Texas volleyball will be facing 19 feet, 8 inches of combined Wisconsin front line players

TAMPA, Fla. — There is tall.

Then there is volleyball tall.

And then, there is Wisconsin women’s volleyball tall.

It’s 6-foot-9 Anna Smrek standing alongside 6-7 Carter Booth and 6-4 Sarah Franklin — or, depending on the situation, some combination of those players with 6-3 CC Crawford, 6-2 Devyn Robinson or 6-2 Temi Thomas-Ailara.

This is the main challenge facing Texas in an NCAA Tournament national semifinal here Thursday night at Amalie Arena. The defending champion Longhorns — while doing their best to position themselves as an underdog as the only No. 2 seed in a Final Four otherwise populated by No. 1’s — don’t back away from it on any level.

“I think one of the things we have is super-dynamic athletes,” said Texas coach Jerritt Elliott, who saw two of those players — outside hitter Madisen Skinner and middle blocker Asjia O’Neal — named first-team All-Americans on Wednesday by the American Volleyball Coaches Association.

“You know, we have our own physicality,” Elliott added, “we have our own speed and things that we can do. So it's part of the fun matchups. … I think our players are in this great mindset right now, and I think they got a little chip on their shoulder to go out and find a way to make that happen.”

Texas and Wisconsin: two teams on an NCAA collision course

Last weekend, in a regional semifinal against Tennessee, the Longhorns were one point from being eliminated but rallied to win 25-19, 20-25, 23-25, 26-24, 16-14. They followed that with a four-set victory over Stanford, the regional’s No. 1 seed and host.

Now, they bring a 26-4 record, including wins in 21 of their past 22 matches, to their matchup with Wisconsin, which won the NCAA title in 2021 but last season lost in a regional final.

More: Texas volleyball has rebuilt itself into another Final Four team eyeing a title

The Badgers are 30-3, but two of three losses occurred in succession in mid-November in matches that Smrek missed because of injury. Their other loss was at Nebraska on Oct. 21, in five sets (15-13 in the fifth) — and, with Smrek back in the lineup, they routed the Cornhuskers in three sets on Nov. 24 in Madison, Wis.

That’s Nebraska’s only loss going into the other semifinal here, in which the Cornhuskers will play Pittsburgh.

Talk about scaling heights, Texas faces a tall task

Asked to compare herself to Smrek and to say whether there are any differences between them, Texas’ 6-3 senior O’Neal good-naturedly deadpanned: “Yeah. Obviously, she's a lot bigger than I am. A lot taller.”

More: A deeper look at the four NCAA volleyball Final Four teams

Making this more difficult is that Wisconsin — unlike most teams — uses two different players as setters. And the Badgers do this in a way that results in the setter almost always starting points in the back row. That means Wisconsin almost always has three very tall players in the front row while other teams usually have to have the setter rotate across the front row. Playing that way means having a shorter player at the net half the time.

That’s a little less of a problem when your setter is 6-foot-3, like Texas’ Ella Swindle, but it’s a problem, nonetheless.

“I'm going to be swinging for some shots that maybe I don't regularly swing for, but I'm excited,” Skinner said. “It's going to be a new challenge for us.”

Not for all of the Longhorns, however. Junior outside hitter Jenna Wenaas is in her first season at Texas after transferring from Minnesota, where she not only faced Wisconsin twice a season in Big Ten play, but she also played alongside Booth. Booth also transferred after last season, which ended with former Golden Gophers coach Hugh McCutcheon retiring.

Last season, with Wenaas and Booth, Minnesota split matches with Wisconsin.

“I think everyone's aware of the size just looking at them,” Wenaas said. “But, obviously, a lot of confidence in the fact that I was on a team that beat them last year. I think this team is definitely more than capable of winning this game.”

Wisconsin looks tall from top to bottom of its roster

To do that they will need to work over, around and/or through a group of front-row Badgers that includes:

• Two daughters of former NBA players: Smrek (Mike, whose career included two championships with the Los Angeles Lakers) and Booth (Calvin, played 10 season and now is the defending NBA champion Denver Nuggets’ general manager).

• In addition to Booth, three more transfers, each of whom was one of the best players, if not the best, on their former teams when they moved to Wisconsin: Franklin (Michigan State, after 2021 season), Crawford (Kansas, after 2021 season) and Thomas-Ailara (Northwestern, after 2022 season).

• One player who is making a homecoming here: Franklin, who is from Lake Worth, Fla. She was named a first-team All-American on Wednesday, adding to the Big Ten player of the year award she won months after needing surgery for career-threatening blood clots in one of her shoulders. Befitting her style of play, she is nicknamed Frank the Tank — or, as setter Izzy Ashburn called her Thursday, just “Tank.”

But even Franklin can find the Badgers intimidating.

“I hit against them every day in practice, and it is a little demoralizing to be absolutely roofed by Anna or by Carter,” she said.

Booth insisted intimidation isn’t the Badgers’ goal. Winning is.

Intimidation is “nothing that we're trying to do,” she said. “We recognize that our height is a gift, but we also work really hard to still be athletic and make strong, fast moves while having super-long limbs. So, I think that while our height does give us an advantage, we work really hard to actually be able to utilize it.”

Thursday's NCAA semifinals

Pittsburgh (27-5) vs. Nebraska (32-1), 6 p.m., ESPN; Texas (26-4) vs. Wisconsin (30-3), 8:30 p.m., ESPN

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas volleyball must overcome Wisconsin's height advantage up front