{"id":88732,"date":"2025-12-15T16:45:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T16:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/88732\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T16:45:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T16:45:07","slug":"inside-a-magical-wisconsin-volleyball-evening-in-austin-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/88732\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside a magical Wisconsin Volleyball evening in Austin, Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I saw that\u00a0Kelly Sheffield\u2019s Wisconsin Badgers had been stuck with a 3-seed<\/a>, I was justifiably irritated. It seemed as if the NCAA Committee was not properly considering just\u00a0how strong the Badgers had looked down the stretch. Drawing the No. 1 Texas Longhorns in one of the toughest\u00a0places to play in college volleyball was also far from ideal.<\/p>\n

But I eventually found a silver lining, at least for me: I\u2019d be able to attend a Badger Volleyball match in Austin. Suddenly, I didn\u2019t hate Wisconsin\u2019s draw nearly as much.<\/p>\n

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There were several moments that made this night special, not the least of which was that I was able to experience it with my son. Another massive part of the amazing vibes was the incredible atmosphere at\u00a0Gregory Gymnasium, an ancient 4,000-seat sardine can of noise and manic energy, where the fans are almost as close to the action as in Cameron Indoor at Duke.<\/p>\n

A DJ kept up a steady mix of dance club jams, while two dueling bands\u2013Wisconsin\u2019s and Texas\u2019s\u2013were each trying to outdo\u00a0the other (along with the cheerleaders and mascot, which was Bucky with no Bevo in sight). And make no mistake, the Horns fans came to play. They were as loud and engaged as anything I\u2019ve seen at the Field House, right down to the National Champion Texas Men\u2019s Swim Team disrobing one new layer the better Texas did in a given game,\u00a0until it was a full-on, PG-13 Speedo show.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s one sure way to quiet down a boisterous group of fans, and that\u2019s by your volleyball squad controlling most of the match, as the\u00a0Badgers so deftly did on the way to a 25-22, 25-21, 20-25, 25-19 victory<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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While Texas always felt like they were prowling and just about to steal things back\u2013most notably by taking a 4-0 lead at the beginning of the fourth set after having won the third\u2013Sheffield\u2019s crew, led by stalwarts Mimi Colyer (23 kills), Charlie Fuerbringer (57 assists), and Carter Booth (11 kills, two blocks), stayed calm and collected, always had an answer, and were simply the better volleyball team on this magical night 1,183 miles from the Kohl Center.<\/p>\n

After the furious final point sealed the deal for Bucky, I hightailed down a level to where a wild Badger celebration was unfurling. Getting the chance to sing\u00a0Varsity\u00a0and polka joyfully to\u00a0The Bud Song\u00a0on the floor of an SEC team\u2019s barn was incredible and I will never forget it, even if me yelling to Coach that he\u2019s \u2018the best Sheffield ever in Wisconsin\u2019 (in hindsight, an overly arcane Wisconsin sports reference involving a long ago Brewer) was a middling riff at best.<\/p>\n

Yes, a\u00a0horrifying Packers loss had ruined my day, but the Wisconsin Volleyball\u00a0team soon sent my beaten-down sports fan soul soaring again on a cold but perfect night in the capital of Texas.<\/p>\n

The Wisconsin Badgers were headed back to the Final Four. And everything in the world, for just a brief moment, felt right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When I saw that\u00a0Kelly Sheffield\u2019s Wisconsin Badgers had been stuck with a 3-seed, I was justifiably irritated. It…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88733,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,42088,537,4859],"class_list":{"0":"post-88732","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-austin","9":"tag-austin-headlines","10":"tag-austin-news","11":"tag-ncaa-committee","12":"tag-texas-longhorns","13":"tag-wisconsin-badgers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}