Georgia Bulldogs Womens Volleyball

Forty-eight seasons in Athens

Volleyball started at the University of Georgia in 1978 under Sid Feldman, who went 17-19 in the first year and stayed eleven seasons, finishing 318-135. The high point of that era came quickly by the standards of a new programme: SEC regular-season titles in 1985 and 1986, the 1985 conference tournament, and NCAA second-round exits to UCLA and Texas in those same two years.

Jim Iams followed and matched Feldman's eleven seasons, going 243-119 and taking Georgia to five consecutive NCAA tournaments between 1991 and 1995. What came after was thinner. Mary Buczek reached the 2004 tournament; Steffi Legall went 16-43 across two seasons; Joel McCartney got back in 2007; Lizzy Stemke managed one appearance, in 2013, inside a 79-105 six-year run. By the time the job opened again at the end of 2016, Georgia had made the NCAA field three times in twenty years, in a conference where the same two or three programmes took the bids.

The all-time record stood at 935-630 as of 2024, which is the shape of the thing: a programme that was strong early, drifted for two decades, and has spent the last ten years trying to become a fixture again.

The Black rebuild

Tom Black was named the seventh head coach in programme history on 22 December 2016, hired out of Loyola Marymount with twelve years of head-coaching experience at UC San Diego and LMU behind him and a 242-115 career record. The LMU work was the selling point — 127 wins in seven seasons, three NCAA tournaments and a Sweet 16 in 2015 — alongside time on the United States women's national team staff under Karch Kiraly, including the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, where the Americans took bronze.

The curve since has not been smooth. Black's second full recruiting cycle produced a 20-10 season in 2019 and a first-round NCAA loss to Cal Poly. The pandemic year went 8-14 and 2021 went 12-17. Then came 2022: 23-8 overall, 13-5 in the SEC, third in the conference, SEC Coach of the Year for Black, a second-round run that beat Towson before Texas ended it. Georgia returned to the tournament in 2023 at 19-12, slid to 12-14 in 2024, and recovered to 16-10 with an 8-7 conference mark in 2025.

Entering 2026 Black had 147 wins at Georgia, 80 of them in SEC play, three NCAA appearances, two All-Americans and an SEC Player of the Year coached, and the third-longest tenure in programme history behind the two eleven-season men.

Where the 2026 season stands

The tenth season under Black and the 48th in Athens was laid out in May as 25 matches, thirteen of them at home. It opened on 28 and 29 August with the Classic City Clash at Stegeman Coliseum, a six-match round robin against North Florida, George Washington and Furman that Georgia swept, dropping a single set across the weekend.

The first road trip was deliberately unkind. On 1 and 2 September Georgia played the inaugural Allstate Big Ten/SEC Challenge in West Lafayette, losing 3-1 to No. 21 Indiana and then taking No. 14 Purdue to five sets — 25-27, 25-19, 10-25, 26-24, 14-16 — before losing it. The in-state meeting with Georgia Tech on 19 September went the other way: 19-25, 25-15, 21-25, 25-22, 15-10, a fifth straight win, settled in front of what was then a season-high 2,416 at Stegeman.

Conference play began at home against South Carolina on 23 September. Georgia beat Arkansas 3-1 on 2 October and Oklahoma 3-1 on 4 October, was swept 0-3 by Mississippi State on 9 October, then won five sets in Tuscaloosa against Alabama on 11 October. The road weekend of 16 and 18 October produced a sweep of Ole Miss and a 3-2 win at LSU, the third win in a row. That left the Bulldogs 14-3 overall, 6-1 in the SEC, third in the conference table, and unbeaten at home.

Muoneke, and a freshman hitting like a senior

The season belongs so far to Bianna Muoneke, a senior outside hitter who was named SEC Co-Offensive Player of the Week on 19 October, a third weekly conference award in two months. The Ole Miss and LSU weekend produced 49 kills in eight sets at a.440 clip — 100 swings, five errors. Against Ole Miss the hitting percentage reached.581, a career best and the tenth-highest in programme history on twenty or more attempts. Against LSU on 18 October came 30 kills, including eleven in one set: a first career 30-kill match, the third-highest five-set total Georgia has recorded, and an eighth 20-kill match of the season. Somewhere in it fell the 1,000th career kill, making Muoneke the 21st Bulldog to that mark. Black's comment afterwards was that the production had been at a nationally elite level and the competitive drive behind it made the staff proud.

The side is not one hitter deep. Gigi Artiles, a freshman outside from the four-player 2026 signing class, posted 26 kills and 17 digs against Georgia Tech in September — 27.5 points in a five-setter in her first autumn — and went 6 kills and 7 digs at Ole Miss, 9 and 9 at LSU. Chloe Elarton set 47 assists in the LSU match. Kendal Kemp put up seven blocks in the same match after three at Ole Miss. The 2026 recruiting class also brought opposite Taylor Bruce and libero Rylan Miller.

Stegeman, 10K Day and a crowd that keeps growing

Stegeman Coliseum holds 10,523, which for most of the season is far more room than a volleyball match in Athens needs — the Georgia Tech crowd of 2,416 was a season high in September. One Friday a year the arena is used properly. On 17 October 2025 Georgia beat Alabama 3-2 on 10K Day in front of 8,719, a programme record and an NCAA volleyball attendance record for the state of Georgia; the programme had broken its own mark on 10K Day in each of the two preceding seasons, including an 8,376 house against South Carolina.

This season's edition, presented by Buffalo Wild Wings, falls on Friday 13 November against Tennessee, first serve at 7 p.m. Admission to every regular-season home match is free. New for 2026, courtside seats are sold at $10. Gates open an hour before first serve, matches stream on SEC Network+ with selected fixtures on SEC Network, and the promotional calendar runs to themed nights — a game-show night, a K-pop night — with shirts for the first 500 through the doors.

What is left of the season

The immediate test is a home weekend: No. 19 Texas A&M on Friday 23 October at 7 p.m., Missouri on Sunday 25 October, with Georgia's unbeaten home record and its share of third place on the line. November is a split month — at Auburn on 6 November, at Florida on 8 November, then Tennessee on 13 November for 10K Day and Kentucky at home on 15 November to close the regular season.

After that comes the Allstate SEC tournament, held 20-24 November at Enmarket Arena in Savannah. Six SEC wins from seven and a 14-3 start put Georgia in the part of the table where an NCAA at-large bid is a reasonable expectation rather than a hope; a fourth tournament appearance under Black, and a first since 2023, is the measure this season will be judged against.