For any other program in the country, a 33-1 record and a run to the Elite Eight in Dani Busboom Kelly's first season at the helm would be considered an unqualified success. But the standards are higher for the Nebraska Cornhuskers volleyball team. Especially after a 33-0 start to the season, where even lost sets were scarce.
Certainly, once a team gets to the quarter finals of the NCAA Tournament, the level of competition is higher. But that doesn't really take away the pain, considering that one of the hallmarks of NU's program is that they routinely whollop Top 10 and Top 5 teams. Adding to this loss was on their home court, and the pain is obvious and surprising.
Most painful of all is that it marks another season where the Nebraska Cornhuskers looked like they were not just an excellent team, but head and shoulders the best team. And yet, this version of the Huskers won't even make the Final Four.
Nebraska Cornhuskers showed no quit, but fell short against Texas A&M
Instead, Nebraska lost 22-25, 22-25, 25-20, 37-35,- _ -, to Texas A&M. It just had to be Trev Alberts' new program, didn't it? That really had to be the team that ended this season?
Once again, players like Harper Murray, Rebekah Allick, and Laney Choboy, who have come so close to winning it all essentially every year they've been here, will sit home again, wondering what went wrong and what they could have done differently.
The silver lining is that Dani Busboom Kelly's second team will be incredibly talented as well. They'll lose Maisie Boeriger, Allick, Taylor Landfair, and Allie Sczech (who was injured in warmups and missed the match against Texas A&M) to graduation, but there's a ton returning.
There are young, talented players who just finished their first season, such as Virginia Adriano. Murray, Choboy, Andi Jackson, and Bergen Reilly will be seniors next year and hungrier than ever.
That doesn't take the pain away today, though. The pain that even though they battled as hard as they could in the fourth set, getting 10 set points, before finally winning it 37-35 and pushing it to a fifth set, they couldn't find a way to get over the hump, losing the final set by inches, 15 -13. And because of that they're dealing with falling short of the National Title again. Nebraska will enter the offseason with unfinished business angry and looking for a better finish in 2026.