runners-up only strengthened themselves here with Fab 50 selections in Demps, Hammill and Robinson. Demps is the daughter of former Arizona standout Keisha Demps, who also played and coached in the United States Professional Volleyball (league), the last legitimate attempt at a women’s pro league in the country. Kraft is a grad transfer from Pepperdine where she starred in the Waves’ beach program, earning VolleyballMag.com second-team All-American honors in 2018.“Wisconsin put together another good class,” one pollster said. “Jade Demps, Robinson and Hammill should be the future of this program, and Kraft adds some experience with ball control to the team.”

All three incoming freshmen were named to their Fab 50 list and grad transfer Deahna Kraft from Pepperdine was an All-America selection in beach volleyball.

The top-5 players in the class, which are the only five I could find that were ranked, consist of four players who are joining the B1G: two Gophers, a Wolverine and a Buckeye (they extrapolated out which players might be in the 6-10 ranged based on the voting and Robinson finished tied for ninth). It does not appear that the B1G will be overtaken as best volleyball conference any time soon.

Here are the three incoming freshmen for the Badgers.

• Devyn Robinson: 6-2 • Middle Blocker • Ankeny, Iowa • Ankeny Centennial High School • Coach Jessica Rinehart • Iowa Powerplex Volleyball Club • Keke Palea
• MJ Hammill: 6-0 • Setter • Greenwood, Ind. • Center Grove High School • Coach Chris Due • Munciana Volleyball Club • Mike Lingenfelter
• Jade Demps: 6-2 • Outside Hitter • Raleigh, N.C. • Broughton High School • Coach Drew Hermanson • NC Volleyball Academy Coach • Keisha Demps