Scott Richey: As Nebraska celebrates and Iowa preps, what about Illinois?

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Nebraska set an NCAA volleyball regular season attendance record last September when 15,797 showed up at CHI Health Center Omaha to watch the Cornhuskers take on rival Creighton.

The record was short-lived. Wisconsin drew 16,833 fans to the Kohl Center just nine days later for a Top 25 showdown with Florida.

It was the epitome of a "Hold my beer!" moment. Both in the Badgers' knocking Nebraska off that particular pedestal with the record still fresh and in how the Cornhuskers ultimately chose to respond.

Nebraska wasn't about to be one-upped like that. Not as the most well-supported volleyball program in the country.

The new record Nebraska set Wednesday night in Lincoln, Neb., likely won't ever be matched. Except maybe in Nebraska.

Simply retaking the regular season attendance record from Big Ten rival Wisconsin wasn't enough for the Cornhuskers. They set their sights higher. Much higher. Astronomically higher.

And that's how 92,003 fans filled Memorial Stadium — home to Nebraska football — on Wednesday night. Division II Nebraska-Kearney and Wayne State faced off in the "Volleyball Day in Nebraska" opener.

Then Nebraska handled its business against Omaha.

The results almost didn't matter. Almost.

The fourth-ranked Cornhuskers weren't about to take an "L" with the eyes of the sporting world on them, and easily swept the Mavericks 25-14, 25-14, 25-13 on a night they won't soon forget.

But the sheer magnitude of what was accomplished in Lincoln on Wednesday night is astounding.

Those 92,003 fans packed into Memorial Stadium set a new world record for women's sports, which was set last year when 91,648 showed up at Camp Nou Stadium to watch host Barcelona play Wolfsburg in Champions League action.

Closer to home, the 92,003 fans for "Volleyball Day in Nebraska" easily topped the 90,185 that watched Team USA beat China at the Rose Bowl in the 1999 Women's World Cup final.

Only in Nebraska. Truly.

The Cornhuskers moved into a renovated Bob Devaney Sports Center in 2013. Once the home of Nebraska basketball, it's now the volleyball program's domain. A sellout of the now 8,309-seat venue isn't an expectation.

It's just what happens every match and is the most significant factor in Nebraska volleyball being the only power conference women's program — for any sport — that turns a profit.

Five NCAA championships, five more trips to the national title game and 16 total Final Four appearances perfectly illustrates Nebraska's place in the NCAA volleyball hierarchy. The Cornhuskers are a blue blood.

Iowa women's basketball is operating in a similar space. At least for the moment.

Going with the tried and true method of borrowing somebody else's idea and making it your own, the Hawkeyes will play DePaul in an Oct. 15 exhibition game at Kinnick Stadium. Nearly 40,000 tickets have already been sold for the 69,250-seat home of Iowa football.

Of course, the "Crossover at Kinnick" doesn't happen without a generational talent on the Iowa roster. It's the presence of All-American guard and reigning national player of the year Caitlin Clark that made this happen. She draws a monster crowd even when she's not playing basketball. Just ask everybody that showed up at TPC Deere Run for the John Deere Classic pro-am in July.

But "Volleyball Day in Nebraska" could probably happen every year.

Could either happen at Illinois?

That the Illini would be closer to pulling off what Iowa is doing than what Nebraska achieved Wednesday night is telling. Women's basketball has surpassed volleyball in Champaign on the heels of an NCAA tournament appearance and 15-win improvement in Shauna Green's first season as coach.

The momentum has fully shifted. So has the level of investment.

The Illinois women's basketball team has a $40 million Ubben Basketball Complex and $169.5 million State Farm Center to call home. The financial support to renovate both buildings is generated more by the men's team, but the women's team can reap some of the same benefits.

Illinois volleyball still has 98-year-old Huff Hall as a home base. Some improvements — mostly aesthetic — have happened in the past few years, but it ranks near the bottom of the Big Ten.

Tuesday night's home opener was never going to be "Volleyball Day in Nebraska" big. The announced attendance for the Illini's sweep of Valparaiso was 2,054. The actual attendance far below that half-full Huff Hall number was glaring.

Was it because it was a Tuesday night? Or because it was Valparaiso? Or because every nearby parking lot is now a building or a construction site for a building?

Facilities are already an issue, and the university squeezing out athletics in that regard is only making things worse. There's also no new multi-purpose arena as a savior on the horizon now that hockey at Illinois is no longer on the table.

Illinois volleyball coach Chris Tamas has made the point that Jordyn Poulter developed into an Olympic gold medal-winning setter at spartan Huff Hall and with even scarcer resources playing professionally in Italy. It doesn't seem to be resonating.

The best players from Illinois haven't always wound up in Champaign. The last News-Gazette All-State Player of the Year to pick the Illini was Jocelynn Birks ... in 2010.

The last 12 have gone elsewhere, including Kenna Wollard (Purdue), Ella Wrobel (Wisconsin), Rachel Muisenga (Penn State/Michigan State), Taylor Landfair (Minnesota), Dana Rettke (Wisconsin), Molly Haggerty (Wisconsin), Ali Frantti (Penn State) and Lauren Carlini (Wisconsin) to Illinois' Big Ten rivals.

But even without the state's top talent, Illinois regularly landed nationally-ranked recruiting classes. Bottom-tier facilities aren't helping, and it might mean the Illini's place in the middle of the Big Ten becomes permanent. And that's only if newcomers Oregon, Washington, USC and UCLA don't push them into national volleyball irrelevancy.

Foreign territory for a place like Nebraska. Especially after Wednesday night.