LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — The trouble with passing one test in tournament volleyball is that sometimes they hand you another one the next day.
This weekend in Milwaukee, Louisville aced the first. Wisconsin graded the second. Harshly.
Less than 24 hours after No. 7 Louisville opened its season by beating defending national champion Texas A&M in four sets, No. 6 Wisconsin gave the Cardinals a considerably less pleasant lesson in the AVCA First Serve Saturday at Fiserv Forum.
The Badgers swept Louisville 25-18, 25-20, 25-18, and there wasn't much mystery afterward about how it happened.
"They outplayed us in pretty much every regard tonight," Louisville coach Dan Meske said.
Nor was there much disagreement about the larger lesson.
"There are moments where I wish we would have struggled better," Meske said.
Struggle better.
There are worse slogans for a team that has deliberately constructed a schedule designed to make life difficult.
Louisville didn't come to Milwaukee because it wanted to ease into the season. It came because Texas A&M and Wisconsin could expose things lesser opponents might allow the Cardinals to hide.
Mission accomplished.
Friday night exposed something good. Louisville confronted a ghost of last season when Texas A&M, down 2-0, won the third set. In last season's NCAA Sweet 16, that's where the Cardinals began to unravel. This time they dug a bit deeper, didn't panic and won the fourth set and the match.
Saturday exposed something else.
Wisconsin didn't make Louisville deal with the pressure of finishing. It never let Louisville get started.
"First contact really hurt us," Meske said. "We got out serve-and-passed the entire night, and that's typically how fast matches are when that happens."
"We hit .375 in the first set and got smoked," Meske said.
That's because Wisconsin hit .500. It's volleyball's version of making all your shots and looking up to discover you're down 15.
Louisville couldn't knock Wisconsin out of system. Wisconsin did knock Louisville out of system. For much of the afternoon, that was the match.
"The first 20 balls felt like their setter didn't have to move," Meske said, "and we were just kind of chasing them the rest of the way."
And so Louisville leaves Milwaukee 1-1.
Which is accurate. It also misses the point. The most important number from Louisville's weekend wasn't one win or one loss. It was two.
Two matches against Top 10 opponents in less than 24 hours. Two entirely different kinds of pressure. Two pieces of information about a Louisville team still figuring out exactly what it is.
That's why Meske wanted this.
"That's what you're going to see in the NCAA Tournament," he said.
It wasn't only the volleyball that interested him. It was the emotional exercise. How do you respond when you're up 2-0 against the team that ended your previous season? Louisville answered that Friday.
How do you respond the next afternoon, after the satisfaction and emotion of that victory, when another elite opponent immediately starts putting you under pressure? Louisville didn't have that answer Saturday.
"We've got to take the lessons from this of how to come out hotter and just with a little bit more fire, especially after big wins," Meske said. "Because we're going to have some big wins this year. We've got to be able to follow those things up."
Meske isn't suggesting Louisville celebrated too much Friday night or wasn't prepared Saturday. He specifically rejected excuses. It's something subtler, and probably more valuable in August.
Elite teams don't merely have to know how to respond to losing. They have to know how to respond to winning.
Louisville knows that better than most. The Cardinals have reached seven consecutive regional semifinals. They don't build seasons around collecting wins in August. They build them around being prepared for what happens in December.
That's why they were in Milwaukee. And that's why Saturday probably was worth experiencing, unpleasant as it was.
There are new pieces here. Payton Petersen, in just her second game at libero, had 16 digs Saturday. Meske brought Petersen, Chloe Chicoine and Nayelis Cabello to the postgame podium because they are Louisville's three captains, the players he expects to help navigate precisely these moments.
Chicoine, who had 10 kills and nine digs Saturday, wasn't interested in dressing up what happened.
"Wisconsin just outplayed us, like Dan said, in every single aspect," she said.
But she also understood where Louisville is.
"This is a young group, some people in new positions, and we just have to figure out what this team, our identity, and how to get it done," Chicoine said.
Louisville went to Milwaukee and learned Friday night that this team could handle a moment that last year's team couldn't. Then it came back Saturday and learned that this team isn't finished becoming whatever it is going to be.
One win. One loss. One lesson in finishing. One lesson in struggling better.
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