Travis Filar is excited.
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga volleyball coach is excited about the team he has returning. He's excited about the depth he's accumulated for this season. He's even excited about the schedule put together, chock full with matches against Power Five schools and NCAA tournament-caliber teams.
The season begins this evening with the Chattanooga Classic, hosting South Carolina State, Presbyterian College, Mississippi Valley State and Cal State Fullerton over three days at Maclellan Gymnasium.
Filar's Mocs return a pair of seniors in preseason all-conference selections Allie Davenport and Kristy Wieser. They graduated five seniors that were the building blocks of the program's improvement from four wins in 2013 to 26 last season, but the six-player recruiting class has some quality pieces, including Montana State transfer Kasey Altman, who will provide depth at defensive specialist/libero.
"I think this group is ready for this schedule," Filar said. "They understand that to take the next step as a program, that's the type of schedule we have to go out and play and see where we fare against a Final Four team in Kansas and a preseason Top 25 team in Creighton, and Dayton. It was an easy sell for our team. They're smart enough to know the landscape of NCAA volleyball around the country, and I wouldn't put them through this sort of schedule unless I felt like, one, they're prepared for it and, two, they also want it as much as I did, to see how they fare against the very best."
He called the 2016 schedule, which in addition to the matches against Kansas and Creighton features matches against Northwestern, Mississippi State, TCU and Ole Miss, "a schedule like no one has ever played in the SoCon."
"It's super exciting," Davenport said. "I don't think there's anything like that, and I don't think any of us have ever got to play in an environment like that.
"We're super pumped for it."
Last season culminated in the Southern Conference regular-season championship, the program's first since 1999. Yet the final memory of last year was a 3-0 loss to Furman in the tournament title match. That helped provided a new perspective for the team this season, with started with an offseason motto of "One More," imploring the Mocs to press toward one more rep, one more lift and, of course, one more win that could push them to the program's first NCAA tournament since 1998.
The preseason No. 2 team in the conference, the Mocs expect to have a target on their back.
"We don't want that, though," Wieser said. "We want to change around the mentality instead of running away from what's going on. Instead we're going to turn around, take things headfirst and attack everything. This season, we're harping on no limits - we're limitless. We're not setting boundaries to ourselves, and just want to achieve the greatness that we can.
"Not getting the tournament championship last year really left us with a bad taste in our mouth. We want a lot more."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him at twitter.com/genehenleytfp.