Kentucky volleyball, headlined by National POY candidates, picked to win SEC (again)

Brooklyn DeLeye - Camryn Williams, UK Athletics

The Kentucky volleyball program is gunning for its ninth straight Southeastern Conference championship.

Earlier this month, the Wildcats were picked to win the SEC in the league’s annual preseason poll, receiving nine of the 16 first-place votes for 218 total points. Texas finished second with six votes (216 points), with Texas A&M also picking up a vote. Missouri and Florida rounded out the preseason top five, respectively.

Kentucky has either tied or outright won the SEC title since 2017.

Additionally, a league-high four UK players were tabbed to the All-SEC Preseason Team: Brooke Bultema (MB), Brooklyn DeLeye (OH), Eva Hudson (OH), and Molly Tuozzo (L). DeLeye, a rising junior, was named SEC Player of the Year in 2024 and will lead the Wildcats in 2025. DeLeye, alongside Hudson, who transferred over from Purdue, were also named to the American Volleyball Coaches’ Association 2025 Player of the Year Watch List released earlier this week. They are two of 10 SEC players on the Watch List, which consists of 30 total athletes from all over the country.

After claiming a 3-seed in last year’s NCAA Tournament before being knocked out by Pitt in the Elite 8, Kentucky has eyes set on winning the program’s second national championship in 2025.

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“I think it’s a hard thing to do but we’re ready to do it this year,” Tuozzo said this week about winning the title. “We’ve already put in so much work and we had the great opportunity to get all of our transfers and freshmen here in the spring and we used that time to grow closer to each other and play for each other. We are all so bought into each other and the team that it’s a super exciting year for us. I think we’re not done yet and we just want to keep getting closer and eventually a national championship.”

Head coach Craig Skinner will have his team fully prepared for a deep postseason run by the time we get to that point. Kentucky’s 2025 schedule is loaded with some of the best teams in the nation, headlined by the entirety of the 2024 Final Four.