LINCOLN — There’s a lot riding on the final week of Kelly Hunter’s final regular season. NU’s senior setter knows a basket of accolades and postseason implications are tugging against Nebraska’s “point by point” mentality.
Winning a pair of road matches last weekend put the Huskers in control of their destiny. One more road trip to Northwestern on Wednesday and Saturday’s home finale against Iowa stand between No. 5 Nebraska and at least a share of the Big Ten championship, which likely would guarantee a top-four national seed for the NCAA tournament that would let NU host postseason matches at the Devaney Center all the way to the final four.
Add to the mix the emotions that always come with the regular season’s final home match and it makes for a flurry of distractions the Huskers need to shut out in order to repeat as league champs.
“None of that matters if we don’t win our two matches,” Hunter said. “We’re not really focused on the past or the future. We’re just kind of playing one match at a time, so right now we have two days to focus on Northwestern. Then we’ll have a day off and two more days to focus on Iowa. That’s kind of where we’re looking at.”
Once again, the Big Ten title will come down to the final week with Nebraska (24-4, 17-1 Big Ten) and No. 1 Penn State (27-1, 17-1) tied atop the standings. The Huskers would appear to have the more favorable path, having already notched wins earlier this season over this week’s two bottom-half opponents while the Nittany Lions have to play on consecutive nights Friday and Saturday at No. 11 Wisconsin and No. 8 Minnesota.
“I’m just fired up we’re in a position to play for a lot this week,” Husker coach John Cook said Monday. “Our team has done a nice job of getting to this point. Now we’ve got to finish. So that’s going to be our theme this week.”
The home-stretch jockeying is nothing new to the Huskers. In each of the last three seasons, the Big Ten title hasn’t been decided until the final weekend.
In 2014, Wisconsin held off eventual national champion Penn State by one game for the conference crown. Nebraska fell a game short of Minnesota for the title in 2015, and last year, NU clinched the Big Ten championship with a win over Michigan on the final day of the regular season combined with Minnesota’s five-set win over Wisconsin.
“I’ve just got to say it really shows how tough the Big Ten is, and it shows how much you have to be ‘on’ every single night because at any night anyone can beat anyone,” Hunter said. “We’ve seen some crazy upsets this year and some other tough games. It’s pretty typical that it comes down to the end.”
Last weekend, Nebraska extended its winning streak to 11 matches with road victories at Ohio State and Maryland even though the Huskers weren’t exactly at their best. NU took three of its six set victories by the minimum two points against the ninth- and 11th-place teams in the conference.
The grind of the nation’s best volleyball league can fray even the steadiest nerves, Cook said, and the addition of Senior Night adds more deviation from his cherished routines. It makes having a “laser-like” focus paramount if the Huskers want to win back-to-back league titles for the first time since joining the Big Ten.
“You’ve got to have a lot of emotional stamina to be solid every week in this conference,” Cook said, “and I think that’s what our team has.”
That resiliency isn’t just happenstance. In the summer, the Huskers began doing mindfulness exercises with NU sports psychologist Brett Haskell, sessions that have continued weekly throughout the season to help the team stay focused on moments, not big goals.
Senior middle blocker Briana Holman said the Huskers’ latest mindfulness training after Monday’s practice served to reinforce that discipline. Much could end up riding on Saturday’s regular-season finale, but a loss on Wednesday would reduce Senior Day from a storybook ending to a feel-good footnote.
“It’s really easy to look to Saturday already, and we’re not even to Wednesday,” Holman said. “(Haskell) was just saying to continue to think how we’ve been thinking because that’s what makes us so good as a team.”
Nebraska remains in top five
Though none of the country’s top teams lost last week, there was a shake-up in the RPI ratings. After playing a pair of weaker opponents last week, Penn State fell from No. 1 to No. 4. Nebraska stayed at No. 6.
Kentucky, coached by former Nebraska assistant Craig Skinner, is the new No. 1 in the RPI, followed by No. 2 Florida. The Wildcats and Gators are tied for the SEC lead with two matches remaining.
