Wisconsin volleyball: Big Ten schedule released

On Friday morning, the Big Ten Conference announced the conference schedule for all 14 teams. Last year’s COVID affected schedule saw back-to-back matches against the same opponent as well as cancelled and postponed matches. This fall, however, the conference is back to a 20 match schedule with different teams each week.

The conference portion of the schedule starts on Sept. 24 with a trip out east to play Maryland and then a Sept. 25 date with Rutgers. The Badgers open the home portion of the Big Ten schedule with a monumental showdown with Border Battle rivals Minnesota on Oct. 1.

No. 6 Nebraska, No. 7 Purdue, No. 9 Minnesota, No. 10 Ohio State and No. 12 Penn State all make trips to the Field House this season, which should be chock full of Badgers fans for the first time in over a year.

Between Oct. 27 and Nov. 6, Wisconsin has a four match road trip against Nebraska, Purdue, Northwestern and Iowa but then they have five of their final six matches at home with only a trip to the Twin Cities to play the Gophers on Nov. 21 intermingled in the home stand.

The non-conference portion of the schedule has not been announced yet, and will be coming at a later date, but we know that the Badgers will be traveling to Milwaukee to take on Marquette on Sept. 12 since the Golden Eagles have announced their full slate of matches. We can also infer from looking at other schedules that the Badgers might play defending national champion Kentucky in Madison since the Cats are playing at Marquette.