SMU Topples Pitt After a 38-36 Set: The Wall at the Net Beats the Lone Star

At Pittsburgh, the arena was still full when the third set stretched into its fortieth minute. The scoreboard jumped from 36-36 to 38-36, and the whole hall seemed to hold its breath on one final rally. I rewound that tape three times, not to find the decisive spike, but to watch what happened half a second earlier — a gap opening and closing above the net, where one block faced another and only one side truly understood what it was doing. That 38-36 set was not decided by a hard spike. It was decided by the setter's hand, choosing the exact moment to push the ball into a spot the opposing block had already abandoned. The ball is only a supporting actor; the real drama lives in the space above the net.

The match took place in NCAA Division I women's volleyball, in ACC conference play. SMU, ranked No.6 nationally, traveled to face Pittsburgh — the No.2 team, unbeaten, and owner of a 58-match home winning streak. That streak is one of the most durable marks in American college volleyball, and it fell in four sets, with the third reaching 38-36.

The context makes this result heavier than it looks. SMU joined the ACC only in 2026, after conference realignment redrew the entire college volleyball map. A conference newcomer beating the No.2 team on its home floor is not an everyday event. By this point, SMU had four wins over top-10 opponents — over No.3, No.8, No.9, and now No.2. Its 14-match ACC winning streak was the longest active in the conference.

In the national rankings, only Nebraska — the No.1 team — remained unbeaten. Every other major program had fallen at least once. That says something about this season's women's college volleyball: the top is crowded, and the gap between No.2 and No.6 is smaller than the rankings suggest.

On Pittsburgh's side, head coach Dan Fisher is building one of the most stable programs in women's college volleyball. Olivia Babcock, the team's star attacker, had just reached 1,853 career kills and 176 career aces — marks that top the program's history. After the match, Fisher said his team "needed to experience those emotions." Babcock admitted the team "had not yet met a standard of play that high."

To understand why the match unfolded this way, you have to look at something the stat sheet does not show: the space above the net, and the rhythm of the footsteps that never touch the ball.

SMU out-blocked Pitt 12.5-6, its third straight match with 12 or more blocks. In volleyball, blocking is the most systemic statistic of all — it does not depend on one player's inspiration on a given night, but on whether the whole team reads the opponent's intent and moves together. A good block is the product of hundreds of hours of film study, of memorizing each opposing attacker's habits, of eye signals exchanged between two middle blockers. That 12.5 is no random peak. Three straight matches above 12 means SMU's reading and blocking system has run steadily across different opponents, rather than exploding in one lucky night.

But winning the block is only half the story. The other half is what happens after the ball hits the block — it caroms off, and someone must dig it before it touches the floor. In that department, SMU libero Victoria Harris had 20 digs and 4 aces. It was her second 20-dig match of the season, and her ace count tied a career high. The libero position is often viewed as pure defense, a quiet back-row guard. But when a libero digs 20 balls and serves 4 aces, you are looking at two contributions at once: the back row holds the ball, and serving pressure comes from the very position the opponent least expects it. Harris's serves may have broken Pitt's first-pass system at the exact moments Pitt needed it most. A strong block begins with a serve that forces the opponent to pass from a bad position, and Harris was the one starting that domino chain.

SMU's middle blockers recorded 27 kills on 47 swings for a .447 clip — an elite mark for the position. Natalia Newsome contributed 17 kills at .519, a career high. Jadyn Livings, an outside hitter, added 13 kills at .435, also her season best.

In volleyball, the middle blocker is the position most dependent on others. They cannot create their own chances the way an outside hitter can from a high ball. They need an accurate first pass, the right tempo, a gap opened at the right moment. When a group of middle blockers hits .447, it says two things about what lies behind them: SMU's first-pass system kept the ball clean enough, and their setter had enough time to distribute to the middle. You cannot hit efficiently in the middle if your first pass is chaotic. So even though the source gives no first-pass data, that .447 tells the story of SMU's back row on its own.

This is where I want to pause, because it connects to how I learned my craft. When I rewatch the tape, what catches my eye is not the hard spikes. It is the movement of the middle blockers before the ball arrives — the half-step retreat to create separation from the block, the waiting for the right tempo instead of rushing in, the arms raised a beat late to deceive the blocker. In volleyball, the best player on the floor is often the one who touches the ball least during a rally. The middle blocker runs to open space for a teammate, or to create space for themselves, and only one of those tasks ends in a point. The rest is invisible on the stat sheet. This is what I call volleyball without the ball — the match that unfolds before the ball is ever touched.

SMU did not score through one star. They scored through five names. Beyond Newsome's 17 and Livings's 13, there was Suli Davis — an outside hitter, a sophomore — with 17 kills, 9 digs, and 4 blocks, marking her 14th double-digit kill match of the season. Favor Anyanwu added 10 kills and 9 blocks, narrowly missing a double-double. That is five players reaching double-digit kills in a four-set match.

Against an opposing block, that spread is a nightmare. The blocker must decide in a split second: which attacker to follow? When your opponent has one attacker with 25 kills, the answer is obvious. When your opponent has five players who can each end a rally, every decision is a gamble. SMU turned Pitt's block into a collection of hesitant judgments, and at the elite level of volleyball, half a step of hesitation is enough for the ball to hit the floor.

On the other side, Pitt scored almost entirely through Babcock. She recorded 25 kills — nearly half of a typical four-set team output. Against an opponent winning the block battle 12.5-6, funneling the ball to one player is a tactical vulnerability. Pitt's setter, pushed into difficult situations, tends to seek the safest option — and the safest option is Babcock. That held in set one, held in set two, but by the third and fourth sets, once SMU had read the pattern, it became an open book. SMU's block no longer had to guess. They just had to wait.

I have no data on Babcock's swing count, so I cannot claim she hit inefficiently. 25 kills is a large number. But in volleyball, an attacker with 25 kills on a very high number of swings may have a lower efficiency than an attacker with 17 kills on fewer swings. If Babcock had to swing 60 times for 25 kills, each of her points cost Pitt more rallies — and every rally is a chance for SMU to block or dig. This is a hypothesis I cannot confirm from the available data, but it is a reasonable reading for a match in which the two blocks were so far apart.

Put it all together, and the tactical picture is fairly clear. SMU won at the net, won in the back row, and distributed the ball widely enough that Pitt's block could never read it. Pitt won at a single point — Babcock — and when that point was surrounded, they had no strong second option. This match was not decided by who spiked harder. It was decided by who understood the space they occupied better. The Pittsburgh night belonged not to the scorer, but to the one who made the opposing block hesitate.

The popular reading calls this an upset. The No.6 team beating the No.2 team, a 58-match home streak shattered — it sounds like a fairy tale. But if you look at SMU's résumé, the word "upset" starts to wobble. Four wins over top-10 opponents. A 14-match ACC winning streak. A roster with five attackers scoring consistently and a block holding above 12 for three straight matches. A lucky stranger does not carry a résumé like that. That is the portrait of a team that has closed in on the elite threshold, simply waiting for one night to prove it.

What is more notable lies on Pitt's side. A 58-match home winning streak sounds like an asset. But every long streak has a flip side: it makes a team comfortable winning without being tested. When you have not lost at home in 58 matches, you do not know how you will react when pushed into trouble late in a 38-36 set. Fisher said his team "needed to experience those emotions." That is the comment of a coach who understands that sometimes a loss teaches what winning cannot. It suggests Pitt had been winning without ever being truly tested — a gap in preparation, not a gap in talent.

And Babcock, who carries the team, was the one to voice the most self-critical line: the team "had not yet met a standard of play that high." A star admitting that right after a loss is a sign of a healthy locker room, not a cracked one. Sometimes a well-timed loss is worth more than ten comfortable wins.

Next Sunday, October 11, the two teams meet again on ESPN. Four days is far too short to rebuild a system, but long enough to change a plan. Pitt will have to find a way to lighten Babcock's load and open a second option. SMU will have to prove its block can read more than one opponent. For me, the question worth following is not who wins, but whether Pitt learns from its own defeat — and whether SMU is a passing phenomenon or a genuine force of the season.