After NIVC success, Arizona volleyball sets sights on NCAA Tournament

After last season’s postseason title win, Arizona’s attitude has changed as it aims to return to the NCAA Tournament.

Last year, the Wildcats went 24-9 overall and 9-9 in the Big 12, finishing the season on an 11-match win streak that included the NIVC title.

It’s head coach Charita Stubbs’ third season in charge of the program and her 22nd coaching at her alma mater. In 2023, the Wildcats went 8-23, 3-17 in the Pac-12.

Just as football bowl games help the next year’s team, since they get more practices, Stubbs said playing deep into December last season had a lot of benefits.

“Anytime you get to practice and rep and then have competition in front of you — I think that we’ve never played that length in a year before — so that was something new for every one,” Stubbs said. “But I also am excited by the fact that we got the community involved, which is really important for us.”

The Wildcats now expect to play in December.

“We went out, I was on the radio for it and we got to throw T-shirts out at the basketball games and so we were able to generate a new crowd of individuals to be a part of what was going on,” Stubbs said. “And to be one of the last two teams in that tournament and then in the finals in general, that says a lot about what’s going on and they just had no idea what it’s like.

“Normally I would get the question in the month of June or July ‘when do we get to go home in December?’ no one asked me that question because they’re expecting to be there playing and competing for the long run.”

Dating back to Sept. 15, 2023, UA has won 17 nonconference matches in a row. Last year, it went 11-0 in the regular season in non-Big 12 tilts and then won the NIVC’s four matches.

The last time the Wildcats reached the NCAA Tournament was 2018.

“I really want us to go to the tournament, I think we can definitely make it and reach that goal,” said senior outside hitter Jordan Wilson. “We have the people that we need in order to get us to that goal in order to reach and achieve it as long as we just put in the hard work and put our minds to it.”

Wilson was unanimously selected to the preseason All-Big 12 team. The former USC Trojan led the Wildcats last year with 446 kills and 3.81 kills/set.

UA returns 10 letter winners and lost six. It returns four starters, plus fifth-year libero Haven Wray.

The starters lost were outside hitter Jaelyn Hodge, who was second on the team in kills, and middle blockers Kiari Robey, who was second on the team in blocks, and Alayna Johnson. The three were seniors or fifth-year players.

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Arizona added six freshmen, including outside hitter Paige Thies, PrepDig’s No. 1 player in Oregon.

In the transfer market, UA added junior opposite Britt Carlson, who played two seasons at UCF and one at Washington State.

“I think they’ve been awesome,” Stubbs said about the new Wildcats. “They adapted well, I think, by the NCAA allowing us to start earlier than what was initially projected was beneficial for us.

“I don’t know about them, but last week it felt like we were going to start school yesterday (Aug. 18) to make the pace of everything that we were doing, we’re ahead of what we were last year at this stage, which I think is a good sign.”

UA opens the regular season on Aug. 29 when it hosts Alabama State in the Wildcat Classic. Then, in early September, the Wildcats travel to the northwest for the Boise State Classic, followed by the Husky Invitational at Washington, where UA will face former Pac-12 rivals Oregon State and UW, as well as San Diego and UC San Diego.

After a trip to preseason No. 1 Nebraska, Arizona starts conference play at the Kansas schools before its home Big 12 opener on Oct. 2 against Utah.

The Big 12 features six teams in the preseason AVCA rankings in No. 13 ASU, No. 14 Kansas, No. 19 BYU, No. 20 Baylor, No. 23 Utah and No. 25 TCU. Houston and Arizona received votes in the poll.

Over the summer, sophomore outside hitter Carlie Cisneros joined the U.S. Women’s U21 National Team for the Pan American Cup. Cisneros, who was the top-ranked recruit last year, was on the Big 12 All-Rookie Team in 2024.

“Being in the gym with a bunch of players that made it to the tournament, very competitive, I played with them when I was younger in club, 14 to 17,” Cisneros said. “Just being able to play with them again, it was very competitive, a very high level of play and I was able to bring back what I learned there back to the gym and I’m not only better for myself, but better for my team.”

Cisneros said the Wildcats had a very competitive spring, and in the summer, everyone was there a month earlier than they needed to be.

“Last season a lot of us were kind of fired up about us not going to the NCAA tournament, so us going to the NIVC, we really took that as a way for us to get better, even though it wasn’t necessarily where we wanted to be, but that’s what we needed,” said Wilson, who played in the Big Dance at USC. “It got us in the right mindset of worrying how to win … how to properly, like, compete with people and win a tournament.

“So us winning the NIVC, that was an amazing feeling, but I think it would be better to get to the tournament, the NCAA.”

Photos: Arizona volleyball Red-Blue match at McKale Center