Michigan
Xavier
Wolverines to Head to Pittsburgh to Battle Xavier in NCAA Tourney First-Round Match
12/3/2025 11:58:00 AM | Volleyball
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- The University of Michigan volleyball team (21-10) heads to Pittsburgh, Pa., for its first trip to the NCAA Tournament since 2021 and will face No. 8-seeded Xavier (26-4) on Friday (Dec. 5) at 4 p.m. at the Petersen Events Center in Pittsburgh, Pa. The match will be streamed live on ESPN+.
Notes
• Michigan finished the season with a 21-10 record, including an 11-9 Big Ten record to finish ninth in the conference. The Wolverines won nine of their last 12 matches, highlighted by a win over then-19th-ranked Penn State. Last weekend, U-M dropped a tightly-contested five-set match to UCLA and a four-set match to No. 14-ranked USC.
• The Wolverines enter the tournament unseeded and begin with facing off against No.8-seeded Xavier. The winner of the match will face the winner of No.1-seed Pittsburgh and UMBC on Saturday (Dec. 6) at 7 p.m. Michigan is in its first NCAA tournament since 2021 and first under head coach Erin Virtue. In program history, U-M is 24-20 overall and 14-6 in first-round matches at the NCAA Tournament.
• U-M had a strong offensive season with a top-half Big Ten offense and a strong net presence. The Wolverines ranked seventh or better in assists per set (seventh, 12.19), hitting percentage (sixth, .276), kills per set (seventh, 13.30), total assists (sixth, 1,402) and total kills (fifth, 1,530). U-M's hitting percentage is also 20th nationally and is on pace to be the program record for a single season. Michigan has held opponents to a 0.207 hitting percentage, good for fifth in the Big Ten, thanks to 279.5 total blocks ranking fourth in the conference.
• Allison Jacobs leads U-M in kills, kills per set, points and points per set. Jacobs earned All-Big Ten first-team honors for the second consecutive year, this time in unanimous fashion. She has a career-high 448 kills this season. averaging 3.93 kills per set and has added a career-high 33 aces and 60 blocks for 515.5 points and a 4.52 point-per-set average. Jacobs ranks in the top five this season in the Big Ten in many of the same categories, ranking fourth in points and kills, fifth in kills per set and sixth in points per set.
• Serena Nyambio is one of three players to play in every set this season and earned All-Big Ten second-team honors. She leads the team in blocks with 146, ranking sixth in single-season program history. Nyambio became the first Wolverine in the 25-point rally scoring era with 100 blocks in conference play, leading the conference in blocks, and was second among qualified players in blocks per set.
• Jenna Hanes holds a .449 hitting percentage with 178 kills on 345 swings with just 23 errors, on pace for a program record with a minimum of 300 total attempts. She was even better in conference play, hitting .463 with 113 kills on 216 swings and just 13 errors for a kill percentage of .523. She is averaging 0.99 blocks per set in conference games and is at 1.00 block per set overall.
• Ella Demetrician played in 28 matches, including 26 in a row with 14 straight starts, after playing in 26 last season. She has totaled 267 kills on 661 swings, adding 19 aces and 39 blocks for 307 points. She has also contributed defensively, ranking fourth on the team in digs with 180. The sophomore has 15 double-digit-kill matches and has five kills or more in 22 of the 28 matches in which she has played.
• In U-M's 6-2 offense, both opposites have contributed. Cymarah Gordon has totaled 113 kills on 291 swings, adding 50 blocks and 25 digs and appeared in 23 matches and 78 sets, starting the last 12. Gordon has reached double-digit kills three times, including a team-leading 13 kills against UCLA on Nov. 26. Lydia Johnson has 179 kills on a .307 hitting percentage with 41 digs and 64 blocks. She is averaging 2.20 points and 1.85 kills per set, with six double-digit-kill matches and four or more in 20 matches.
• Libero Maddi Cuchran has played in 95 straight matches and 251 straight sets in her career. She has tallied 381 digs this season, for a digs-per-set average of 3.31 and has added 146 assists and 22 aces. Cuchran recorded her first two career double-doubles, doing so in back-to-back matches at Washington and Oregon with 15 digs and 10 assists in both matches. She recently moved into the top 15 on the program's career digs leaderboard with 1,056.
• Despite splitting time at setter, Morgan Burke has led U-M in assists in all but two of her last 74 matches, collecting 753 this season -- more than triple the next-closest Wolverine. She has added 32 service aces and is one behind Jacobs for the team lead. Burke has double-digit assists in every match this season, 20 or more in 18, 30 or more in seven and 50 or more twice.
• Xavier enters the NCAA Tournament with a 26-4 record, with those losses coming against Creighton (Sept. 26, Nov. 23), Marquette and Cincinnati. U-M defeated Cincinnati in the season's opening weekend, and both teams triumphed over their other common opponent, Eastern Michigan. All-time, Michigan is 5-0 against Xavier, with the last matchup coming in 2015.
• Pittsburgh is 26-4, sharing the ACC title with Stanford. The Panthers are a No.1 seed in the tournament and the No. 4 overall seed. All-time, Michigan is 6-3 against Pittsburgh, including a win in the 2018 NCAA Tournament. UMBC won the America East Tournament title and holds a 13-11 record. Michigan has played the Retrievers once, winning in 2012.
