IOWA CITY — The Iowa volleyball team opened the 2026 season 3-0 with wins over Army, UAlbany and Sacred Heart.
Iowa head volleyball coach Jim Barnes watches play during the Black & Gold scrimmage at Xtream Arena on Saturday, August 23.
The Hawkeyes dropped just one set — the second set against the Great Danes 29-27 — while cruising to a first-place finish at the Black Knight Invitational.
While adversity came sparingly on the court, Iowa faced plenty of challenges getting to West Point, New York and back to Iowa City.
Storms in Chicago forced the Hawkeyes change plans leaving the Windy City. Instead of landing at LaGuardia in New York City, the team landed in Syracuse late Thursday evening and bussed more than three hours south to West Point. Iowa arrived at its team hotel at 4 a.m. Friday morning — 13 hours before its season opener.
Head coach Jim Barnes said he did not want the challenging travel day to impact his team’s mentality.
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“It was very challenging,” Barnes said. “We talked about it as a team that we can allow weakness to come into what we say, or we can only talk about strength. And, I go, here we are. We got a lot to complain about, or are we just going to talk about the game and winning and being our best?”
The Hawkeyes chose the latter and earned a 25-23, 25-15, 25-17 win over the host Black Knights to open their season.
“We got a really mature group,” Barnes said. “I was happy to see that.”
Iowa also faced travel woes on its way back from West Point, arriving in Iowa City at 4 a.m. Monday morning after flight delays forced the team to take a flight to Chicago and bus the remainder of the trip home.
“It was a tough travel deal,” Barnes said. “… The players are like, was that the toughest trip you’ve ever taken, Coach, in all your years? I go, no, my first 12 years, we drove 15-passenger vans and got home at three in the morning. This was, I didn’t have to drive and have your lives in my hand. So, no, this was not the hardest.”
Barnes also noted a few on-court struggles his team learned from. He specifically noted the first set against Army and the second set against UAlbany as instances where his team began to develop resiliency.
“We talked about in these matches, especially early, you’re going to get out of sync,” Barnes said. “At some point, some team’s going to get you out of sync or you’re going to get yourself out of sync. And, how do we handle them? How do we shorten them? How do we do that?
“In the first match, we got out of sync, but pulled it together. … We managed it well enough to take care of that and then we played really well. Then, when it happened against Albany, we didn’t handle it fast enough, and we paid the price on that side of it. Then, played really well the next two sets to finish them off.”
Barnes said that was as important a lesson to learn early as any.
“They learn quickly and understand how important it is that we self correct,” Barnes said. “Any team can beat you if you don’t get it back to going quickly.”
Up Next: Iowa returns to action with matches against Mississippi State (Thursday, 7 p.m.) and Alabama (Friday, 2 p.m.) in Starkville, Mississippi as part of the Big Ten/SEC Challenge. Both matches will be broadcast on the Hawkeye Radio Network.
Ethan Petrik is a University of Iowa beat writer for the Lee Enterprises network. Follow him on X or send him an email at ethan.petrik@wcfcourier.com.
