Nebraska Huskers Volleyball Head Coach John Cook Scoffs at Poor Management, Questions NCAA

The regional finals of the NCAA Women’s Volleyball Championship are less than a day away and every team is busy readying itself. While the Nebraska Huskers are also fully prepared to take on their next challenge, their head coach, John Cook, has his reservations about the way things are going.

John Cook appeared in a recent press conference along with Huskers’ stars Merritt Beason and Lexi Rodriguez. A social media clip showcased the Nebraska Huskers head coach scoffing at the poor management of the championship. He directly questioned the NCAA’s decision-making based on the timing of the matches.

Nebraska Huskers at a disadvantage, per Coach Cook 

Nebraska Volleyball tweeted a video of the NCAA Regional Tournament press conference held by the Nebraska Huskers. In the event, John Cook said that the Huskers will be playing the game at 1:00 PM, which doesn’t bode well for the team. Cook initially didn’t wish to comment on the situation when a reporter asked him about his thoughts on such an early slot for the second consecutive year. However, the Huskers’ head coach couldn’t contain his concern for his team. While he tried to calm down, he ended up asking the media to look into the matter. 

Cook said, “I believe there was one year, Penn State, did we play at 9 in the morning? Perfect. 9 in the morning. So I don’t know. You guys have to figure that out. You guys have to do some investigative reporting and figure out why Nebraska is always going early.” While he was speaking about the present, he recalled a similar play of events in the past when he coached the Wisconsin Badgers.

The ancient trap of unfair timings

The Nebraska Huskers head coach mentioned, “I remember my first year at Wisconsin, we got to regionals and we were actually hosting it. I think it was in 95. And we played Notre Dame. We didn’t start because everything went late. So we didn’t start until 9 o’clock at night. The match finished past midnight and we had to play Florida at 1 o’clock the next day. You tell me that’s a good judgment by the NCAA?”

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John Cook mentioned that he has been complaining about the odd timings to the NCAA for over 20 years now. He said that now shifted to fighting for a day between two postseason matches so that the players get time to recover. While every team played their first and second rounds of playoffs on consecutive days, the current round will fortunately have a rest day. Despite being at a disadvantage, will the Nebraska Huskers be able to advance to the next round?

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