No. 3 Florida, No. 6 Texas and No. 8 Oregon all won on Tuesday night.
Florida swept visiting No. 19 Florida State, while Texas went to UTSA and swept the Roadrunners.
No. 8 Oregon got its Pac-12 season off to a great start by sweeping visiting Oregon State.
And Radford, a new entry into the VolleyballMag.com Mid-Major Poll this week, won its Big South opener to improve to 11-1.
There are 19 more matches on tap Wednesday including three more Pac-12 openers as No. 7 Washington goes to Washington State, Cal goes to No. 4 Stanford and No. 21 USC plays at No. 11 UCLA.
There are three Big Ten-opening matches as No. 13 Purdue plays host to Northwestern, Illinois plays at Indiana and Maryland goes to Ohio State.
The Big 12 also has three openers. TCU goes to West Virginia, Texas Tech plays at Baylor and Kansas State is at Oklahoma.
The SEC has two openers. Tenth-ranked Kentucky goes to Missouri, while Tennessee plays at Arkansas. And in the ACC, Boston College is at Syracuse.
Get all the TV and streaming listings here.
Gators chomp: Florida’s pretty excited about its new pre-game floor show, but the unbeaten Gators (8-0) have equal sizzle once the matches start. They dispatched Florida State 25-21, 25-15, 25-12 as senior middle Rhamat Alhassan had 10 kills, hit .364 and had four blocks, sophomore middle Rachael Kramer had 10 kills and hit .421 to go with four blocks, and senior outside Carli Snyder had 12 kills and 12 digs.
FSU (6-2) hit .106. Milica Kubura led with 13 kills. Natasha Calkins added eight.
“Well, we’ve got 14 players with seven of them facing the Gators for the first time. So, I think there were mixed emotions. There were some that played very scared, there were some that were confident, that they were trying to bring along the others,” Florida State coach Chris Poole admitted. “You know, we are a team that lost a lot from last year. And we know that. We lost three players that were All-Americans. Two of them were senior middles and we replaced that with true freshmen middles. They’re doing great, they’re working hard, they’re getting better. But that’s still a big transition to go to this level.
”And, he added, “I think they got to see and experience what it was like to play against a top-5 program.”
By the way, the Florida floor show:
Texas rolls on: The Longhorns (8-2) won at San Antonio 25-18, 26-24, 25-22 as junior Yaasmeen Bedhart-Ghani had 11 kills and hit .556. Sophomore Micaya White had 17 kills and hit .375 to go with five blocks and freshman Lexi Sun had 13 kills, hit .324 and had 11 digs.
“It’s going to be a tough season,” UT coach Jerritt Elliott said as the Longhorns finished their pre-conference play. “Everyone comes out for Texas and there’s no nights that we get off. So we’ve got to buckle down and be ok with being good for long periods of time. And I don’t feel like we have been great.”
Marijeta Runjic led UTSA (2-10) with 10 kills.
Also: Radford beat Winthrop 25-23, 22-25, 25-19, 25-23 as Maddie Palmer led with 13 kills and 14 digs. Alyssa Carruth had 13 kills and Valeria Gonzalez 12 …
Cal Poly is 11-2. The Mustangs, ranked No. 4 in the VBM Poll, routed UC Davis 25-20, 25-12, 25-19 as Raeann Greisen had 13 kills and hit .867, while Savannah Niemen had 12 kills and hit .409. Torrey Van Winden got eight of her 10 kills in the second set …
McNeese won its Southland opener by beating Nicholls 25-16, 25-17, 25-12. McNeese (9-6) got 12 kills from Shanna Spree, who hit .647 …
Charleston is 11-3 after beating South Carolina State … Bryant won the cross-town battle by sweeping Providence to improve to 9-7 while dropping the Friars to 11-4. Ally Lunsford had 12 kills and .550 to lead Bryant.
