The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
Blazer Volleyball Schedules Tough Competition For 2010
5/12/2010 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
May 12, 2010
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- In addition to a new Conference USA regular season format, the 2010 UAB volleyball schedule features a loaded slate of early-season tournaments, leading fifth-year head coach Kerry Messersmith to call it her most challenging schedule yet.
The Blazers will play a total of nine matches against teams that finished in the top 50 of the RPI last season and 18 against squads that ended the year in the top 80. Seven of UAB's opponents this coming fall played in the 2009 NCAA Championship.
UAB opens its season Aug. 27-28 with a tournament at Georgia Tech, the first of four non-conference tournaments over the first month of the season. The Blazers will also play in events at Alabama (Sept. 3-4), Middle Tennessee (Sept. 10-11) and TCU (Sept. 17-18).
Those tournaments feature a cast of high quality opponents in teams like Ohio (RPI 26 in 2009), Middle Tennessee (32), TCU (34), Furman (48), Georgia Tech (49), Albany (58) and Indiana (78).
The newly reformatted Conference USA schedule opens Sept. 24-25 as the Blazers host SMU for a pair of matches at Bartow Arena. For the first time, the conference has gone to a 20-match league schedule and eliminated the postseason tournament.
"This is the strongest schedule we've ever had," Messersmith said. "With no conference tournament, you really have to change your philosophy in a couple of areas.
"For one, you have to build up your non-conference schedule to help your postseason chances, which we have done. You also have to coach a little differently. You used to try to get your team to peak for the tournament, but now you'll really have to find ways to keep your team playing at a consistently high level throughout the season."
The new format calls for teams to play nine league opponents twice and two opponents once. Marshall and East Carolina are the two C-USA schools the Blazers will face just one time this season.
Each team will also have two weekends in which they play the same team twice at the same venue. The first such weekend for UAB is the SMU weekend to open conference play at home. The other is a road weekend featuring back-to-back matches at Tulsa, Oct. 9-10.
Conference USA is coming off another strong season in 2009. In the final RPI last year, six C-USA programs -- Rice (31), Tulane (38), Southern Miss (56), Tulsa (62), SMU (73) and Marshall (80) -- were listed among the top 80, while Rice and Tulane represented the league in the NCAA tournament.
UAB will play a total of 10 home matches at Bartow Arena in 2010 with all of them coming in league play. In addition to the Sept. 24-25 matches with SMU, the Blazers will also host East Carolina (Oct. 1), Rice (Oct. 15), Houston (Oct. 17), Tulane (Oct. 29), Southern Miss (Oct. 31), UTEP (Nov. 19), UCF (Nov. 21) and Memphis (Nov. 27).
The Blazers are coming off their fifth consecutive winning season after posting a 17-16 record in 2009. UAB has played in the NCAA tournament twice in the past four years.
