IOWA CITY — Jim Barnes called his shot.
Iowa's players celebrate a point during an NCAA volleyball match against Drake at Xtream Arena in Coralville on Wednesday, Sept. 16.
“We’re about to go on a nice long run of wins, I predict,” Barnes said after Iowa’s 3-0 sweep of Drake last Wednesday. “This team’s hungry and talented. We need the fans to come out and support us.”
Now, the Iowa volleyball coach has his team in the middle of a four-match winning streak after claiming the Kwik Star Klassic title over the weekend. The Hawkeyes (10-3) beat West Florida 3-2, Texas Tech 3-1 and Central Arkansas 3-0 during the home tournament.
“It was not a dramatic improvement, but it was a very good one,” Barnes told the Quad-City Times on Monday. “It was one where we continued to get better, which we wanted to see. I predicted this team would go on a run, and I think we’re just in the middle of that. We got much more in us to put together. I’m so proud of the progress that we’re making.”
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Barnes bet on Iowa’s defense when he made his prediction. The Hawkeyes’ offensive firepower was never in question for him after they hit .273 through their 6-3 start. Going into last week, however, he wanted to see his team improve defensively by holding opponents below a .200 hitting percentage. “Our offense will always keep us in the game,” Barnes said. “But, we need that defense.”
The team missed that mark in its initial set against Drake on Wednesday, allowing a .480 hitting percentage, before holding Drake to .185 and .065 hitting percentages in the second and third sets of the sweep.
When coaches told the Hawkeyes about their poor defensive effort in the first set against the Bulldogs, fourth-year middle blocker Hannah Whittingstall said it opened the team’s eyes.
“After the first set, he basically was like, yeah, they hit over .400,” Whittingstall said. “I think once we heard that number out loud, we were like, ‘Oh shoot, we gotta go! We gotta change something.’ That lit something under us and we just went in, everyone did their job and moving forward, we need to start off the game doing that.”
It was not a perfect encore for Iowa in Friday’s 3-2 (20-25, 25-16, 25-19, 18-25, 15-10) win over the Argonauts. The Hawkeyes allowed West Florida to hit .304 in set one and .231 in set four — both of the Argos’ wins. But, in Iowa’s victories in sets two, three and five, it held West Florida to -.023, .068 and .000 hitting percentages to limit the Argos to a .133 hitting percentage for the match.
The Hawkeyes didn’t meet Barnes’ benchmark against the Red Raiders, who hit .254, in their 3-1 (25-22, 22-25, 25-20, 25-19) win on Saturday, but bounced back and held the Sugar Bears to a .059 hitting percentage in a 3-0 (25-12, 25-15, 25-14) win on Sunday.
Iowa also recorded 44.5 total team blocks on the weekend after recording just 74 through the first nine games of the season.
Barnes said the Hawkeyes' defense still isn’t where he wants it, but it’s getting closer.
“Our block is getting better,” Barnes said. “Our defensive numbers are moving up too. It’s headed in the right direction.”
Barnes also believes the four-match stretch accelerated Iowa’s improvement.
“These last four matches, I don’t think we could have replicated those things in practice to make us better and better as we go,” Barnes said.
Iowa gets one more match to build on that progress before conference play, hosting UW-Milwaukee (5-6) on Tuesday.
Though the Panthers are in a three-match skid, Barnes isn’t overlooking them, and he doesn’t want his team to, either.
“They can be dangerous,” Barnes said. “They took a set off Wisconsin. We talked about that too. When you don’t show up with the right energy and the right communication, it can happen. There’s so many upsets across the country; it’s ridiculous.
“I was really proud of our last match because we talked about being locked in against a team that you maybe wouldn’t be, and we were as locked in as we were against Iowa State. Really proud of the character our team showed right there.”
Tuesday’s match starts at 6 p.m. at Xtream Arena in Coralville and will be broadcast on Big Ten+ and the Hawkeye Radio Network.
“Now, let’s do it again,” Barnes said.
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.
