Nebraska
Quotebook: Nebraska and Wisconsin VB coaches + players preview Elite Eight
Quotebook: Nebraska and Wisconsin VB coaches + players preview Elite Eight
It’s red vs. red. It’s powerhouse vs. powerhouse. It’s Nebraska volleyball vs. Wisconsin volleyball.
All for the right to net a trip to Louisville, boast yet another win in the rivalry series, secure another Final Four berth and an opportunity to win another national championship.
Ahead of today’s Elite Eight matchup between the two Big Ten foes (2 p.m. CT on ABC and WatchESPN), below is a Quotebook from Saturday’s pre-match press conference with the Huskers and Badgers.
Here are the key takeaways from Nebraska coach John Cook and Husker stars Andi Jackson and Bergen Reilly, plus Wisconsin coach Kelly Sheffield and Badger stars Julia Orzol and Anna Smrek.
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NEBRASKA VOLLEYBALL
Huskers head coach John Cook:
Opening statement
“This is what ABC wanted. This is what everybody wanted, what the NCAA Tournament wanted was us and Wisconsin. Now they’ve got it. Huskers will be fired up.”
**********
On playing a team three times in one season
“Our mindset is that we take every match one at a time. I can’t even remember when we played them last because we’ve had so many other matches in between. We prepare just like we normally do. We break everything down and treat it like this is the first time we’re playing them.”
**********
On players stepping up in big moments
“That’s why they call it a team. Not everybody is going to be an All-American all-star every night. Our goal is to be a great team every night. We can win with somebody getting hot, we can win with our block and defense. We don’t have to be perfect every night. That’s one of the great things about this team. We’ve won a lot of different ways. Our goal tomorrow will be to have everybody play their best match of the year and our crowd to have their best match of the year.”
**********
On playing a regional final on national television
“TV is just really recognizing the interest in women’s volleyball, and putting it on ABC is a statement that they really think this is worth it. It’s a great product, it’s a great show, it’s a great sport. It’s exciting. We’ve been watching tons of volleyball. It was exciting watching the Texas A&M/Wisconsin match yesterday. This is a time of year where everything is on the line. To be on ABC, and ESPN2 is also televising, I wasn’t really excited about playing until midnight last night. I’m sure you guys aren’t either. The good thing is, we’re not playing at 9 in the morning, which we’ve had to do in the past. Women’s sports are exploding and this is a great statement to that.”
**********
On the seniors’ last match at Devaney
“I don’t even want to think about it. I’m not going there.”
Middle blocker Andi Jackson
On the team’s mindset going into the first two matches against Wisconsin
“I wouldn’t say it’s intimidating playing Wisconsin, I would say it’s exciting. I think they’re a really good program and a great team and getting to play such high level volleyball is super exciting for our team. I know that we really enjoy that. Preparing for it, it’s more just, go out and take it. We have nothing to lose. At the end of the day, it’s just another volleyball game. It’s volleyball versus volleyball. It’s not us versus Wisconsin.”
**********
On being vocal about what’s at stake
“This team does a really good job of not having too many chefs in the kitchen. We all understand that we have one common goal. Sometimes it can feel very overwhelming with how many people are throwing stuff out there, and I think we do a really good job of balancing, everyone pulling their weight, everyone is giving their 100%. That doesn’t mean everyone needs to give 100% vocally. It’s more like, you give 100% physically and we can have a couple people give their 100% vocally.”
**********
On Sunday being the last match at Devaney and sending the seniors out with a win
“I’m very motivated. It’s going to be a really fun game, a super fun environment. It’s the last game in the Bob for our seniors and Bergen and I’s sophomore year. Time is flying, so I want to absorb it and absorb the moment and play our best match of the year, to an extent.”
**********
On how she handles it when things aren’t clicking
“That’s the incredible thing about our team. When I’m not having my best night or if any of our hitters aren’t having their best night, we’re such a balanced team. Not that it doesn’t matter, but they can carry your weight. If you’re having a 60% night, then they have your 40%. I think that’s what makes this team so special. If I’m struggling one night, I know that I can control the controllables. Maybe hitting isn’t going well, but what can I do blocking-wise, what can I do defensively to help the team still? There are so many ways you can show up. That’s what makes volleyball such an incredible sport. It’s not just one thing. There’s so much that goes into it and all those different factors. So it’s just, what can I do right now even if this isn’t working?”
Setter Bergen Reilly
On the benefits of playing a team they’re familiar with
“It definitely helps. We have their tendencies in our head and we kind of know a little bit about what’s coming. Each game, they’ve made little changes, so we have to adjust to those too. Having this day in between will be really good for us to refresh on that and get back used to it. It definitely helps that we already have a scouting report in our head and don’t have to start from scratch.”
**********
On Harper Murray and finding her hand when she’s hot
“I like to set the hot hand. This season, luckily, we’ve had a lot of hot hands pretty much every game. It’s been easy to balance. Like you said, she was on fire last night and finding her as much as you can is really all you can do, while also trying to keep everybody else in it and not let the block just go to her. It’s a balance of wanting to feed her a lot, but also keeping the other team honest and keeping the rest of our team in it and running a normal offense, too.”
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On being vocal about what’s at stake
“I think we do a good job of preparing that in advance. We can just talk about meetings that we’ve had, keywords that we have for our team to just bring us back to the moment. Like Coach said, every game is one game at a time. We’re not necessarily thinking ‘we want to win this so we can play on Sunday or we can get to Louisville.’ It’s more like, ‘let’s win this next point and then we can go from there.’ I think we do a lot of that communication and that prep in advance, so it helps us a lot in the moment.”
**********
On running the offense when Wisconsin is familiar with it
“I think just keeping the balance. It’s hard to defend any team that has a really good balance, no matter what kind of scouting report or anything you have on them. If everyone can put a ball down at any time, they’re going to be a tough team to stop. I think focusing on that going in, and we have our little wrinkles to our offense too. Keeping a balance and keeping them on their toes.”
WISCONSIN VOLLEYBALL
Badgers head coach Kelly Sheffield
Opening statement
“This is a special group. They’ve accomplished a lot. We’ve got two seniors here that have been a part of a lot of great seasons. It’s a group that I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoy being around, on and off the court. We’re certainly looking forward to the challenge we have tomorrow, playing a great team in a great venue.”
**********
On playing on national TV
“We’re certainly excited about playing the match. It’s pretty cool that it’s on ABC and I’m sure there will be a lot of people that are watching. No matter what the result is, it’s usually pretty compelling volleyball when the two teams meet up. It’s usually pretty high level. I’m sure that’ll show. The matches so far in this tournament, the number of really high-level, compelling, tough matches, it’s been an unbelievable tournament so far. It’s kind of interesting because you see almost all 1s and 2s. I think you have one third seed. You would think that it’s just the favorites that are going, but man, everybody has had to grind and dig in and fight. It’s been awesome, and the fact that you have one of these on that network is pretty cool.”
**********
On how challenging it is to beat a team three times in a season
“When you’re the team that has lost the first two, the obvious question is, do they believe that they can win? That’s the obvious. When you get to this stage, I think when maybe there’s a thought that somebody is going to take somebody for granted, that just doesn’t happen with competitors. There’s too much at stake. The opportunity to go to a Final Four is a dream for anybody. When that’s right in front of you, you’re going to get everybody’s best, no matter how many times you’ve beaten somebody. I think our players believe and I don’t think that’s going to be a problem on our end. On their end, they’re pretty driven to get to that next step again. I think you’ll see two really highly driven teams. Should make it a lot of fun.”
**********
On how much scouting they’ll do
“We didn’t stick around. That would be a little bit unusual, but there was a lot going on here. Sometimes you’re not able to really watch too much with distractions. We thought it was more important to go and get a good meal and get a good sleep. I’m sure everybody was watching last night as we were getting ourselves cleaned up and all those things. If it was an environment we wanted our players to get used to, we probably would have stayed here, or if it was a team we didn’t know much about. You’re right, it was pretty late. The turnaround is pretty quick. It’s a day and a half. You’re immediately just trying to think of, how do we get our minds right and our bodies right? It quickly gets into that mode.”
**********
On the senior class and what it means to Wisconsin volleyball
“They’ve elevated it. Can you leave a program better than when you walked into it? Certainly, that’s a focus of mine as a coach and that’s something we talk to our players about. I don’t think there’s any question about these two and any other seniors. They’ve elevated the program and they’ve inspired a lot of people along the way, as they’ve played. They’ve represented the university and athletic department with a lot of class and enthusiasm. These two and everybody in that class is the epitome of what a student-athlete should be. I’m proud to be their coach and excited to get after it with them tomorrow.”
**********
On the Big Ten season with four new teams
“It was an awesome challenge. It’s always hard to win a Big Ten championship. That’s just really impressive seasons by both Penn State and Nebraska to be able to do that. You have the travel element. Compression has gotten to be even more of a thing. The level of play and the style of play, all four of those teams bring a different style. It was a fun year. When it’s all said and done, I’ll say it was an exhausting year. Right now, I’m pretty energized. John (Cook) has mentioned numerous times over the years, how much harder winning a Big Ten championship is than winning a national championship. I haven’t seen any stats on that or anything, but it is really hard to do. You just have so much respect when somebody is able to do it. And it just got worlds harder this year. If you’re a competitive junkie, there isn’t anything better, and adding those four teams has just elevated it.”
Outside hitter Julia Orzol
On the mentality of the team going into Sunday
“I feel excitement. There’s excitement that we get another chance to meet this team and show better volleyball. That’s what we’re focusing on. For now, for preparation, what we can do during this one day of transitioning from yesterday. We know what’s waiting, neither team is going to lose this game. Somebody will have to go and grab that win. We are preparing for a great fight and great volleyball.”
**********
On the Nebraska/Wisconsin rivalry
“It’s just good volleyball. It’s so fun going into these games and knowing that you’ll get their best every time. I would say it’s just fun.”
Opposite hitter Anna Smrek
On playing a team they’re familiar with when there’s a quick turnaround
“I think it comes in handy, but each team is going to look a little bit different trying to get that upper hand on teams. I think it’s just, how can we get better from each time we’ve seen them and learn from our own game? Also, what were they trying to do against us? It’s about still finding ways to get better and not just staying stagnant with the information we do already know.”
**********
On the Nebraska/Wisconsin rivalry
“That’s one of the reasons that we all love the game of volleyball, is the competitiveness. Each side is just so driven with that. A lot of people sometimes question what goes on through the net or that little back and forth banter, but that’s some of the fun, and the competition that just drives even more. Especially being able to do that as a team, having backup, it’s just so fun.”
Nebraska
Bullerman follows a family legacy into Nebraska’s prairies
Emma Bullerman is spending her summer riding around in fields with her dad, and she’s thrilled about it. It’s not just for fun, either — she’s interning for the Prairie Plains Resource Institute and working alongside her father to conserve Nebraska grasslands.
“Prairie Plains has literally been in my life since I was born. I guess you could say I’m a bit of a grasslands nepo baby,” Bullerman said. “My dad is the restoration director, so even as a kid I would be out helping him in the field.”
Today, Emma is taking a more active role in aiding her dad’s work to restore native prairies.
“A lot of my summer will be in the truck with him driving across Nebraska to collect the native grassland seeds that we put into our restoration sites,” she said. “Basically, I’m just learning the ropes of everything that goes into grassland restoration.”
As a teen, Bullerman thought she wanted to do anything but follow her dad’s footsteps. Eventually, a few stalled paths helped her rediscover her love for her hometown.
“In high school and coming into college, I really thought I wanted to leave Nebraska and do something totally different from my dad,” she said. “I tried a few other directions, but pretty quickly could tell that I wasn’t passionate about them. I took a semester off, and then my boss at Prairie Plains reached out about helping with social media.”
It didn’t take long for Bullerman to catch the bug for conservation work and switch her major to fisheries and wildlife, the same degree program her father graduated from in 1995. In fact, she is a fourth-generation Husker with strong ties to ag and food science. Her grandfather is Dr. Lloyd Bullerman, a former a professor of food science, microbiology and food safety at the university, and her aunt studied food science at NU as well.
Getting back to Prairie Plains in her early college years helped Bullerman realize that she, too, had a calling toward this field.
“Being out in the field with my dad one day, I had a moment where I was like, ‘Oh, this is what I’ve been looking for. This is what I want to do.’ Finding my way back has been really, really beautiful.”
Working with her dad, she’s is feeling better than ever about her direction, her hometown and her future in Nebraska.
“Doing this work and studying at UNL has given me a whole new perspective on the state,” she said. “I used to be someone who was like, ‘I want to get out of here after I graduate.’ Restoring prairies and traveling all over Nebraska has helped me see that it’s so beautiful here, I just didn’t take the time to see it before.”
Nebraska
Data centers take center stage at North Omaha townhall
The future of data centers in Nebraska took center stage at a North Omaha town hall Thursday evening.
The event was hosted by State Sens. Terrell McKinney and Ashlei Spivey, who alongside Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh sponsored a bill in the Nebraska Legislature that looked to help regulate data centers.
Parts of their bill were adopted and passed in LB1010, which requires reports on annual power usage, water usage and ownership.
“Having this passed in a package showed a lot of bipartisan work,” Spivey told a crowd of attendees at Nelson Mandela Elementary School.
The proposed regulations were shaped in part by Bold Nebraska, an advocacy group focused on eminent domain and clean energy. Jane Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party and founder of Bold Nebraska, said before the bill passed there were “zero laws on the books” to address a boom in data centers.
“If one is coming into the community, we wanted to make sure that there were some basic transparency things in place,” Kleeb said.
Political discussions around data centers heated up in recent months following reporting by the Flatwater Free Press that showed Google is considering a data center in Nebraska that could require more than three times the amount of power the entire city of Lincoln uses at peak demand in the summer.
The Nebraska Legislature recently passed another bill, LB1261, that allows private developers to build and own power plants to serve a large industrial customer, including data centers. That bill was proposed by the governor’s office and celebrated by Gov. Jim Pillen.
“Our state is once again taking a bold and strategic step – one that will create an environment that attracts business and multibillion dollar investment, while legally preserving Nebraska’s unique and consumer-friendly public power model,” Pillen said at the time.
At Thursday’s town hall, McKinney called LB1261 “the bogeyman bill.”
“It’s a bill that the governor pushed through the legislature to allow for data centers to create their own power,” McKinney said. “It’s a bill that I stood on the floor and said this is going to harm our communities.”
Nebraska
Hundreds lose power across southeast Nebraska after Thursday morning storm
LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) – Hundreds of people are without power in southeast Nebraska after a severe storm passed through Thursday morning.
The Lincoln Electric System outage map showed 115 customers without power across the city at 11:36 a.m.
Norris Public Power District’s outage map also shows 45 customers affected by the storm. As of 11:36 a.m., there were nine active outages.
According to the Nebraska Public Power District outage map, 657 customers were affected by the storm. Most of the affected customers were near Plattsmouth in southeast Nebraska. As of 11:37 a.m., 27 customers remain without power.
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