Shainah Joseph (left) and Rhamat Alhassan (right) are just two of the many bright personalities on this year's team.
8 Things to Know About The 2017 Gators
Friday, August 25, 2017 | Volleyball
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No. 12 Florida opens the season Friday at 7 p.m. in the O'Dome against top-ranked Texas
By: Zach Dirlam
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The Gators open their 2017 campaign against a pair of top-5 opponents Friday (Aug. 25) and Saturday (Aug. 26) night. (Follow this link for more information about those matches.)
Before those marquee matchups get underway (and before you help us pack 6,000 fans into the O'Dome Friday night), let's take a look at the eight things you need to know about this year's Florida volleyball team.
1. Florida debuted at No. 12 in the AVCA Division I Coaches' Poll, marking the 26th consecutive season the Gators are preseason top-15 team. The streak runs all the way back to 1992, and only Nebraska and Stanford boast longer streaks.
Florida, which won a share of its 22nd SEC title last year, was also picked No. 1 in the SEC Preseason Coaches Poll, edging Kentucky by a single point.
Fitting start for the largest senior class in ???? history!
2. (Almost) everyone is back. The Gators return five of six starters and their libero, as well as 14 of 16 letterwinners from their SEC title-winning 2016 squad. Last year's team led the nation in hitting percentage for a second consecutive season and the third time since 2011.
Florida is one of two Division I programs to lead the nation in hitting percentage more than twice since the NCAA began tracking it in 1994.
The lone starter lost to graduation was a big one, though: four-time All-American Alex Holston. The 2014 SEC Player of the Year ranked fifth in career kills (1,506) and points (1,712), eighth in career attacks (3,225), and ninth in career kills per set (3.40) in the Florida record books.
Still, four of those returning starters—Rhamat Alhassan, Caroline Knop, Allie Monserez, and Carli Snyder—earned All-America accolades in 2016. Alhassan, a three-time All-American, is the most accomplished of the group and is popping up on the national radar entering the 2017 campaign.
This is quite the list @ra_montie finds herself on ??
3. The Gators are home again. After playing last year's home matches in the Lemerand Athletic Center (the team's practice gym), Florida returns to the O'Dome (now Exactech Arena at the Stephen C. O'Connell Center) following the $64.5-million renovation project with 18 regular season home matches--the most since 1997.
What happened in 1997? The Gators went 17-1 in those home matches and eventually reached the NCAA Semifinals.
4. Big matches are on the docket. Lots of 'em. Season-opening clashes with No. 1 Texas and No. 5 Nebraska are just the beginning.
All in all, the Gators face 10 teams who made last year's NCAA Tournament (nine of which will come to the O'Dome) and seven teams who garnered a preseason ranking (six of them come to Gainesville). Top-20 matchups coming the way of Gators fans in September feature No. 11 North Carolina (Sep. 3) in Puerto Rico, and No. 17 Michigan State (Sep. 9) and No. 15 Florida State (Sep. 12) in Gainesville.
Fans took notice, gobbling up all the reserved season tickets. Don't worry, general admission season tickets are still available for $35. Might want to order them soon, though.
5. No shortage of experience for these Gators. They feature five seniors, tying the largest class in program history. Quite a difference from last year's team, which had just one senior and nine newcomers.
Three of the aforementioned All-Americans—Alhassan, Knop, Snyder—are seniors for the Orange and Blue.
6. Who will replace Holston? That is one of the few questions surrounding the Gators right now.
Holston was one of the most decorated players in school history. (Photo: Jim Burgess)
In a technical sense, fifth-year senior Shainah Joseph will, at long last, take Holston's place at opposite. It will be the third position in five years for Joseph, but her skillset should make for a smooth transition rather than another lengthy adjustment and learning process.
Replacing Holston's production, however, will be a group effort. Newcomer Paige Hammons' passing is expected to aide the distribution, as is the emergence of both redshirt freshmanMia Sokolowski and sophomore Cheyenne Huskey.
7. Two more major milestones are within reach for head coach Mary Wise this season.
Wise, now in her 27th year leading the Gators, enters the 2017 campaign with 794 career wins at Florida, the 11th-most by a coach at one school in NCAA history (all three divisions). She also boasts 875 career victories—eighth-most among active NCAA coaches and fourth-most among active Division I coaches—across 30 seasons of collegiate coaching.
If the Gators win 25 matches (bear in mind, they have done so each of the past 26 seasons), Wise will become the second female coach in NCAA history to reach the 900-win mark. Peggy Martin, who won 1,282 matches in 41 seasons at Central Missouri and Spring Hill, is the only other female to do so.
8. The goal: bring that ever-elusive first national title to Gainesville.
Florida has made seven NCAA Semifinals appearances during the Wise era (established 1991), something only six other programs can claim. Their 794 wins during that span trail only Penn State's 801 for the national lead. They are one of only four teams to make each of the last 26 NCAA Tournaments. Their 66 NCAA Tournament wins (65 of which belong to Wise) are the eighth-most in Division I history.
But that NCAA title has remained just out of reach. And the Gators have not advanced to the NCAA Semifinals since 2003, when they faced USC for the national title.
Given all this veteran-laden team returns, there are plenty of reasons to believe this could very well be the Gators' year.
