IOWA CITY — The Big Ten conference will hold a tournament to decide its volleyball champion for the first time in the history of the league, beginning in 2026.
Iowa head volleyball coach Jim Barnes watches play during the Black & Gold scrimmage at Xtream Arena on Saturday, August 23.
The inaugural Big Ten Volleyball Tournament will pit the top 15 finishers in the regular season standings against each other in a five-day single-elimination format. The tournament will take place at Fishers Event Center in Fishers, Indiana, with the first round slated to take place on Friday, Nov. 20 and concluding with the championship on Wednesday, Nov. 25.
Following a 15th-place finish in the league standings last year with a 6-14 conference mark, the Iowa volleyball program made it a goal to appear in the inaugural Big Ten Tournament.
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“At the beginning of the year, we created a goal sheet,” fourth-year middle hitter Hannah Whittingstall said. “Obviously, we said win all non-conference games before we start, make the Big Ten tournament and then the ultimate goal is to make the NCAA Tournament because it would be such a big step for this program. Each year, we’ve made steps up in the right direction, and that would just be, especially for me, a great way to end my senior season. Hopefully we can do it — I think we can.”
Head coach Jim Barnes, entering his fifth season at the helm in Iowa City, said last season should be a springboard for his 13 returning players.
“Last year, we made big strides,” Barnes said. “They’re taking that experience and building on it.”
Barnes is also excited about the addition of a league tournament after participating in the American Athletic Conference tournament in each of his final two years at Tulane.
“I’ve been all for it,” Barnes said. “I’ve been pushing for it since we got here. It’s good to get all the coaches on board because I think it’s a no-brainer on how exciting it will be, and it’s another championship to play for. It mixes up our season a little bit more. We’ve got a lot of non-conference games — we picked up two or three. There’s a lot of pluses, but I think at the end of the year you’re going to see a lot of excitement with that Big Ten Tournament.
“… It’s one of our goals, of many, to get there and really go as far as we can.”
The Hawkeyes’ 2026 season begins with six straight road contests before the team returns to Xtream Arena in Coralville.
Iowa opens at the Black Knight Invitational in West Point, New York. It will face Army on Friday, Aug. 28 at 5 p.m. (ESPN+), UAlbany on Saturday, Aug. 29 at 2 p.m. and Sacred Heart on Sunday, Aug. 30 at 10 a.m.
The Hawkeyes head to Mississippi the following weekend for matches against Mississippi State on Thursday, Sept. 3 at 7 p.m. and Alabama on Friday, Sept. 4 at 2 p.m. as part of the Big Ten/SEC Challenge.
Barnes also likes the addition of the Big Ten/SEC challenge to the non-conference slate as a way to see new teams and prepare for the rigors of conference play.
“I like the motivation of it,” Barnes said. “Our players are aware and they know it’s SEC teams. We’re going and kind of representing our conference, too. I like that. There’s more things to play for, more motivation to play. It’s on the road and learn how to play on the road because the Big Ten, there’s no harder place to play than on the road in the Big Ten. We’ll go to another place that’s not quite as hard and play the SEC.”
Iowa rounds out its season-opening road trips with a midweek clash against Iowa State in Ames on Tuesday, Sept. 8 at 6:30 p.m. (ESPN+).
The early road tests are by design, according to Barnes.
“We’re going to see a lot,” Barnes said. “We are on the road. We are learning quite a bit on purpose this way. I’ll tell you, from April until now, I don’t know if I’ve had a team improve as much as I’ve seen this group has. They’ve really surprised us how much they’ve improved. We improved over the spring, but at the end we were really catching on, then over the summer — we need to bottle that because we did some great things over the summer.”
The Hawkeyes home opener will be on Thursday, Sept. 10 at 6 p.m. against Southern Illinois to begin the Hawkeye Invitational.
Iowa will host home tournaments on back-to-back weekends with midweek matches against Drake (Sept. 16) and Milwaukee (Sept. 22) before the race to the Big Ten Tournament begins against Ohio State on Friday, Sept. 25.
“I’m so excited,” third-year setter Jenna Meitzler said. “I don’t know why we didn’t do it earlier for real. … To have that competitive tournament, I think that’d be a great environment that a lot of people are going to enjoy watching. I’m really excited to play in it.
“… We’ve probably been in the latter half of the Big Ten. It adds some more purpose and passion for us to go into the season and add that to our bucket list. That’s something we brought up in the preseason. We brought it up in the summer, like we’re making this tournament. We want to go as deep as we can in the tournament. That just adds more to our fuel.”
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.
