Eight newcomers give Illini double dose of experience, depth

CHAMPAIGN — Chris Tamas isn’t unfamiliar with starting preseason practice in early August coaching a team with a slew of new faces.

Tamas had nine newcomers in his first season as Illinois coach in 2017. All freshmen. There were eight newcomers in 2019 after a veteran group reached the Final Four a season prior. Seven of them were freshmen.

That’s where this year’s Illinois volleyball team differs. Tamas again has eight newcomers, but it’s an even split. Four freshmen. Four transfers.

It’s the most transfers — four times as many — as Tamas has ever added in a single offseason. In fact, he added just five total transfers in his first seven seasons as Illinois coach.

The change in Tamas’ roster-building approach was two-fold. This season marks the last including players with bonus seasons of eligibility from the COVID-19 pandemic, and Tamas tried to take advantage by targeting graduate transfers. He also simply wanted more players.

“We’d been hit with the injury bug a little bit, and we wanted to make sure that wasn’t an issue this year,” Tamas said. “If we did have something, we wanted to have backups. I think we’ve been caught the last couple of years trying to run thin. We just can’t do that. We decided to add two more to the roster and got approval to do that.”

Illinois landed a pair of transfers with significant experience in libero/defensive specialist Christina Martinez Mundo (Eastern Illinois) and setter Raegen Reilly (South Dakota State). The additions of outside hitter Averie Hernandez (Northwestern) and Vivian Campbell (Cincinnati) addressed Tamas’ depth concerns.

That group of four, along with freshmen Ashlyn Philpot, Laynie Smith, Kenzie Cogan and Christine Pullen, marks the biggest group of newcomers any returning player on the Illinois roster has had in their careers. So it was on that returning group, with fifth-year outside hitter Raina Terry and senior libero/defensive specialist Caroline Barnes leading the way, to get everyone on the same page this summer.

“We had a lot of meetings with them when they got on campus,” Terry said. “We had meetings with them before they got on campus. Just talking about what our culture is and what the standards are here and getting them ready for what we do out here every single day. It was a challenge, but they made it pretty easy. They came in with open minds, and they were super open to the challenge.”

Two things made that process easier. Time spent together off the court was important — and aided by the fact all the players are roommates. Communication on the court was equally important. Something Barnes said is done with intention.

“The better you can be about setting that communication standard, the easier the chemistry is to flow because you become more comfortable talking to each other and letting each other know what’s going on,” Barnes continued. “I think that has been a way we’ve been very good about trying to accelerate that before we’re in a match, so everything doesn’t have to fall apart for us to fix it.”

It’s all led to a competitive vibe in the gym at Huff Hall the last two-plus weeks in preparation for the 2024 season. For both reasons Tamas hit the transfer portal harder than ever.

Campbell, who played in eight matches as a freshman at Cincinnati last season, is the least experienced of Illinois’ transfers. Martinez Mundo was a four-year starter at EIU, Reilly started three seasons at SDSU and Hernandez was a key player for Northwestern as a sophomore in 2023.

Couple that veteran presence with more players competing for the same number of spots in the rotation, and competition has risen on the practice court.

“They like to banter,” Tamas said. “They like to chip a little bit. Which is good. When you have a team that’s like that, you’re able to put them in a lot of competitive drills, and I do believe that’s the way you get better.

“It’s fun, actually, because you get to teach all over again, and it’s good reminders for your returners, too. That’s kind of the way it’s been during the preseason. One of our themes has been, ‘Hey, let’s over communicate what we’re doing and what we’re trying to do.’ We’ve seen it here in the gym every single day. People are competing hard.”