BIG TEN VOLLEYBALL MEDIA DAYS

August 3, 2026

Brad Keller

Abigail Mullen

Mia Tvrdy

USC Trojans

Press Conference

BRAD KELLER: It's now year three for me. I love this day. I love what you guys are doing. I love the explosion of this sport.

The more that we advertise, the more we push, the more we just keep building what we're doing as a whole, I just think that this is going to explode even more off the page. So I get excited about this opportunity, number one, and then opportunity for these two to speak. And you guys can go ahead and start grilling away on us. Let's see what we've got.

Q. (Off microphone)

MIA TVRDY: For me, I think just having a competitive preseason is ideally what's going to be best for our team. I think we're ready for it. We're ready to compete. We're a very competitive group. I'm excited. I think everybody on the team is excited. We know the challenges that are coming towards us, and we're ready for them.

ABIGAIL MULLEN: I'd also just add, I'm excited for the early travel and getting that experience playing at different venues other than home earlier than we're used to. So I think that's going to be really important for us. And yeah, just to get after it and make the mistakes that we're trying to learn from and just be competitive.

BRAD KELLER: I think at the end of the day, if you want to compete for national championships and be in that space, then you have to start testing yourself out.

I think we have a very talented team. We have been young in the past. I still think we are young. However, we're getting stronger. We're faster. We're more mature. We have an idea now with the Big Ten.

There's just a lot of stuff that makes me want to be aggressive in the early part of the season, to play teams that you would see in the NCAA Tournament, right? So if we can try to get those early, we can learn a lot about ourselves and probably them as well.

Q. Mia, you had a couple of chances to play Sioux Falls, not exactly hometown but a couple of hours, played in Nebraska. What's that mean to you to play back in your home state, near your home state (indiscernible)?

MIA TVRDY: It's awesome. I know my family is super excited. I think they probably have the majority of the seats there at Sioux Falls. But it is really special to me just to be able to go home and have those grandparents that maybe aren't really able to travel that much be able to be there for those games and watch me play and watch our team take off and kick off this season. But I hold it really dear to my heart. I'm really excited.

Q. (Off microphone)?

BRAD KELLER: I don't care. We'll compete. We'll get after it.

Q. How did this turn into such a dominant blocking team last season? You have a middle blocker along with you. But trying to continue that into this year, what makes it so great and why is that so significant to have as part of your system?

BRAD KELLER: I just think, like in anything else, you have to focus on the areas you want to get better at. And I do feel that, you're going to hear this a lot, you've got to win the serve-and-pass game. You see it all the time. You can't pass, you can't play, all these other things.

But when you start getting to play against the best teams, the teams that win are violent and aggressive at the net, both offensively and defensively. So the more that you can disrupt at the net, the better off that's gonna be.

And then there's a lot of ways to actually train it. And a lot of things that I've learned are from other coaches that are extremely more -- they're more talented than I am but just talented coaches.

Then a lot of it is about watching a lot of international volleyball. For example, this is not blocking, but let's go with the men's route. Team Russia in the past at least used to be all 7-feet tall. Well, they don't have to set the ball fast and inside. They have to set the ball nice and high and they're just going to go over the top of everybody.

But Argentina who is 6-foot-4 across the board and they have to play against Russia can't play the same game that Russia plays. So they have to go fast inside and they have to learn how to throw the ball and they have to use shape blocking, they have to drift and peel. There's so many different things that they have to do.

And I think me, as a student of the game, or us, or whatever it is, you just try to get blends and find different ways of doing it. We've just been very aggressive in our teaching of blocking and how that looks.

Q. Talk about the explosion of women's volleyball with the ratings on television, this event and what it's done for the sport, just this event itself, plus what it's like seeing all these great women get featured so well when they've done so well?

BRAD KELLER: There's a lot there, actually. Number one, you have to have pioneers like John Cook, who did the stadium. You have to push for these types of things. You have to be creative enough and brave enough to do that. That was a huge component. It brought a lot of attention to the sport itself. Now we're seeing more of these types of things. So growth is huge in that.

I go back to this. The more we're able to -- it's exploding, but it's about the exposure, right? The more we expose this wonderful sport, the more it's going to go. So I use the same theory. Back in the day, you didn't have videos of Michael Jordan or whatnot when he was playing. But you do have videos of Steph Curry doing his dribble thing or whatever, shooting, lacing it up at 30 feet away.

Well that was frowned upon a long time ago. It's not frowned upon anymore. And now you've got kids watching this and trying to mimic him -- or whoever, LeBron, just choose the athlete, Caitlin Clark, all of this.

So the more that we have exposure, the more this is going to explode. And that gives just more young kids are watching this stuff.

So what you guys are doing is absolutely incredible. We have to keep pushing this envelope more and more. So I do think, for example, the Big Ten Tournament, it could be good. It could be bad. But it's more exposure. So no matter what, I believe that's going to be a really good thing.

And isn't women's volleyball one of the top two sports that's rising right now right? It's us and women's basketball, but I think we're in the lead. Is that right? Something. Lacrosse. But we're up there, right?

Q. Could you expand on the Big Ten Tournament overall. I know this is only your third year but a long time in the making to have an inaugural Big Ten Tournament?

BRAD KELLER: If you guys remember, this is my year three, but year one, you asked me how Big Ten travel was going to be and I said, I don't know what I don't know. Then you guys decided to ask me that year two. And I said, I still don't know what I don't know because I didn't travel to all -- we only went to half the schools and we had to figure out everything.

So I know what Big Ten travel is now. I can actually answer that one for you, just so you guys know, if you guys ask me about that.

But I don't know what I don't know about the tournament. So the positive is the exposure piece, you're playing your best ball, you're playing against really good competition and maybe getting yourself prepared for the NCAA Tournament.

The downside possibly, is you might be burning out your players if they have to play three or four matches, or whatever the schedule might look like. So you could have a rough season, barely make the tournament, but be a really big threat. But now you're burning your kids out because you have to play three or four matches or whatever that schedule looks like.

So that's the only concern I have with it. But all everything else, I'm pretty excited about in general.

Q. Vast majority of your production back, blocking, (indiscernible). Two freshmen setters transfer in. Talk about what the competition has been in that respect?

BRAD KELLER: We have three setters now. So three freshmen basically are in there. They're all very different. They're all very new. I don't know what it's gonna be right now. They're definitely in a battle. We'll keep an eye on it. We'll make sure we'll keep doing the setter- hitter connection.

But, like you said, we bring back a lot of firepower, a lot of ball control, we know what we're doing. And this is a very, very driven team. I'm very proud of this group up to this point, as far as the progression.

Q. What's it like in practice, the energy from Coach, how does that translate to you in practice, in games? And his energy, what's it bring?

MIA TVRDY: I want to give props to Brad because I feel like he really helps us -- he doesn't restrict us from being ourselves. He really lets our personality and goofy side come out because he has the exact same. And he's kind of all over the place sometimes. I'm all over the place sometimes.

So it's nice to have a coach that's there for you all the time.

But practices, we know when it needs to be serious, when we need to turn it on. Brad does a really good job, if we are kind of getting a little sidetracked to drag us back in and make sure we're back in check.

ABIGAIL MULLEN: I will just say for all the coaches and Brad as well, when they get excited about a drill or excited about a certain skill, we can tell. And then it makes us excited to learn about it and try and explore it as well.

I would just say the energy they bring when it comes to the learning side of volleyball and the process makes us excited because sometimes those things can get monotonous. But I think that's what makes our environment great at USC. And practices are great every day.

Q. (Indiscernible). Tell us about the Big Ten travel in year three.

BRAD KELLER: I'm a big nerd. You guys are probably picking up on that. I like to be creative. I like to have imagination and I like the science behind why a lot of things go.

So Big Ten travel for us, there was a lot of effort to figure out exactly what we needed to do. So for us, we practice in the morning at 7:00 a.m. We lift at 7:00. We practice say 8:00 to 10:00. And then we would go and get on a charter flight and go.

And being able to charter, we're very grateful for having that opportunity. But there's a couple things that definitely that does. Number one is you practice in the morning and you get everything done. And you probably have a better practice than when you go on the road and you're jet lagged and now you have to go try to find your food, or pick it up along the way, eat it on the way to the gym, maybe make your practice time. There's just -- check into the hotel. There's stress everywhere.

So how do you de-stress things and make it efficient? So practice in the morning, then go to a charter flight. Well that's 36 people or whatever that could be. It's not 500 people on a flight that could be sick. You're not waiting through all sorts of lines. I mean, there's just a lot of being efficient with that.

And then when you get there, the one thing that's really great, so let's say we go play Penn State, and we can fly home the same day, so I can get them back in their own beds. And them being able to sleep is really important, whereas an East Coast team will have to travel to the West Coast and they probably have to stay an extra day or it's the red-eye back.

So that's what I knew about the travel which is why it's not that big of a deal for us.

The second thing is I was concerned about being a student-athlete, the academic side of that, that piece. In the last two years, we've had our highest team GPA that we've had in probably, I think, 10, 15, 20 -- I forget what it is. So the data coming back has actually been more efficient for us right now.

Q. (Off microphone)

BRAD KELLER: You beg them. There's a bunch of tournaments that we're being, I mean, you know, there's different venues that are trying to bring teams there. And there was one in Anaheim. There was one -- I forget the other, there was three of them that were contacting us. And Sioux Falls was one of that I was really interested in because I'd never been to that state and I heard the venue is pretty spectacular, and the people running it are elite and efficient, really efficient.

And you need to be super efficient in the first weekend because there's just a lot of newness to everything. So JJ Van Niel from Arizona State and Brian from Creighton, they got me on the phone and then obviously the people there that said, hey, do you want to do this. And I was, like, I would love to come out and play you guys. I think that would just be spectacular.

Q. (Off microphone)

BRAD KELLER: I think it's really important. They're looking at me because I have not talked to them about it. I would want all my players to be five years because there's opportunity to really grow as a human, number one, but also possibly get master programs, things like that, depending on how you do your academics.

And a fifth-year player is gonna be a lot better than a freshman or first-year player usually, right? So it's just the growth in that projection.

I think it's great right now. I thought it was really dumb, you might redshirt, you might do this. I think there needs to be a parameter on it, though. So you can't be 25 years of age and start your five years. I think we need to make it clear about what the age thing is to start the clock. But I like the fact that you just eliminated it.

Let's put it this way, I'm bummed it's a year late because we have a young lady in our gym, Quinn Loper, who is very, very good. She redshirted last year and we were down on outside hitters and we probably needed her. And I didn't want to burn her redshirt year.

Now that changes that. It allows them to just compete and try to get after it. I just think it's a better situation.

Q. Abigail and Mia, what are your thoughts? (Indiscernible) expanding professional opportunities, what are your thoughts on having five years to play in college?

ABIGAIL MULLEN: I haven't really thought much about it because I still don't really know -- I'm still just a sophomore. I'm not really sure what pro looks like for me after either.

I think for me, the only thing I'm thinking about right now is academics with the master's year. I think that would obviously be really amazing if I could get that while I'm still at USC. I think it's definitely an exciting thing to think about staying here for another year and then possibly extending that run into my professional career. But I haven't really thought much about it yet.

MIA TVRDY: Academics-wise, I'm really excited to get my master's. That's something that I obviously think is super important because you don't play volleyball forever. But I'm also mostly excited because I feel like I get a year back.

I feel like my freshman year probably wasn't my best year, but now I get a whole extra year to kind of -- I know what I'm doing. I'm more comfortable. I'm more confident. It feels good.

Q. What do you want your master's in?

MIA TVRDY: Economics.

Q. I want to follow up on that, because I know, Abigail, you're in law, it seems like, with your major? Can you both talk about what you're studying and the classroom part of things?

ABIGAIL MULLEN: I had to clear this up earlier. I've changed my major. It's slightly different. I'm majoring in English and minoring in legal studies. So I'm not 100% sure what I want to do yet.

I'm thinking about going to law school. So I'm taking law classes for that, or I'm taking English classes to possibly work in publishing or be a lawyer for publishing. So we'll see what happens in the future.

MIA TVRDY: I'm working to get my undergrad in economics. I kind of want to get a minor in finance. I think I do. My end goal would probably be like financial advisor or something with stock. Something with the money. That's what really gets me excited.