CHICAGO – Wisconsin volleyball coach Kelly Sheffield opened his comments at the Big Ten’s annual media day with one of his go-to sayings.
“Great morning,” Sheffield said.
Sheffield’s optimism matched his outlook for the Big Ten, as the number of returning players is “going to be a step up in class for the league this year.” His peers seem in turn to be optimistic about the Badgers, who were picked to finish second in the conference’s preseason poll.
Here were three takeaways as Sheffield, setter Charlie Fuerbringer and outside hitter Grace Egan spoke with reporters in Chicago ahead of the 2026 season:
Wisconsin’s freshmen benefit from extra time in Madison
Egan and Fuerbringer both said they have seen improvement from the Badgers’ entire roster between the spring and start of preseason practices. But Fuerbringer did praise one group in particular – the nine-person freshman class.
“Specifically our freshmen have done such an amazing job,” Fuerbringer said. “I think coming in early and having that full spring really helped them to get adjusted to what our standard is here at Wisconsin.”
As Fuerbringer referenced, the Badgers benefited from Halle Thompson, Lynney Tarnow, Isabelle Hoppe, Kymora Scott and Audrey Flanagan enrolling in time for the spring semester. Flanagan was a relatively late change after she initially planned on waiting until the summer to enroll.
They accounted for all five prospects who were expected to arrive in 2026 at the time. (Jane Manecke, Anna Bardaro and Alyssa Konrad announced their commitments later. Decelise Champion had already decided that she was going to play at UW, but that was before she reclassified from the 2027 class.)
Bardaro – an Italian libero who committed to the Badgers in April and could give sophomore Kristen Simon some competition – has been “finding her voice,” Sheffield said. Being in Madison over the summer was “awfully good” for her.
“She’s very, very talented,” Sheffield said. “I think sometimes you expect somebody that’s maybe from another country being a little bit shyer right out of the gate. She’s had no problems finding her voice.”
Wisconsin has Kentucky rematch circled on calendar
Wisconsin’s 2025 season ended in heartbreaking fashion with its five-set loss to Kentucky in the Final Four. Wisconsin’s 2026 season starts against Kentucky on Aug. 21 in Milwaukee.
While the 2026 Badgers look much different from the 2025 Badgers, returners such as Fuerbringer and Egan certainly seem to be looking forward to the rematch at Fiserv Forum.
“We’re pretty hungry for this game,” Egan said. “We talk about it a lot.”
Fuerbringer is “super excited to play Kentucky” as well as Wisconsin’s other early-season opponents. Six of UW’s first eight matches in 2026 are against teams that finished the 2025 season ranked No. 9 or higher.
“We’re ready to come out of the gates,” Fuerbringer said. “We’re not going to ease into it.”
Wisconsin’s rematch against Kentucky and subsequent match against Louisville are part of a loaded AVCA First Serve event. Other teams coming to Fiserv Forum include Arizona State, Pittsburgh, SMU, Texas and Texas A&M.
Aside from the late additions of Marquette and Xavier to the field, the rest of the AVCA First Serve finished last season ranked No. 12 or higher in the final coaches poll. Sheffield does not know if there’s been another event with a “stronger collection of talent in our sports history than what is going to be under that one roof to start the season.”
“If you’re a competitive junkie that just loves watching sports, you’re going to be in that building watching,” Sheffield said. “You’ll have your high school teams, your club teams over there. … There’s a great storyline with Kentucky, the two teams that were in the Final Four that are playing against each other, but man, look at the animals that are up and down.”
Kelly Sheffield shares thoughts on 17-match Big Ten schedule
The Big Ten volleyball schedule will look different in 2026.
The conference is holding a 15-team, single-elimination tournament in a format that is similar to what it has done for women’s basketball. As a result, each team will play 17 conference matches in the regular season – a single round-robin – rather than 20.
For Wisconsin, that means one or two fewer Big Ten matches at the UW Field House each year. But Sheffield has previously spoken in favor of the conference tournament, and the idea of having more matches was not necessarily appealing to him.
“If you’re doing it right in the Big Ten tournament, you’re playing three more matches,” Sheffield said. “Some of these teams might end up playing even a little bit more. So no, we weren’t interested in adding anything.”
Even if a team finishes with one of the four best Big Ten records and receives a double-bye – a very realistic scenario for UW after getting picked to finish second in the conference – it would need to win three matches to claim a Big Ten tournament title.
“If you’re in the tournament and you’re advancing past a round, then that schedule is going to get really hairy pretty quickly,” Sheffield said.
Not every coach has shared that philosophy. Minnesota added a Nov. 28 home match against High Point. (That would be three days after the conference championship match and almost a week before the NCAA volleyball tournament.)
“Depending on where you finish in that Big Ten tournament, it’s a long time before you play another match,” Minnesota coach Keegan Cook said. “So making sure that the team stays in rhythm was the main point of that.”
Other Wisconsin volleyball notes
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: 3 takeaways from Wisconsin volleyball at 2026 Big Ten media day
Reporting by John Steppe, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By John Steppe, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | USA TODAY Network
