Learning From Last Season

After back-to-back national championships, Texas Volleyball entered its 2024 campaign with the hope of pulling off a rare feat, accomplished only once before in NCAA volleyball: the three-peat. That reality began to look far-fetched after a head-scratching 3-3 start to the season. Through a season with many ups and downs, Texas landed a 3 seed in the tournament, looking to repeat its underdog playoff run from just one year before, where they beat three 1-seeds on the way to a national championship. But the storybook ending was not to be, ending at the hands of Creighton in the Sweet Sixteen. For a program that had grown used to December dominance, the early exit was jarring. But inside the program, the loss was instructive. In the months since, the coaching staff and players have dissected what went poorly and how this can be avoided in the future.

Assistant Coach Reily Buechler Canter offered a candid reflection on last year’s team: “We were not emotionally invested enough as players, and maybe even as a staff.” She clarified that the team was hard working and intentional about their practice and strategy. But she also acknowledged that she personally wasn’t coaching at full capacity and that the group didn’t always uphold the daily standards required of a championship team. “If you're gonna win a national championship, I don't think that anyone should just be okay with showing up at practice,” she said. It’s not just about being present, it’s about showing up early, staying late, and being locked in. I'm not saying this is necessarily the case, but it’s fair to wonder if winning it all twice in a row made it a little too easy to ease off the gas.

This offseason, that culture has shifted in a big way. The team is now consistently arriving to practice early and staying late, lifting together, watching film together, and squeezing in extra reps whenever possible. That kind of all-in approach doesn’t just build strength and physical skills, it builds trust and chemistry, which can make all the difference in high-pressure situations. According to Canter, "A little bit of that [change] comes from us not being successful last season,... but also in the sense that we are really, really excited about this group."

And personnel is another big component of the change this year. Last season, Texas did lots of playing around with its lineup. Switching from the 5-1 to the 6-2 back to the 5-1, alternating the 6th server, taking Madi Skinner out of the back row for a period of time, there was a lot of movement in the lineup throughout last season.

The 6-2 system allowed Texas to take advantage of its depth at both setter and pin hitter, and on paper, the numbers were solid. “From an analytics standpoint, attacking numbers were actually good in 6-2,” said Associate HC David Hunt, but that didn’t tell the whole story. The rotation churn left setters and hitters without time to build rhythm. “You have so many pieces going in and out that it's a lot of elements that have to be working seamlessly,” Hunt explained. “So one of those things is off and all of a sudden it just feels clunky because the rhythm and flow is off and there's not much margin for error there.”

For Canter, the inconsistency did more than just disrupt on-court execution. “I feel like we were kind of wishy-washy on which lineup we wanted to start,” she said. “And it just created a lot of emotional turmoil for our team.” The toggling between setters didn’t just affect strategy, it affected Averi's confidence and mindset knowing that at any moment, a national-champion-caliber setter was ready to come in if she faltered.

Setters are often compared to quarterbacks, and this site is no stranger to making comparisons to football. There's a saying in football that if you have two QBs, you might as well have zero QBs, and that sort of felt like the case with Texas Volleyball last season. Even though both setters were extremely talented, the lack of clarity could be seen as a hindrance. According to Canter, “That naturally creates a divide against the team. There were people that want to play for Averi and people that want to play for Ella.”

Heading into 2025, the staff is determined to bring more stability to the lineup at all positions, the strategy being that players can play confidently without looking over their shoulder. That won't be easy to do though, with a deep roster as always meaning very talented players will be on the bench. There’s good reason for optimism based on pure personnel. The biggest upgrade in the Texas gym this offseason was bringing in several elite ball control players. After last season’s struggles in serve receive, that alone could raise the floor significantly. Additionally, there will be no battle at setter this year as Ella is the certified starter. There are also some elite pin hitters across all ages on the team from freshmen to seniors, and that variety of experience and talent will ensure Texas players are pushing themselves and each other harder than ever.

So with all this new talent and insight, what's the expectation for this season? SEC championship? Final Four run? Another national championship? Hunt is adamant that expectations aren’t the focus, calling it a "dangerous trap" to focus too much on results. “Our expectation is that we're gonna train hard every day and learn to play the best volleyball that we can play. We try to stay away from expectations and just make it about the process of us getting better.”

That mindset isn’t just coach-speak, it’s strategic. After last year’s loss, there’s a renewed fire in the program, and part of stoking that fire is resisting the temptation to look too far ahead. If Texas learned anything in 2024, it’s that banners aren’t hung in December, they’re earned every day before that. The grind is back. And while no one’s penciling in another title, it's clear that this year, no one in the gym is okay with just showing up.