Volleyball Meets No. 5 Texas With Final Four Berth Up For Grabs

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2016 NCAA Tournament - Austin Regional
Dec. 10   7:00 pm   #21 Creighton at #5 Texas (ESPNU)   Austin, Texas   Match to be played at Gregory Gymnasium

• Unseeded and No. 21 Creighton (29-6) makes its first Elite Eight appearance in program history on Saturday night at 7 pm Central when it takes on fourth-seeded and fifth-ranked Texas (25-4).
   The contest will air on ESPNU, and will be broadcast by Tiffany Greene and Maria Taylor.

• The winner of tonight's match advances to the Final Four, which begins on Thursday night in Columbus, Ohio. The winner of the Creighton/Texas contest will meet the victor of the Nebraska/Washington match, which begins on Saturday at 3 pm Central on ESPNU.
   Creighton has never faced Washington, but typically faces Nebraska annually (though they're not scheduled to meet in 2017). Since restarting its program in 1994, Creighton is 0-15 all-time against Nebraska. Nebraska is the last team to beat Creighton, having done so on September 17th in four tense sets in Lincoln.

• Creighton advanced to Saturday's Regional Final with a 3-2 win over 12th-seeded and 17th-ranked Michigan (24-26, 25-21, 17-25, 25-20, 15-7).

• Creighton is 7-66 in program history against ranked teams, which includes a 4-4 mark in NCAA Tournament play and a 3-62 mark in the regular-season.
   Creighton is 2-33 all-time in true road matches against ranked teams, including a 2-23 mark under Booth. The Bluejays are 1-13 in program history against top-five teams, with the lone such win coming last Friday at No. 4 Kansas.

• Creighton has beaten ranked teams in consecutive matches for the first time in program history.
   The only previous season that Creighton won multiple matches against ranked teams was in 2015, when CU beat No. 10 Kentucky and No. 23 North Carolina.

• Creighton improved to 8-5 all-time in NCAA Tournament matches, and 1-1 in the Regional Semifinal round. Creighton will be making its first appearance in a Regional Final on Saturday.
   By comparison, the other seven teams in the Regional Finals on Saturday have won a combined 63 previous Regional Finals, and own 17 national titles amongst them.

• Creighton improved to 6-2 all-time in eight NCAA Tournament neutral-site matches with Friday's win. CU is 2-3 all-time in true road matches in the NCAA's, but beaten No. 23 North Carolina (in 2015) and No. 4 Kansas (last Friday) in its last two such contests. Texas is ranked fifth.
   Creighton's five wins away from home in the last two NCAA Tournaments lead the nation.

• Though Creighton may be a relative newcomer on the scene when it comes to the NCAA's Volleyball elite, other Bluejay teams have reached the final weekend before. Creighton men's soccer boasts five College Cup's (most recently in 2012), and CU has sent team(s) to the Men's College World Series (baseball) and the Women's College World Series (softball) in its school history.
   Creighton boasts a proud athletic history, with alums such as Bob Gibson, Kyle Korver, Doug McDermott and Paul Silas, among others.

• Creighton improved to 4-3 in five-set matches this season with Friday's victory over Michigan. All four victories in five sets have come since Nov. 20th and within CU's last six matches.

• Dating back to early last season, Creighton Volleyball is 10-1 in the match following a five-set contest. The Bluejays are coming off a five-set win last night vs. Michigan.

• Creighton has never previously won three straight matches that each went five sets in program history.

• Since the new format was introduced in 2001, at least one Regional Final has gone five sets in 12-of-16 seasons. Additionally, 16 of the 60 teams to advance to the Final Four since 2001 did so thanks to a five-set win in the Regional Final, good for 26.7 percent.
   In NCAA Tournament history, only four schools (a total of five times) have ever won both its Regional Semifinal and Final matches in five sets. UCLA did it in 1981, Nebraska did so in 1998, Minnesota did it in both 2003 and 2004, and USC accomplished the feat in 2011.

• Creighton improved to 48-26 in five-set matches all-time under Kirsten Bernthal Booth. Creighton has had a winning record in five-set matches in six straight years, and been .500 or better in the fifth set in 12-of-14 seasons under Booth. Creighton had never had a winning record in fifth sets prior to Booth's arrival.

• Creighton finishes the 2016 season with a 16-0 record on Friday's. Creighton won 48-of-53 sets played on Friday this fall.

• Creighton improved to 5-2 this season when losing the first set (CU is 24-4 when winning the first set). Friday was also Creighton's first win all year (in four tries) when trailing 2-1 after three sets.

• Creighton's 23-match win streak is a school-record, far better than the previous mark of 17 set in 2012. The next longest active win streak is 13 by Minnesota.
   The volleyball team's 23-match win streak is the second-longest in school history by any program, and best since since the men's basketball team won 38 straight from 1917-20.

•    The No. 10 Creighton men's basketball team (the nation's only 10-0 team) and No. 21 Creighton women's volleyball (29-6) teams are a combined 33-0 since September 18th.

• Creighton improved to 23-0 when hitting .250 or better this season. Creighton also improved to 22-0 when posting more blocks this season in Friday's triumph.
   On the other side, Texas is 24-0 this year when hitting .250 or better, and 21-0 this year when winning the block category.

• Lydia Dimke had her 17th double-double of the season, while Jaali Winters had her 13th double-double of the fall on Friday against Michigan.
   Winters owns a double-double in each of Creighton's last four matches, which includes the BIG EAST Tournament Final and all three NCAA Tournament contests.
   Winters, who had 21 kills and a career-high 25 digs vs. Michigan, had her second career match with 20 or more kills and 20 or more digs, as she also did it in a Second Round win at nationally-ranked North Carolina last fall.
   Winters is one of four players in school history with a 20/20, joining Melissa Walsh (5x), Leah Ratzlaff (once) and Jess Bird (once).

• Lydia Dimke stands a chance of setting Creighton's single-season assist record on Saturday. She enters the match with 1,424 this season, just 60 behind Korie Lebeda's mark of 1,484 in 2006. Dimke has averaged 57.7 assists in three NCAA Tournament matches this fall.

• Creighton setter Lydia Dimke will attempt to avenge a season-ending loss at Texas last year. Dimke played at Purdue in both 2014 and 2015, and her Boilermaker team lost in four sets last year in the Second Round of the NCAA's to the Longhorns.

• Jaali Winters 21 kills on Friday were her 15th career match with 20 or more kills. Only Melissa Walsh (23) and Leah Ratzlaff (20) have more in program history.

• Creighton's 29 wins this season tie a school record, also done by the 2012 team that finished 29-4 and lost in the Second Round of the NCAA Tournament.
   No BIG EAST team has won 30 games in a season since Louisville went 30-4 in 2012.

• Creighton is the first team in BIG EAST history to advance to a Regional Final. League teams had previously been 0-7. Creighton could become the first BIG EAST team to advance to a Final Four.

• Lauren Smith extended her school records for matches played (137), matches started (136), sets played in (508) and wins played in (104) on Friday. Saturday, she's expected to make her 125th consecutive start.

• Redshirt sophomore Brittany Lawrence played well down the stretch in Friday's win over Michigan, contributing a kill in four swings while also providing a big block in place of Megan Ballenger.
   Lawrence had not played in a match since November 11th and had not taken four swings in a match since October 8th prior to Friday night.

• Several teams, most notably Texas and Nebraska, survived match points to advance to the Elite Eight on Friday. Creighton is 291-2 all-time under Kirsten Bernthal Booth when reaching a match point opportunity, but also has won eight matches in her 14 years after surviving the match point of an opponent, including twice last year.

• Creighton had four players account for 68 of the team's 73 kills on Friday vs. Michigan, as Jaali Winters (21), Taryn Kloth (16), Marysa Wilkinson (16) and Lauren Smith (15) all had 15 or more kills.
   It was the fourth time that CU's All-BIG EAST sophomore outside hitter duo of Winters and Kloth each reached 15+ kills in the same match, and the first time ever that Smith and Wilkinson both reached 15+ kills in the same match.

• Jaali Winters has had 20 or more kills in five of six career NCAA Tournament matches. The other 31 players in Creighton Volleyball history to appear in an NCAA Tournament match have played in a combined 129 matches, and no one else has more than 18 kills in a match.
   Winters owns a Creighton-record 121 career kills in NCAA Tournament play, far ahead of Lauren Smith's 87 that rank second.

• Just a sophomore, Jaali Winters owns 983 career kills. That's third-most nationally among active sophomores, and 158th among active all Division I players nationally.
   With 17 more kills, Winters can become the first sophomore in school history to reach 1,000 career kills. It would come in her 72nd career match, which would be second-fastest behind Melissa Walsh (70 matches).

• Creighton is the only unseeded team remaining in the NCAA Tournament. It marks the sixth time in the last seven years that exactly one unseeded team has reached the Elite Eight. The last unseeded team to reach the Final Four was BYU in 2014. That BYU team would defeat Texas in the national semifinals before losing to Penn State in the title tilt.

• Top-12 seeds in the 2016 NCAA Tournament are a whopping 28-5 this year, but 0-2 when facing Creighton, as the Bluejays have already knocked out the fifth-seed (Kansas) and the 12th-seed, Michigan. The Bluejays look to add to their giant-killing ways on Saturday when it takes on fourth-seeded Texas.

• Creighton will be looking to snap a 10-match home winning streak for Texas on Saturday. The Longhorns are 15-1 at home this year (losing only to Wisconsin), and have won 30 straight NCAA Tournament matches at Gregory Gymnasium since a 2006 Regional Final loss to Stanford. The Longhorns are 153-8 since 2007 at Gregory Gymnasium.

• One reason why Creighton is still alive in NCAA Tournament play is that it has been tested on a regular basis by Big 12 teams throughout 2016. Texas will be the sixth match this season in which Creighton has met a Big 12 opponent. Creighton is 3-2 so far, alternating wins and losses. Those three wins are equal to the number of Big 12 members West Virginia (3) and Texas Tech (0)....combined.

•Speaking of the Big 12, Texas finished second in the Big 12 standings to Kansas, a team Creighton already beat on the road last weekend to win the Lawrence sub-Regional.
   Creighton and Kansas played 10 sets this season, with each team winning exactly five sets and 217 points.
   Meanwhile, Texas played nine sets versus Kansas this year, winning five. Texas won 191 points, while Kansas won 181 points.

• All four members of Creighton's coaching staff have experienced a Final Four at one level or another. Kirsten Bernthal Booth led Kirkwood CC to the Final Four in both 2000 and 2001 in the junior college ranks. Assistant coach Angie Oxley Behrens played on Nebraska's undefeated title-winning team in 2000. Assistant coach Ryan Meek led Hendrix to the Final Four last year at the Division III level. Volunteer coach Micah Rhodes was a student manager on Nebraska's 2008 club that reached the Final Four.

• Creighton's victory on Friday proved to be a huge hit across Omaha. After a 113-58 men's basketball win over Longwood before more than 16,000 fans, the fifth set of the Creighton/Michigan volleyball was shown on the big screen at CenturyLink Center Omaha. CenturyLink Center Omaha hosted last year's NCAA Volleyball Final Four, where Texas was swept in the final by Nebraska.

• With 73 kills on Friday, Creighton moved into second place nationally with 1,834 kills this fall.
   Only Ohio State, which has 1,853 kills but was eliminated on Friday, has more.
   The only other teams that is still alive in the NCAA Tournament within 150 kills of Creighton include UCLA (1,793) and Minnesota (1,688).

• Through matches of Friday night, Creighton continues to lead all NCAA Tournament teams in kills (207), attacks (561) and digs (256).
   Individually, Jaali Winters leads all players with 68 kills and 185 attacks, while Lydia Dimke's 173 assists and Brittany Witt's 72 digs are also the most so far in the 2016 NCAA Tournament.

• Creighton will tie a school-record by playing in its 36th match of the season on Saturday. Last year's team finished 27-9 and lost in the Regional Semifinals.

• Creighton is the only remaining school in the 2016 NCAA Tournament that does not a football team, and it is also the only team that participated in a conference tournament.

• Want a scary thought? Of the 10 Creighton women to see time in Friday's win over 12th-seeded Michigan, the Bluejays used just one senior (Lauren Smith).
   The remainder of Creighton's line-up that was used includes three juniors (Lydia Dimke, Marysa Wilkinson and Kenzie Crawford), four sophomores (Samantha Bohnet, Taryn Kloth, Brittany Lawrence and Jaali Winters) and two freshmen (Brittany Witt and Megan Ballenger).

Volleyball Meets No. 5 Texas With Final Four Berth Up For Grabs

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Players Mentioned

Megan Ballenger

Jess Bird

Samantha Bohnet

Kenzie Crawford

Lydia Dimke

Taryn Kloth

Brittany Lawrence

Lauren Smith

Marysa Wilkinson

Jaali Winters

Brittany Witt