.png){kind=logo}
Arlington Takeaways: Nebraska Wins $350,000 🏆
Four sets played, four sets won, and a cheque out of a purse other outlets keep calling a million. Nobody named a most valuable player and nobody has published a crowd figure.
Nebraska took $350,000 out of AT&T Stadium on Thursday night and did not lose a set doing it.
The Cornhuskers beat No. 17 Florida 2-0 (21-19, 21-18) and then No. 11 SMU 2-0 (21-12, 21-11) to win the first Spikes Under the Lights.
None of it counted toward anybody's record.
NCAA.com describes the night as exhibition play rather than official NCAA competition, and the organiser has never called it anything else.
The court was laid on the floor of an NFL stadium and the first set anybody played on it went 21-19. The format was compressed for television, with the first two sets of each match running to 21 rather than 25 and a deciding third to 15.
No most valuable player was announced. No attendance figure has been published anywhere either, not by the organiser, not by AT&T Stadium and not by any of the four schools.
Nebraska Got Better as the Night Went On
Nebraska hit .220 against Florida and .339 against SMU. The semifinal went 21-19 and 21-18. The final went 21-12 and 21-11.
The winning margin went from five points across two sets to nineteen, and the team on the wrong end of the nineteen was the one that had just beaten Penn State.
Andi Jackson is a senior middle blocker for Nebraska and she was on the floor for both matches. She gave Hurrdat Sports this after the final.
We knew that it was not our best, and that's OK. It's pretty normal for the first set in front of so many people, different environment, different venue, but we just went into the huddle in between sets one and two, and like I said, we knew it wasn't our best, so we acknowledged that, and we went back out, and I think even the start of set two wasn't our best. It was still just a little bit messy and still some nerves, honestly, just because it is such a different venue than what we're used to.
But I remember during one of the challenges, we all just looked at each other and we were like, 'Let's have fun.' It can sound cheesy, but getting everyone to relax a little bit and not be so tense and uptight and just play Nebraska volleyball like how we do every single day, it really helped, and I think it really showed at the end. It was just way smoother.
Bergen Reilly ran 19 assists in the semifinal and 21 in the final. Teraya Sigler, a sophomore, led Nebraska in kills in both matches, with six and then seven.
Florida hit .169 and took the first set of the night to 21-19. Logan King led the Gators with nine kills on .350, and Taylor Parks set 17 assists.
Nebraska was the best team in the building on Thursday and it stopped being close somewhere in the middle of the first set against SMU.
SMU Beat Penn State and Nobody Agrees How
SMU beat Penn State in two sets. We are not printing the set scores, because no primary source has published them and the secondary sources do not agree.
On3 and Roundtable both have the first set 24-22. Onward State has 25-22, which cannot happen in a set played to 21 and won by two. The Daily Collegian has 23-21.
Neither school had published a recap or a box score by Friday morning, and SMU's schedule page still showed the match as upcoming. Whitney Lauenstein hit .450 with 12 kills for Penn State, and Suli Davis scored 11 for SMU before finishing the final with five on 22 swings, per On3.
The Million-Dollar Number Is Not What Nebraska Won
NCAA.com calls it a $1 million prize and the largest ever awarded in women's college sports. Bleacher Report puts the structure at $200,000 per team for showing up and $150,000 more to the winner.
Those are not the same claim. Four teams at $200,000 is $800,000, and $150,000 on top of that is $950,000, which is what On3's $350,000 figure for Nebraska implies.
That leaves a $50,000 hole between the reported structure and the round number everybody printed, and the organiser has put out no breakdown that would close it.
Nebraska plays UNLV at T-Mobile Arena on Saturday and No. 2 Texas there on Sunday at 2:30 Central on FOX. That is the measurement, and we expect Nebraska to take it in four with one set going past 25.
