As Iowa volleyball continues rebuild, in-state talent will be ‘core of our team’

CORALVILLE — Delaney McSweeney has enjoyed being back home.

The 6-foot-7 Iowa volleyball middle hitter can make the 45-mile drive to Center Point for home-cooked meals, and her family can visit her on her August birthday without having to board a flight.

“I get to see my parents so much more and my sister,” said McSweeney, who transferred from Wake Forest ahead of the 2022 season. “Not even just that, but people from my community. I have friends I haven’t seen in years that are coming up and they’ll catch me at a game.”

Whether second-year Iowa volleyball coach Jim Barnes can convince more of the state’s top talent to stay home like McSweeney has done could be the key for whether the Hawkeyes can break through in a highly competitive conference and region as a whole.

“We got to get the best ones in the state,” Barnes said in the depths of Coralville’s Xtream Arena. “We’re fighting for them. That 2025 class we’ve been recruiting hard, and we’re right there with the top kids in the state. But there’s a lot of talent in the region, and so those are always going to be the core of our team."

Six Big Ten teams are ranked in the preseason AVCA Top 25 — No. 2 Wisconsin, No. 5 Nebraska, No. 7 Minnesota, No. 8 Penn State, No. 14 Ohio State and No. 16 Purdue. Another two teams in neighboring states — No. 12 Marquette and No. 18 Creighton from the Big East — are ranked as well, adding to a competitive recruiting landscape.

Some of those ranked Big Ten heavyweights have often picked up recruits out of the Hawkeyes’ backyard.

Devyn Robinson of Ankeny has been a mainstay at Wisconsin — the preseason favorite to win the uber-competitive Big Ten. She has been a first-team all-Big Ten honoree and third-team AVCA All-American in two of the last three seasons.

To the west, Nebraska brought in Madi and Hayden Kubik of West Des Moines. PrepVolleyball.com ranked Madi as the fourth-best recruit in the 2019 class and Hayden as the 18th-best recruit in the 2022 class.

Madi Kubik was a third-team All-American in 2021 and an All-America honorable mention in her three other seasons at Nebraska.

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Winning over those recruits is not an easy task, especially when considering the disparities in success between Iowa and its Big Ten neighbors.

Wisconsin won a national title in 2021 and was the national runner-up in 2019. Nebraska was the national runner-up in 2021 and 2018 and won national titles in 2015 and 2017.

Iowa, on the other hand, has not had a winning record in conference play since 2000 — before any current recruits were even born.

Barnes pointed to how he treats his players as a way to help overcome that gap.

“A lot of club coaches are telling their players you want to go play at Iowa because (of how) we treat our players,” Barnes said. “The transfers we’ve had come in are telling their club coaches, hey, this experience here compared to where they were is night and day.”

Anna Davis, a middle hitter who followed Barnes from Tulane to Iowa, backed up Barnes’ words about player treatment.

“I don’t think I’ve met another person or another coach that cares about their players as much as he does,” Davis said. “It’s not just who we are as players, but who we are as people.”

The Hawkeyes are coming off a 4-16 record in Big Ten play last year, and outside expectations are not any better this year.

Barnes’ Big Ten peers picked the Hawkeyes to finish 13th in the preseason coaches’ poll.

The Big Ten is not expected to get any easier in 2024 as Oregon, Washington, USC and UCLA join the conference. All four teams finished last year in the top 60 of RPI.

“It’s going to be some unbelievable volleyball,” Barnes said. “We’re just going to do everything we can to work our way up through that league and take advantage of it.”

While Iowa’s 12th-place finish may not seem like climbing the Big Ten ladder, some moral victories leave the team optimistic for 2023.

The Hawkeyes took then-No. 5 Purdue and then-No. 14 Penn State to five sets last year. They also had a five-set win over a Michigan team that was closer to the middle of the pack.

“That was a huge moment for our program, showing what we can do,” McSweeney said of the Michigan win. “We can’t be underestimated. We are going in the right direction. … It left a lot of people hungry for what we’re going to do this year.”

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com