Pitt Volleyball Ready For a Top 5 Battle, but ESPN Can't Be Bothered

Only 19 days remain until Selection Sunday. The sport's most dominant player is going up against the school with the most National Titles in a Top 5 showdown that has huge implications for NCAA Tournament hosting and could ultimately determine a conference champion.

And if this were basketball, safe to say you would be able to watch it on linear TV.

Alas, #3 Pitt at #5 Stanford in women's volleyball this Friday Night is destined for the streaming world of ACCNX – that is, for however many of you still have access to ACCNX amid a lingering YouTube TV carriage dispute between Disney and Google.

To ESPN's credit, the folks in Bristol have made significant strides in covering volleyball over the last few seasons. There are more matches on the main channels ESPN and ESPN2 than ever before, and the coverage itself looks great. Come December, we'll get to see each Elite Eight match on national TV with fewer overlaps, and the National Championship has even muscled its way into an ABC timeslot for the last couple of seasons.

This is not because women's volleyball is some charity case. More people are discovering that this is a fun sport to watch on TV and pushing ratings ever higher. ESPN programmers have made NCAA Volleyball into their main counter-programming for NFL Sundays and – with a couple of exceptions that I've previously reported – the ratings have held their own.

November, however, is a different story.

In November, the weeknights and Friday nights that Bristol once used for volleyball are usually turned over to college basketball (both men's and women's, I should note). This makes sense; even the lousiest of early-season basketball games typically out-draw most volleyball matches if a big-name school like Duke, Florida or North Carolina is attached.

Speaking of North Carolina, ESPN has extracted one of its trademark 9 PM Eastern start times for UNC Men's Basketball's game against North Carolina Central on ACC Network, so that spot is out for a 10 PM ET Pitt-Stanford volleyball match. ESPN and ESPN2 have their own mix of football and basketball too.

But here's the thing: Pitt and Stanford (featuring Olivia Babcock) would have a ready-made spot on ESPNU without bumping any other game. That line on the channel guide on Friday shows only a WVU-Duke men's basketball contest at the Greenbrier from 7 PM to 9 PM Eastern. After that? All taped programming, free and open for a live event.

I recognize that there is more involved in getting a match onto ESPNU than simply dropping a file from one folder into another. Nationally-televised broadcasts necessitate far-ahead planning and a bigger crew than the ACCNX streams, which are typically produced in-house by the schools that are hosting the match. The die was cast for this months ago, even knowing that a matchup like Pitt vs. Stanford would likely end up as a Top 10 or Top 5 battle.

The new ratings records and attention that volleyball has commanded over the past few years? They only happen when there exists a virtuous cycle of fan interest leading to better showcases leading to more fan interest leading to better showcases... you get the point.

It would be marvelous if this could be the last time I have to write some version of this "ESPN, please don't give volleyball the short shrift" column. Maybe it happens in 2026 that every match worthy of the national-TV treatment GETS the national-TV treatment.

In the meantime, see you on the stream this Friday night for Pitt and Stanford -- both 13-1 in ACC play and vying for the top spot all alone.

Brooke Mosher Hurt, Hopefully Not For Long

On the very first ball of Sunday's match against Virginia, Pitt's starting setter Brooke Mosher landed on the foot of teammate Bre Kelley while coming down from a block attempt. Mosher left with an injured left ankle and did not return.

We don't know how the serious the injury is, and Pitt head coach Dan Fisher would sooner give up eating tacos for life than be forthcoming on injury news. My main hope is that Mosher's time on the sidelines will be less than that of Dagmar Mourits, who has been out for four weeks and counting with her own ankle injury.

Other than Olivia Babcock, Mosher is the player Pitt would least like to lose for the NCAA Tournament. She has performed admirably in trying to fill the setting shoes of Rachel Fairbanks. And if the #1 job of a Pitt setter is Make Babcock Look Good, then you can put a big checkmark there.

Backup setter Haiti Tautua'a was ready to go after Mosher's injury, and quarterbacked Pitt to a sweep in Mosher's absence.

"Something I really liked is I thought we got better as the match went out, especially offensively," Fisher said after Sunday's match. "I thought we didn't skip a beat with Haiti out there. She got a lot of our hitters involved. I was pleased to get the win."

"She's been killing it in practice," added outside hitter Blaire Bayless. "I think that just shows how hard she's been working off the court, and her connection with all of us is great. Once Brooke went out, we knew that we had a great player coming in to take over the offense."

Tautua'a is more than capable of leading Pitt into the Bay Area this weekend, but I'm hoping both Mosher and Mourits heal up and are ready to go soon.