When then-No. 22 USC women’s volleyball was upset by an unranked UCLA squad in Westwood a month ago, the team sat 2-4 in conference play — a mirror opposite of its 4-2 start the year before.

After that loss, which Head Coach Brad Keller described as a “wakeup call,” the No. 17 Trojans (19-5, 10-4 Big Ten) have rattled off eight straight conference wins, something they haven’t done in a decade — back when former Head Coach Mick Haley, the all-time winningest coach in USC women’s volleyball history, was in his final years with the program. 

USC now heads into a weekend slate of games at home facing its biggest challenge yet. With a Friday appetizer against Rutgers’ Scarlet Knights (11-15, 2-12), the Trojans are then set to face the behemoth No. 1 Nebraska Cornhuskers (24-0, 14-0) on Sunday — who have vanquished nearly every single member of the Big Ten with ease — in front of a sold-out Galen Center crowd for the first time in USC women’s volleyball history.

“Nebraska is a big game … But I wouldn’t treat that game [differently] than what I would treat Rutgers,” redshirt sophomore outside hitter London Wijay said Monday on Trojans Live. “Keeping that level mindset.”

Undefeated Goliath comes to town

Galen Center’s 10,258 seats will be packed to the brim with fans dressed in two different shades of red. USC announced on Nov. 5 that the game was sold out, and one can’t help but think that Nebraska’s continually impressive status this season is a big reason.

The Cornhuskers look like they could join an incredibly rare pantheon of teams, including the 2003 Trojan squad, in going undefeated in the regular season and winning the national championship.

The historic trajectory becomes increasingly believable when stats across all sides of the court seem to prove it: They have not dropped a set since early September, and their hitting percentage as a team is 0.348 — 0.040 higher than the second-highest team, No. 4 Texas. Additionally, they have the highest kill per set rate in the Big Ten at 14.67, and their opponents’ hitting percentage is a minuscule 0.121, the lowest in the Big Ten.

That offensive excellence comes from several players. The middle blocker duo of junior Andi Jackson and senior Rebekah Allick has the top two highest hitting percentages of all qualified hitters in the Big Ten, and junior outside hitter Harper Murray leads the team in kills while maintaining the ninth highest kill per set rate in the conference. 

Junior setter Bergen Reilly, who has won Big Ten Setter of the Year the last two years, has been the heart of the Cornhusker offense and sits at a 10.26 assists per set rate.

Nebraska’s defense is numerically similar to USC’s, with both teams sitting top three in blocks per set, digs per set and opponent hitting percentage in the Big Ten.

Many players can receive credit for helping make such a stiff defense. Five Trojans have 160 digs or more, with freshman libero Taylor Deckert leading the way at 285, while the same number of Trojans have over 50 blocks, with redshirt sophomore Leah Ford totaling the highest count at 79.

In comparison, while only four Cornhuskers have over 160 digs — junior libero Laney Choboy has the most at 216 — and only two have over 50 blocks, the questionably lower totals of their counting stats can be answered with a simple fact: They win too quickly to accrue high counting stats.

Nebraska’s Jackson, Reilly and Choboy were all given different Player of the Week honors alongside USC’s freshman opposite hitter Abigail Mullen last week — the first of her career — and it’s clear to see why. Together, the three anchor a squad that operates less like a volleyball team and more like a robot, systematically mowing teams down in three sets. Only four matches in the Cornhuskers’ season have gone past a sweep, all of which have been against ranked teams. 

However, even with its back against the wall, USC isn’t backing down from a fight and will approach the Nebraska match just as it would any other.

Trojans and Knights set for dual of top setters

The Scarlet Knights haven’t had a great relationship with women’s volleyball recently, with 12 straight losing seasons preceding this year. They haven’t fared much better this season, sitting at second-to-last in the Big Ten. Yet, this year still marks the first time they’ve won over 10 games overall since 2012.

Rutgers is primarily led by the sophomore duo of setter Lily Bolen and outside hitter Aspen Maxwell. Bolen is fourth in the Big Ten for total assists at 927 and sixth in assists per set at 10.08, just below Reilly in the Big Ten rankings. Bolen and USC’s star freshman setter Reese Messer, who has the fifth most assists per set in the NCAA, are the only two underclassmen in the Big Ten with more than 900 assists.

Bolen has also done a good job of spreading out the Rutgers offense, as five different Knights have 170 or more kills. Maxwell is Bolen’s favorite target, though, with 327 kills — the sixth most in the Big Ten and more than any Trojan. 

Other Knights have found different ways to contribute, like sophomore middle blocker Natalie Robinson, who has the sixth-highest hitting percentage out of all qualified hitters in the Big Ten, and senior outside hitter Lexi Visintine, who is tied for first in the Big Ten with 41 service aces. 

Although Rutgers leads the country in service aces and service aces per set, USC’s wins earlier this month against teams like Northwestern (15-10, 5-8) and Minnesota (17-6, 7-5), who have the first and fifth most service aces in the country, respectively, show that they’re capable of beating teams who are efficient from the end lines. 

Bolen will be at odds in game with Messer, who’s one of the best setters in the country and the offensive engine for this Trojan team. Similarly, Maxwell, Visintine and company will be hard-pressed to find a duo with as much chemistry as Wijay and Mullen.

Wijay leads the team in kills and has been USC’s firework in their eight-game win streak, averaging just under 17 kills across the span, and where she falters, Mullen — who, in her own right, is second on the team in kills and has the fourth most service aces in the country at 38 — is there to pick up the slack.

This was especially the case in Sunday’s 3-1 win against Washington (10-14, 5-9), where Mullen equaled Wijay with 15 kills and added a career-high 17 digs. 

USC will play Rutgers on Friday at 7 p.m. before facing Nebraska on Sunday at noon. Both games are at Galen Center.