The 2023 NCAA National Final is set and it pits a pair of programs against each other who are very familiar.
Overall No. 1 Nebraska and No. 2-seeded Texas will face off Sunday for the national championship. The two programs have met in the title match twice before.
The Huskers swept Pittsburgh to earn a spot in their 11th title match. Texas, the defending national champion, upended Wisconsin in four sets to make their sixth title match.
Nebraska was victorious in the previous two finals meetings: 1995 and 2015.
“When you get to the final two teams, you’ve got to bring out your best,” AVCA National Coach of the Year John Cook of Nebraska said. “I know these guys are going to do it.”
NU is 33-1 on the year, one win shy of the program record set by the 2000 team that went 34-0 in Cook’s first season in Lincoln.
Texas is 27-4 on the heels of winning the Big 12 title in their final year before realignment takes them to the SEC. Still, an old Big 12 matchup in the final is something Longhorns coach Jerritt Elliott is looking forward to.
“It’s an iconic matchup,” Elliott said. “I think it’s what—it’s really fun that it gets to be Texas and Nebraska on ABC, the first time that we’ve been able to do that. So it’s great for the sport.
“They’ve got a really good team. They’ve got talented young players. They play a lot of good defense. It will be
a really good battle.”
Nebraska and Texas have met 57 times before, with the Huskers victorious in 33 of those matches. The two teams have played six times in the NCAA tournament since 2009.
The last time playing in the postseason as members of the same conference (2009), Texas beat Nebraska in four sets in Omaha. The Longhorns were the first team in the NCAA era to defeat Nebraska volleyball three times in one season.
It was the burnt orange on top again in 2013 when top-seeded Texas beat No. 8 Nebraska in Lincoln in straight sets.
Nebraska got a sweep for the national title in 2015, led by then-setter and now-assistant coach Kelly Hunter. A meeting the very next season saw the Longhorns come out on top with a sweep in the national semifinals.
Texas got a four set winner in the regional finals during the 2020 (spring 2021) season, but NU came back months later to upset Texas in Austin that fall in the same round.
Nebraska and Texas play for the national title Sunday at 2 p.m. CST. The match will be televised on ABC and also broadcast on the Huskers Radio Network, including B 107.3 FM in Lincoln.