Northwestern looking for a fresh start after coaching change

After 14 seasons of not qualifying to the NCAA National Championship, Northwestern were ready for a change in 2024 and it came with the hiring of new head coach Tim Nollan, who arrived in Evanston backed by eight successful years with Grand Canyon University, to coach in the Big Ten Conference for the first time.

“There are very few jobs that I would have been interested in, quite honestly,” he said. “Leaving Grand Canyon, and the opportunity to coach in the Big Ten, the premier conference in women's volleyball, to live in greater Chicago, in Evanston, and be at a world-class institution, it just became a no-brainer.”

• Watch the Big Ten Conference matches live and on demand on VBTV

A few days after his hiring, in February, Nollan added talent and experience to his coaching staff, naming Jeff Liu, who spent several years as the performance analyst of the United States women’s national team, as part of the staff that won gold at the Tokyo Olympics, as one of his assistants.

That was the first of many changes that were to come. Nollan then started tweaking the team’s roster and was very active on that front, recruiting two freshmen and bringing in five transfers from other programs.

Among the transfers is Turkish junior outside hitter Buse Hazan, who joined from South Florida as has been the Wildcats’ leading scorer in their non-conference matches.

“We did a really good job of carefully picking who we were going to join our team,” graduate student and setter Alexa Rosseau reflected. “Obviously, all of them are incredibly talented, but they also have a lot of shared values with us as individuals and also us as a program. We knew because we took the time to pick really amazing girls as volleyball players, as people, as teammates, and as student-athletes. It was going to be a really easy kind of crossover.”

Change won’t come overnight and the non-conference matches showed that as Northwestern go into the first week of conference play with two wins, obtained in their last two duels, and six losses. The team also had good moments against some top opponents, making players and coaching staff members believe they can set audacious goals right from the start of their journey.

The goal for 2024 is returning to the playoffs, something Nollan himself has experience in achieving as he took Grand Canyon for the NCAA National Championship for the first time ever in 2023, his last season with the program.

“We've come close the past couple years to come into the playoffs, and that is a motivation for us coming into this year,” junior middle blocker Kennedy Hill stated. “Tim has made it clear that that is his goal, is to make it to the tournament this year, and to make it to the tournament the year after that and the year after that. He's working hard to get recruits coming into the next season and the next season, so I'm very grateful to have a coach that is that invested in us and believes in us that much that we'll make it to the playoffs this season.”

Looking for progress, Northwestern begin their Big Ten campaign this week with two matches – they face Maryland on the road on Thursday, at 19:00 local time (23:00 GMT), and welcome powerhouse Wisconsin in Evanston on Saturday, at 19:00 local time (00:00 GMT, Sunday.) Both matches will be streamed live on VBTV.

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