LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Here is the math for the University of Louisville volleyball program coming off back-to-back Final Fours and its first trip to the NCAA championship game: The Cardinals lose three All-Americans from a team that has lost just two regular-season matches in the past two years, but still have Final Four aspirations.
That was confirmed again on Tuesday, when the American Volleyball Coaches Association released its preseason poll, ranking Louisville No. 4 nationally. The Cardinals already had been picked to win the ACC.
"You know, we lost three All-Americans. Those were three huge pieces," coach Dani Busboom Kelly said Tuesday. "But we returned some All-Americans and we added some great pieces. ... We're not in a spot where they're irreplaceable, or we didn't have a plan. We had a plan."
And Busboom Kelly has some pieces. Aiko Jones, Anna DeBeer, Elena Scott and Phekran Kong step into bigger positions of leadership, and Charitie Luper, an outside hitter from UCLA, is an impact transfer who was voted to the ACC’s preseason All-Conference team before even playing a game in the league.
The Cardinals also got a head start over the summer, gaining valuable experience in a trip to Brazil.
Aiko Jones and Anna DeBeer confer during Louisville volleyball's 5-set NCAA Regional final victory over Oregon.
"It helped a ton," Busboom Kelly said. "Especially when you consider that freshmen and transfers are allowed to go — you know, back in the day, freshmen were not allowed to go on foreign tours. So, it was just great to be able to learn about them and have our players learn about them and just feel like in August, you can get started and you don't have to go through the drills and get to know each other and do a bunch of team bonding. We did all that this summer. So, we can really just focus on volleyball and the task at hand."
The task at hand for volleyball is as ambitious as any sport at the university. The program has emerged as a national presence in recent years, gaining visibility and respect that has opened doors in recruiting and elsewhere. Busboom Kelly has been ACC coach of the year for three straight seasons and was national coach of the year in 2021.
DeBeer grew up in Louisville, was a star at Assumption High School and last season was NCAA Regional MVP as well as a member of the All-Final Four team.
She’s now been part of an undefeated run to the Final Four and backed it up with a trip to the title game. But as she has watched expectations grow, she says one foundation of the program is not to compare any season to the one that came before.
"I think there's always that pressure," she said. "It's just how our team manages it. ... We’ve got to figure that out each year. Not comparing the team to last year, but also just being ready for the challenge and knowing we know what it's going to take to get there. And we're hungry for more."
Aiko Jones returns to the team for a sixth season at opposite hitter, and is a big reason for the team’s optimism. She also was named to the all-tournament team at the Final Four a year ago.
"Pressure is a tough word," she said. "There's pressure that everyone else is wanting to put on you. But I think in our program we do a good job of keeping our pressure internal. I think back to 2019 when, I don't remember who tweeted it, but we were ‘limping into the tournament.’ We took that on and we're like, ‘OK, we're going to enter with a limp and leave with a pimp walk.’ You know that people are expecting things of you. And when you do things back-to-back and things like that, everyone's like, ‘Oh, can they do it again.’ But for us, it's more like, we know what we're capable of and everyone just tries to be the best version of themselves. We take that one step at a time, and we just go as far as we can go. We don't really think about the pressure. We just try to do what we know we can do and play good volleyball and see where that takes us."
Louisville’s non-conference schedule is ambitious, and gives a nod to the growing demand to watch the team locally. While the program has no real desire to leave the intimate confines of L&N Stadium on campus, where every match is sold out, it will return to the KFC Yum! Center again this season for home tests against three preseason Top 10 opponents: No. 10 Kentucky on Sept. 13, No. 3 Stanford on Sept. 17, and No. 5 Pittsburgh on Oct. 13.
The Cardinals also will play host to No. 8 Penn State on Sept. 10 in L&N Arena, and will get an early home test when they face No. 21 Washington State on August 26.
"We know you have to get tested in the nonconference," Busboom Kelly said. "I feel like we have three games in a row everybody's looking at: Penn State, Kentucky and Stanford, likely probably going to be three top-10 teams. And then we also have Washington State who returns everybody. I think they have six COVID seniors, so they're a team that's going to be really, really good. I feel like it's a great mix of some games where hopefully we can experiment with some lineups and learn a little bit about some players, but then, we're going to have to play great. We want to test ourselves early, so we can learn."
The Cardinals open play with Red and Black scrimmage on Saturday at 3 p.m. in L&N Stadium. They open regular-season play in their Cardinal Classic the next weekend with three games in three days against Troy, Washington State and Wright State.
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