Wisconsin Volleyball Schedule 2026

2026 Season Outlook

Wisconsin opens at No. 6 with a roster that looks almost nothing like the one that reached the 2025 national semifinal. The elite senior class is gone - Mimi Colyer and Carter Booth among them - and Kelly Sheffield replaced it with the No. 1 overall recruiting class in the country: nine freshmen, including four top-10 ranked athletes in Audrey Flanagan, Lynney Tarnow, Halle Thompson and Isabelle Hoppe. The continuity is at setter. Junior Charlie Fuerbringer returns as a First Team All-Big Ten selection and an AVCA National Player of the Year Watch List pick; she put up 63 assists against Kentucky in last December's semifinal.

Joining her on that watch list is Jaela Auguste, an All-American middle who transferred in from Florida. Senior Eva Travis arrives from UC Santa Barbara as a two-time All-Big West honoree. Sheffield tested the group immediately with a rematch against No. 3 Kentucky, the team that ended Wisconsin's 2025 season, followed by No. 7 Louisville the next night. The Badgers dropped the first and swept the second, holding Louisville to .234 while freshman Audrey Flanagan led all Wisconsin hitters with 13 kills in her second collegiate match.

One structural change reshapes the whole year: the Big Ten has cut conference play from 20 matches to 17 and added its first-ever postseason tournament, November 20-25 in Fishers, Indiana. For the first time in league history the Big Ten champion will be crowned on a court rather than in the standings - and Wisconsin plays Nebraska only once, in Lincoln.

Program History & Tradition

Wisconsin won its first NCAA championship in 2021, beating Nebraska 3-2 in front of an NCAA-record crowd of 18,755 at Nationwide Arena in Columbus. The Badgers have remained a fixture at the top of the sport since, reaching the 2025 NCAA National Semifinal before falling to Kentucky 3-2. The UW Field House, opened in 1930, is one of the most difficult environments in college volleyball, with a raised student section directly behind the service line. All 12 Wisconsin home matches in 2026 are played there.

Head Coach Spotlight

Kelly Sheffield is in his 14th season at Wisconsin, having arrived in 2013. He delivered the program's first NCAA championship in 2021 with a 3-2 win over Nebraska in front of an NCAA-record crowd of 18,755, and has returned to multiple Final Fours since, most recently the 2025 national semifinal. His 2026 recruiting work is the story of this season: the No. 1 overall class in the country, with four top-10 ranked athletes, arriving to replace an elite graduating group. Six Badgers - Auguste, Egan, Flanagan, Fuerbringer, Halle Thompson and Wardlow - trained at USA Volleyball's Women's National Team Championship Training in Colorado in February.

What to Watch in 2026

Under the Big Ten's new single round-robin, Wisconsin and Nebraska meet only once in 2026, on October 10 in Lincoln - one night for the rivalry that produced the 2021 national championship match. Penn State visits the UW Field House on November 8 in the biggest home date of the schedule. The Opening Spike Classic in Pittsburgh on August 28 and 30 stacks No. 5 Stanford and No. 4 Pittsburgh into a single weekend on Pitt's floor, and the September 13 trip to No. 2 Texas at Moody Center closes a Texas swing that includes Texas A&M two days earlier. The season then ends somewhere new: the inaugural Big Ten Volleyball Tournament, November 20-25 at the Fishers Event Center, where 15 of 18 teams qualify.

Wisconsin Volleyball 2026 Schedule Overview

Schedule and scores checked October 12, 2026 · Official source: uwbadgers.com

The 2026 Wisconsin volleyball schedule runs 27 matches - 10 non-conference and 17 in the Big Ten - from the season opener against Kentucky in Milwaukee on August 21 to the regular-season finale at home against Northwestern on November 17. Twelve are at the UW Field House, and every Wisconsin home match this season is played there. The Big Ten then holds its first-ever conference tournament, November 20-25 at the Fishers Event Center in Fishers, Indiana, where 15 of the league's 18 teams qualify. The No. 6 Badgers open Kelly Sheffield's 14th season.

The conference has cut league play from 20 matches to 17 and moved to a single round robin, which means Wisconsin faces every Big Ten opponent exactly once - including Nebraska, and that meeting is in Lincoln on October 10. Non-conference play is unusually front-loaded: Kentucky and Louisville at the Jeep AVCA First Serve in Milwaukee on August 21 and 22, Stanford and Pittsburgh at the Opening Spike Classic in Pittsburgh on August 28 and 30, Florida and Auburn at home for the Big Ten/SEC Challenge on September 2 and 3, then Texas A&M and Texas in Texas on September 11 and 13. Big Ten play opens at home against Oregon on September 24. Full dates, times, TV assignments and results are below.