If you were watching Friday night in Dallas, you saw one of the wildest sets of the season. If you weren't, here's what you missed.
No. 5 SMU and No. 12 Texas both lost at home. No. 1 Nebraska dropped its first Big Ten set. And the NCAA committee showed its first top 16 of the year. Here's what happened, and why.
🏐 The big story: Miami 3, No. 5 SMU 2
Unranked Miami came back from two sets down to beat No. 5 SMU 22-25, 19-25, 25-22, 33-31, 15-9 on Friday night in Dallas. It was Miami's first road win and first ranked win of the season. For SMU, it was the first loss to an unranked team this year, and a second straight home loss after Pitt's sweep last Sunday.
The number that decided it: .241. That's what SMU hit. Miami hit .235. SMU was the more efficient attacking team and still lost, because Miami won the net: 17 blocks to 11, plus 70 kills.
🔍 The breakdown
The name to remember is freshman Ruth Martinez: a career-high 29 kills and 6 blocks. Setter Ariana Rodriguez (54 assists) kept going back to her, and she kept putting the ball away.
For two sets, though, this was SMU's match. Suli Davis (21 kills, 3 aces) closed out set 1 with back-to-back aces, and a 6-0 SMU run in set 2 turned a 7-7 tie into 13-7. SMU was one set from a clean weekend reset.
Miami took set 3 25-22 after three straight kills from Asia Harvey, Sonja Danilovic and Martinez flipped a 16-15 deficit into an 18-16 lead it never gave back.
Set 4 is the one people will remember. A set has to be won by two points, so once it hits 24-24, it keeps going until someone pulls ahead by two. Miami had four chances to close it between 24-23 and 27-26. SMU answered every time, then had match point twice, at 28-27 and 29-28. Martinez answered with a kill, then teamed up with Lal Akin on a block to make it 30-29. After ties at 30 and 31, SMU middle Favor Anyanwu had two attack errors in a row, and Miami took the set 33-31.
After a set like that, the fifth was all momentum. Martinez won the first point, then Rodriguez served the next four: 5-0. SMU was out of timeouts by 7-1. Rodriguez ended the match with an ace, and that ace set Miami's program record for career aces.
The comedown came fast. Two days later at No. 2 Pitt, Miami got swept 25-12, 25-15, 27-25. Olivia Babcock and Blaire Bayless had 14 kills each, and Pitt hit .372 while holding Miami to .144. Pitt swept Florida State on Friday too, and it still hasn't lost a set in its new Victory Heights Arena: 7-0, 21 sets to none. SMU bounced back Sunday against Florida State to get to 14-4.
🏐 Also big: No. 7 Florida 3, No. 12 Texas 2
Florida won 21-25, 25-16, 24-26, 25-23, 15-11 on Sunday night in a sold-out Gregory Gym, handing Texas its first home loss of the season. Two days earlier, the Gators won 3-1 at No. 19 Texas A&M. That's two ranked road wins in three days, one week after losing at Vanderbilt.
The number that decided it: 13. That's Florida's blocks, to Texas's 8. Middle Alec Rothe had 8 of them herself, plus a career-high 17 kills.
Florida outhit Texas .287 to .256 and had more kills (72-62) and aces (7-4). Setter Taylor Parks ran the offense with a career-high 59 assists, the most by a Gator since 2019, and Florida had four players in double-digit kills for the first time this season. Kamryn Chaney matched Rothe with 17, and Logan King added 16 kills, 12 digs and 5 blocks. Libero Lily Hayes had a season-high 22 digs. For Texas, Torrey Stafford had 14 kills and 14 digs, and Cari Spears added 13 kills.
Set 2 showed what Florida's offense can do: it hit .457 and held Texas to .158.
Set 3 is the kind of set that usually breaks a road team. Florida led 12-8. Texas ran off a 7-1 stretch to lead 23-20. Florida answered with four straight to get set point at 24-23. Then Texas scored the last three, a Nya Bunton kill and a block and kill from Stafford, to win 26-24 and go up 2-1.
Florida didn't fold. In set 4 it led 18-14, gave up six straight to trail 20-18, fought back to 23-23, and then Texas made two errors in a row, the last a net violation on set point. In set 5, Texas led 6-4 before Florida took the lead and hit .368 to close it out. A Rothe and Chaney block ended it.
That's Florida's sixth ranked win of the season, its most since 2017.
🏐 And: No. 1 Nebraska 3, No. 13 Purdue 1
Nebraska beat Purdue 25-13, 20-25, 25-19, 25-14 on Saturday in Lincoln to move to 19-0 (8-0 Big Ten). Purdue took set 2, the first set Nebraska has lost in Big Ten play this season. The Huskers had won 26 sets in a row.
The number that decided it: 64. That's Nebraska's digs, a season high. Libero Olivia Mauch had a career-high 21 of them. Purdue hit just .133.
Set 1 was a statement. Purdue had 7 kills and 6 errors, and setter Bergen Reilly served the last five points of the set.
Set 2 is where Purdue earned it. Up 12-11, the Boilermakers went on a 6-0 run to lead 18-11, Nebraska's biggest deficit of the match. Nebraska got back within 19-17, but Purdue closed it out 25-20.
Nebraska's offense wasn't clean in the middle of the match: across sets 2 and 3 it hit around .200, with 13 errors. What held it together was the defense and Teraya Sigler. With set 3 tied late, Sigler took over: six kills down the stretch, including three of Nebraska's last four points, as the Huskers closed on a 6-1 run.
Set 4 was over fast. From 8-8, Nebraska scored nine straight. The Huskers hit .500 in the set and held Purdue to .029.
The attack was spread out: Sigler had a career-high 15 kills, Harper Murray 13, Virginia Adriano 11 and Manaia Ogbechie 10, the first time since 2024 four Huskers reached double figures in a Big Ten match. Reilly added 44 assists, 15 digs and 5 blocks, and Andi Jackson led a 12-6 block edge with 6. Nebraska has now won 61 straight regular-season matches at home.
⚡ Quick hits
Thu: No. 1 Nebraska 3, Northwestern 0 (25-17, 25-14, 25-15). Andi Jackson had 10 kills on .600 hitting. Murray had 9, Sigler 8.
Thu: Illinois 3, No. 22 Michigan State 1 (25-22, 25-23, 21-25, 25-22). Last week we asked which team would respond first. Illinois did, with 14 blocks. MSU's Alanna Bankston had 20 kills, but the rest of the Spartans were held to 32. All four of Illinois' Big Ten wins have come against ranked teams.
Thu: No. 8 Arizona State 3, Arizona 1 (26-24, 25-14, 23-25, 25-16). ASU served six aces and hit .248 in the first leg of the Territorial Cup.
Fri: No. 7 Florida 3, No. 19 Texas A&M 1. The first half of Florida's big road weekend.
Fri: No. 11 Oregon 3, No. 18 Indiana 2 (23-25, 26-24, 25-22, 21-25, 15-9). Oregon blocked a season-high 14 balls, and Alanah Clemente had 19 kills, including the final point. The Ducks beat Rutgers on Sunday for seven straight wins and are 16-2. Indiana has lost three in a row.
Fri: No. 9 Tennessee 3, Arkansas 1 (25-23, 19-25, 25-19, 25-20). Jalyn Stout had a season-high 19 kills on .455, and Raegan Burns had 23 digs. Tennessee then swept Oklahoma on Sunday (25-23, 25-22, 25-22).
Sun: No. 3 Louisville 3, No. 23 North Carolina 0 (29-27, 25-22, 25-23). Closer than it looks: every set was decided by three points or fewer, and UNC saved five set points in the first. Brooke Bultema closed set 2 with back-to-back kills. Louisville (18-2, 8-0) is now the only unbeaten team in ACC play.
Sun: No. 4 Kentucky 3, Arkansas 0 (25-23, 25-11, 25-17). An 11-0 run from 7-7 decided set 2. Brooklyn DeLeye had 15 kills on .583 and 3 aces, and Kentucky hit .381 without starting libero Molly Tuozo, who was out sick.
📋 The committee's first top 16
The NCAA committee revealed its first in-season top 16 on Sunday, during the Florida–Texas broadcast. It uses the same criteria as the real bracket, so this is our first look at who's on track for a top-four seed.
1. Nebraska, 2. Pitt, 3. Kentucky, 4. Wisconsin, 5. Florida, 6. SMU, 7. Louisville, 8. TCU, 9. BYU, 10. Oregon, 11. Vanderbilt, 12. Texas, 13. UCLA, 14. Penn State, 15. Washington, 16. Purdue.
Three things jump out. Louisville is 18-2, unbeaten in the ACC and No. 3 in the coaches poll, and the committee has it seventh. Vanderbilt, in only its second season back, is 11th. And Arizona State (No. 8 in the poll) and Tennessee (No. 9) aren't in the top 16 at all.
👀 Watch this week
Kentucky at Tennessee, Wed Oct. 21, 7:00 p.m. ET (Thu 01:00 Swiss time), SEC Network.
UCLA at Nebraska, Thu Oct. 22, 6:00 p.m. CT (Fri 01:00 Swiss time), FS1.
Arizona State at BYU, Sat Oct. 24, 6:30 p.m. MT (Sun 02:30 Swiss time).
The one to watch: Arizona State at BYU. The committee just put BYU ninth and left ASU out of its top 16. A road win in Provo is the fastest way for the Sun Devils to answer that.
🌍 Pro corner
Melanie Parra update: not yet. The former TCU star was on the sideline again Sunday as Busto Arsizio lost 3-0 (22-25, 21-25, 18-25) to Bergamo, Busto's third straight loss.
It's a tough stretch off the court too. Because of problems at their home arena, Busto is playing home matches at the Biella Forum, about 90 km away, and their fans hung a protest banner about it before the match.
The MVP for Bergamo is a name college fans will know: Kendall Kipp, a 2019 NCAA champion and two-time Pac-12 Player of the Year at Stanford, with 14 points. Bergamo out-blocked Busto 10-3.
Next up for Busto: Talmassons, Wednesday, Oct. 21.
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