KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Two moves ultimately stood above the rest amid an avalanche of volleyball activity in the transfer portal late last year: Eva Hudson from Purdue to Kentucky and Kyndal Stowers from Baylor to Texas A&M. It was a literal shift of power from the Big Ten and the Big 12 to the SEC. Hudson and Stowers committed within 30 minutes of each other, as Texas A&M coach Jamie Morrison remembers it. They were stars at their former schools — in two leagues that have combined to win 16 nationa
It was a literal shift of power from the Big Ten and the Big 12 to the SEC.
Hudson and Stowers committed within 30 minutes of each other, as Texas A&M coach Jamie Morrison remembers it. They were stars at their former schools — in two leagues that have combined to win 16 national championships in this sport over the past 26 seasons.
Morrison’s first thought? Fun times ahead in the SEC.
Their impact has resonated more widely. Sunday at T-Mobile Center and in front of an ABC audience, Kentucky (30-2) and Texas A&M (28-4) will play for the national championship. Hudson and Stowers are All-Americans. They provide just a segment of the firepower on stacked rosters for the Wildcats and Aggies.
The SEC has arrived as a force in women’s volleyball, in position to challenge the Big Ten as the best conference nationally. The conference secured a second national championship — and the first in a traditional fall season — with semifinal wins Thursday by Kentucky against Wisconsin and Texas A&M against Pitt.
KENTUCKY. TEXAS A&M. FOR IT ALL 🏆
The first ALL-SEC National Championship in NCAA Volleyball history 🙌@KentuckyVB | @AggieVolleyballpic.twitter.com/rpBxTCVrTu
— SEC Network (@SECNetwork) December 19, 2025
The Wildcats won it all in the pandemic-adjusted 2020 season, played in the spring of 2021.
That championship remains the most treasured by Greg Sankey, he said, among the football- and baseball-heavy collection assembled in his decade as SEC commissioner.
“It broke down doors,” Kentucky coach Craig Skinner said, “that either Kentucky could do it again or someone else in the league can do it.”
When Sankey visited Lexington on Labor Day weekend in 2021, Kentucky and Skinner presented him with a national championship ring.
“I don’t get emotional much,” Sankey said Thursday after watching the Aggies and Wildcats win. “But to know all that had taken place to get to that point, it’s something we had never done as a league.”
Not long after Sankey took power in 2015, he saw the potential for growth in volleyball and wanted a piece of the action. Florida, under coach Mary Wise, who retired after last season, had long carried the SEC flag. But the Gators never reached the mountaintop, losing in national championship matches against USC in 2003 and Nebraska in 2017.
Then came Kentucky’s breakthrough.
The popularity of volleyball is exploding. Viewership and participation nationally are on the rise. The professional game has emerged in the United States, with two major women’s leagues (Major League Volleyball and League One Volleyball). In the SEC, Vanderbilt rekindled its program after 45 years. Schools are shattering attendance records and devoting name, image and likeness resources to the sport.
Sankey, looking for an edge, pushed for the SEC to rekindle its postseason tournament, which it hadn’t staged since 2005.
The Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC do not contest postseason championships. The logic? Top programs build resumes strong enough to earn high seeds in the NCAA Tournament without a taxing finish to November.
The commissioner “begged and pleaded,” according to Morrison, knowing that a tournament would create opportunities for exposure and growth.
And with four-time national champion Texas on board after it won consecutive titles in the Longhorns’ final seasons in the Big 12, the time was right.
The tournament came back this year in Savannah, Ga., featuring all 16 programs in a five-day event. Kentucky and Texas played three matches in three days. The Wildcats outlasted the Longhorns in five sets in the final.
“I know volleyball when I’m looking around the country,” Morrison said. “Seeing what us, what Kentucky and what Texas were doing, I thought those were three of the best teams — if not the three best teams — in the country as we went through the season.”
The Aggies made a statement in winning a regional semifinal in five sets against Louisville, the national runner-up a year ago. A&M’s five-set upset against No. 1 Nebraska then punched the Aggies’ first ticket to a national semifinal.
“We’re one of the most prepared teams in the country,” Morrison said. “Kentucky is the same way because they had the same path.”
Kentucky lost this year against Pitt and Nebraska. A&M beat them both in the past week.
The Wildcats beat Texas twice. The Aggies split with the Longhorns.
All that’s left is to settle things on the court. In their lone meeting this year, Kentucky won in College Station, Texas, on Oct. 8 in four sets.
“That feels like a really long time ago,” A&M senior Emily Hellmuth said. “It’s hard to honestly remember, so much has happened since then.
“I think we left feeling like there was a lot of unfinished business there.”
The Aggies lost the final set of that first match, 27-25. Hudson and Stowers, the high-impact transfers, traded the final five kills.
The transfer of power now complete, they’re ready on Sunday to put on a show of SEC force.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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