While it seems like we haven’t been long begun, a lot of volleyball has been played and we’re into the second week of November, which means postseason looms. The SEC regular season ends next Sunday. Then, on November 20th, the SEC Tournament gets underway in Savannah and that brings the final opportunities for teams change where they stand before postseason volleyball begins. Florida remains the team everyone is chasing, but Kentucky has settled itself after a brief stumble and is right there. Texas has turned into a sweeping machine. Vanderbilt just picked up another ranked win, and Tennessee is still right there despite a couple of recent bumps.
On Friday night, No. 4 Florida swept South Carolina for its seventh straight win and fifth consecutive sweep, improving to 20-2 overall and 11-1 in SEC play. No. 6 Kentucky dismantled Alabama while hitting .411. No. 13 Texas swept Missouri for its fourth straight sweep and fifth in six matches, and No. 21 Vanderbilt beat No. 17 Texas A&M in four to improve to 18-3 overall and 9-3 in conference play. Georgia survived Auburn in five set thriller, Tennessee swept Mississippi State, and Oklahoma took care of Ole Miss in three.
Today gives us a loaded slate with eight matches, followed by Auburn-Alabama getting Wednesday night to itself, and then seven more matches on Friday as we begin to close out the regular season that has been a lot of fun.
SUNDAY — NOVEMBER 8
Georgia at No. 4 Florida
12:00 PM CT — SEC Network+
The Gators have won seven straight games and five consecutive matches without dropping a set. South Carolina became their latest victim Friday night, with Florida winning 25-16, 25-18, 25-22 while Logan King finished with 14 kills on .462 hitting. Florida remains a perfect 10-0 at home this season.
Georgia arrives with some fight, and they’re going to need it if they want to pull the upset and knock off Florida at home. The Bulldogs needed every bit of Bianna Muoneke’s 27 kills Friday night to survive Auburn in five sets, including a 26-24 fourth set and a 15-13 fifth. Georgia had lost three straight before that win, so simply getting out of Auburn with something positive mattered a lot to regain some confidence.
Florida has been the SEC’s most consistent team for weeks, and really the entire season. Georgia has enough offensive firepower to make this interesting, especially if Muoneke gets rolling again, but asking the Bulldogs to go into Gainesville less than 48 hours after a five-set match and knock off the conference leader is a tough ask.
Why watch: Florida keeps defending first place, and Georgia has just enough offense to make the Gators work for it.
Mississippi State at No. 6 Kentucky
12:00 PM CT — SEC Network+
Kentucky looked very much like Kentucky again Friday night, as the Wildcats swept Alabama 25-15, 25-14, 25-15 while hitting .411 as a team, their best offensive percentage of SEC play this season (of course). Brooklyn DeLeye led the way with 14 kills, Lizzie Carr had 11 on just 15 swings, and freshman Gracison Saylors produced seven kills and six blocks in her conference debut.
Kentucky is now 17-5 overall and 9-3 in the SEC, sitting right behind Florida in the standings.
Mississippi State has had a strange season that has sort of mirrored their football team. The Bulldogs were one of September’s best stories, then went through a rough October, then appeared to find themselves again before Tennessee swept them Friday night.
Lexington isn’t exactly where you want to try and rediscover momentum, especially when the Wildcats appear to be firing on all cylinders again.
Today is also Kentucky’s Senior Day and their final regular-season home match, so they should be more up for the game than usual.
Why watch: Kentucky is still very much in the SEC race and gets one final afternoon at home before finishing the regular season on the road.
Alabama at No. 10 Tennessee
1:00 PM CT — SEC Network+
Well, unfortunately what can I say about my beloved Crimson Tide? Alabama’s Friday night in Lexington was unpleasant, but that’s been the case for the entire season of conference play.
The Tide hit .056 against Kentucky, committed 18 attack errors and never scored more than 15 points in any set in one of their worst performances of the year. Alabama falls to 10-12 overall and 1-11 in conference play. To say this season has been a disappointment would be a bit of an understatement and it isn’t likely to get any better today as they travel to Knoxville.
The Lady Vols responded to recent losses by sweeping Mississippi State Friday night, and Tennessee is sitting pretty inside the national rankings at No. 10.
The Tide has only a few matches left before the SEC Tournament and who knows, maybe they can find away to use this game to start gaining some momentum and become the Cinderella team of the tournament. At this point, every opportunity to play a ranked opponent is at least an opportunity to find something before Savannah.
Why watch: Alabama needs anything positive it can take into the final week, while Tennessee can’t afford to slip with the conference race still unsettled.
Oklahoma at LSU
1:00 PM CT — SEC Network+
These might be the hardest teams in the conference to understand at times. Oklahoma has beaten Texas and Texas A&M, but they’ve also lost matches where they looked nothing like the team capable of beating Texas and Texas A&M.
On Friday night we got the good version of Oklahoma and saw what they could do.The Sooners swept Ole Miss in Oxford and enter Sunday at 11-9 overall and 4-7 in SEC play. LSU sits at 10-11 and 5-7, which makes this the sort of match that matters more to conference tournament positioning than it does to the national rankings.
Why watch: Two teams in the middle of the SEC standings with very little separation and very little season left so something’s gotta give.
No. 13 Texas at No. 21 Vanderbilt
1:00 PM CT — SEC Network+
I love this matchup.
Texas has turned into a team nobody wants to see. They swept Missouri Friday night 27-25, 25-13, 25-23, giving Texas its fourth consecutive sweep and fifth sweep in its last six matches. Torrey Stafford finished with 12 kills and ten digs, while the Longhorns improved to 13-7 overall and 9-3 in SEC play. Remember earlier in the season when Texas had that bizarre record where everybody kept asking how a team with that many losses could still be ranked?
The schedule beat the hell out of them early, but now that they’ve settled into conference play, the Longhorns look more like the team everyone expected to see earlier on
Vanderbilt is waiting there and telling them to bring it on. They just did something else that we would have considered ridiculous a year ago. The Commodores beat No. 17 Texas A&M 3-1 Friday night for the first victory over the Aggies in program history (which I say like there’s a long history there). Reese Animashaun, Samantha Wunsch and Maya Witherspoon each recorded 15 kills, Vanderbilt hit .331 as a team, and the Commodores improved to 18-3 overall and 9-3 in SEC play. Yep, 18-3 and 9-3 in conference in only their second year.
The best part about this match is that both teams enter with exactly the same conference record, so this isn’t “ranked powerhouse visits fun upstart.” Vanderbilt has earned its place here at the big table in SEC volleyball this year.
Texas is playing its best volleyball of the season. Vanderbilt is coming off a huge ranked win and gets the match inside Memorial Gymnasium, where the Commodores have been excellent.
Stafford is going to be the obvious focus for Vanderbilt, but Texas has become much harder to defend as the offense has balanced out. The Longhorns have also been much cleaner at the net during this run which is a big reason those sweeps keep stacking up.
Vanderbilt meanwhile, just showed against A&M that it doesn’t need one attacker to carry everything. Three players had 15 kills Friday night. They’re going to need to find that balance again today.
The team that wins moves to 10-3 in conference play and keeps itself firmly in that group chasing Florida. The loser doesn’t fall out of anything, but with only one regular-season Sunday remaining, there isn’t much time left to get those games back.
Why watch: It’s two ranked teams with identical SEC records which is a good enough reason. Texas playing its best volleyball of the season and Vanderbilt continues to make year two look easy.
Put this one on the big television.
No. 17 Texas A&M at Missouri
2:00 PM CT — SEC Network+
Texas A&M finally cooled off Friday after they had climbed out of their October slump with wins over Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Texas before Vanderbilt beat them in four Friday night. That loss drops A&M to 14-10 overall and 7-5 in the SEC.
Missouri is also coming off a loss. Texas swept the Tigers Friday night, although Missouri made the first and third sets very competitive before the Longhorns finished both late. Missouri now sits at 14-10 overall and 7-5 in conference play.
So once again we have two teams with identical records meeting on the court. That makes this pretty simple. The winner leaves Sunday feeling like it recovered, while the loser leaves with a two-match skid at the end of the season where you’d ideally like to carrying some momentum and confidence into the SEC tournament.
Why watch: Two 7-5 SEC teams trying to stay out of the crowded middle heading into the final week.
Arkansas at Ole Miss
2:00 PM CT — SEC Network+
Ole Miss needs a win; not a moral victory or settling for a competitive set, but actual win. The Rebels were swept by Oklahoma Friday and have been stuck near the bottom of the SEC standings for weeks.
Arkansas has had its own problems but has shown more signs of life recently, including beating Oklahoma last week.
This is one of those late season matches where the standings may not look glamorous but the consequences of losing matter for SEC Tournament positioning.
Ole Miss gets the home floor, which hasn’t meant much, and Arkansas comes in with slightly better recent form.
Why watch: At this point in November, wins near the bottom of the standings are worth just as much as wins at the top when it comes to jockeying for position.
South Carolina at Auburn
2:00 PM CT — SEC Network+
Auburn has to recover quickly as The Tigers were one set away from beating Georgia Friday night, leading 2-1 before losing the fourth 26-24 and the fifth 15-13. It was the kind of match where you can point to about five different moments and convince yourself the result should have gone the other way.
South Carolina comes in after being swept by Florida.
That creates a straightforward situation: one team is trying to shake off a heartbreaking five-set loss, while the other is trying to forget what happened against the conference leader, even though there’s certainly no shame in losing to a fantastic Florida team.
This game is being played in Auburn where it’s Senior’s Day. I expect the Tigers to be the more motivated side.
Why watch: Auburn came painfully close Friday and gets one last home match to do something about it.
WEDNESDAY — NOVEMBER 11
Auburn at Alabama
8:00 PM CT — SEC Network
We’re going to talk a little about this one because it’s the lone game Wednesday, and because it’s the Iron Bowl of volleyball. I know nobody calls it that, but I might start.
Auburn and Alabama get the entire Wednesday night to themselves, and while neither team is fighting for the SEC regular season championship, this rivalry doesn’t need rankings to be interesting.
Auburn has had the better season, but a wide margin. Alabama gets the home floor, which again hasn’t meant much of anything for the Tide this year.
If you’ve spent any time around this state, you already know records become significantly less important once orange and blue meets crimson on any field or court.
The Tide badly needs something good before the regular season ends, but Auburn would thoroughly enjoy making sure it doesn’t happen against them.
Why watch: It’s Alabama against Auburn, and down here that’s a good enough reason to watch regardless of the sport.
FRIDAY — NOVEMBER 13
These are Friday night’s games, the last of the week:
- No. 4 Florida at Mississippi State (6:00 PM CT — SEC Network+)
- No. 6 Kentucky at South Carolina (6:00 PM CT — SEC Network+)
- No. 10 Tennessee at Georgia (6:00 PM CT — SEC Network+)
- Missouri at Oklahoma (6:00 PM CT — SEC Network+)
- LSU at No. 17 Texas A&M (6:30 PM CT — SEC Network+)
- Ole Miss at No. 13 Texas (7:00 PM CT — SEC Network+)
- Vanderbilt at Arkansas (SEC Network+)
The first thing on my clipboard is Texas. They have four straight sweeps, and five in their last six matches.
The Longhorns spent the first half of the year looking like the strangest ranked team in America, and now they are starting to look like one of the teams nobody wants to draw in the postseason.
Sunday at Vanderbilt tells us how real this run is.
The second thing is Vanderbilt, because I am apparently going to keep writing about them until somebody gives me a reason not to.
The Commodores just beat Texas A&M, are 18-3 overall and 9-3 in the SEC, and now host another ranked opponent. It’s only year two, and that’s still ridiculous.
Then there’s Florida. The Gators have won seven straight, with five straight sweeps. They have 20 wins, with 11 conference victories. And they still have Georgia, Mississippi State and Alabama remaining before the SEC Tournament, which given how things have been going, will likely all be wins for the Gators.
The race is not mathematically over, but everybody else is running out of weekends to change it.
Finally, I am watching Kentucky. The brief wobble appears finished, as the Wildcats responded to consecutive losses by sweeping Missouri and then crushing Alabama while hitting .411.
Florida may still be in front, but Kentucky hasn’t gone anywhere and are still just as dangerous as ever, and this where I think they’ll start playing their best volleyball.
THIS WEEK’S WATCH LIST
Sunday, November 8
Georgia at No. 4 Florida — 12 PM CT — SEC Network+
Mississippi State at No. 6 Kentucky — 12 PM CT — SEC Network+
Alabama at No. 10 Tennessee — 1 PM CT — SEC Network+
Oklahoma at LSU — 1 PM CT — SEC Network+
**No. 13 Texas at No. 21 Vanderbilt — 1 PM CT — SEC Network+**
No. 17 Texas A&M at Missouri — 2 PM CT — SEC Network+
Arkansas at Ole Miss — 2 PM CT — SEC Network+
South Carolina at Auburn — 2 PM CT — SEC Network+
Wednesday, November 11
Auburn at Alabama — 8 PM CT — SEC Network
Friday, November 13
No. 4 Florida at Mississippi State — 6 PM CT — SEC Network+
No. 6 Kentucky at South Carolina — 6 PM CT — SEC Network+
No. 10 Tennessee at Georgia — 6 PM CT — SEC Network+
Missouri at Oklahoma — 6 PM CT — SEC Network+
No. 17 Texas A&M at LSU — 6:30 PM CT — SEC Network+
Ole Miss at No. 13 Texas — 7 PM CT — SEC Network+
No. 21 Vanderbilt at Arkansas — SEC Network+
Sixteen matches. One week before the regular season ends. Florida is looking to protect first place, but Kentucky chasing and closing in.
Theia’s Game of the Week: No. 13 Texas at No. 21 Vanderbilt.
Same conference record and between two ranked teams. One of the hottest teams in the league against the strangest success story in college volleyball.
Yeah, I’m watching that, and you should be too.
See you on the court.
