Kansas Volleyball 2026: Season Outlook & Program Overview
Original analysis of the Kansas Jayhawks program, coaching staff, and 2026 outlook.
2026 Season Outlook
Matt Ulmer inherited a program in good shape and immediately made it better. His first team won 24 matches, finished a game behind the Big 12 leader, went 9-2 at Horejsi and beat High Point and Miami in the NCAA Tournament before the run ended in the regional semifinal. Kansas closed the year ranked No. 14 by the AVCA and spent the entire season in the Top 25 for a third straight year. Year two starts from a stronger place: the Jayhawks were picked third in the Big 12 preseason coaches' poll with 159 points, behind Arizona State and TCU, the seventh consecutive season Kansas has been slotted fifth or better. The reason for optimism is the middle of the court and the arrival of a setter. Reese Ptacek returns as a genuine problem for opposing offenses, and Reese Messer gives Ulmer a distributor who was an all-conference pick as a freshman at USC before transferring in. Add the Big 12's Preseason Freshman of the Year in Taylor Stanley and there is real ceiling. The caution: six freshmen and only two seniors means the pin rotation will look different in November than it does in September, and a non-conference slate of Pitt, Stanford, Florida State and Ole Miss is unforgiving enough that early results may look worse than the team actually is.
Program History & Tradition
Kansas has been a fixture in the national Top 25 for three consecutive seasons and reached the NCAA regional semifinal in 2025, beating High Point and Miami before the run ended. That team went 24-11 and finished second in the Big 12, closing the year ranked No. 14 by the AVCA. Ray Bechard led the program for 27 seasons in Lawrence before retiring after 2024. Home matches are played at Horejsi Family Volleyball Arena, one of the more difficult small buildings in the conference, where Kansas went 9-2 in 2025.
Head Coach Spotlight
Matt Ulmer is in his second season at Kansas, hired in January 2025 as the seventh head coach in program history after Ray Bechard's retirement. He arrived from Oregon, where he spent eight years as head coach following three as an assistant. The first season went about as well as a first season can - 24-11, second in the Big 12, a Sweet 16 - and what stood out was how quickly the group took on an identity: disciplined out-of-system play, real depth in the pins, and a willingness to swing away in tight sets. His 2026 staff includes associate head coaches Erika Dillard and Connor Wexter, and assistant coach Ainise Havili, a former Kansas setter who has played professionally in Major League Volleyball.
What to Watch in 2026
Kansas has five matches on national television this season, the most in program history for a regular season. The non-conference slate is deliberately brutal - Pitt, Stanford, Florida State and Ole Miss - and is the reason early results may understate this team. In Big 12 play the Jayhawks were picked third behind Arizona State and TCU, and the league sent 10 schools to the 2025 NCAA Tournament, the most of any conference. Note that the Big 12 does not hold a volleyball tournament: the regular-season standings decide the conference title, and NCAA at-large bids follow from there.
