In his first season with the Kansas volleyball team, Matt Ulmer coached the first KU match at Allen Fieldhouse in 12 years.
Ulmer said at the time that the goal was to get a sense of the actual extent of the volleyball fan base in the region, in numbers beyond what Horejsi Family Volleyball Arena, with its capacity of 2,265, could accommodate.
As it turned out, KU and rival Kansas State drew an announced attendance of 7,550 to the Phog on Oct. 24. While the on-court result didn’t go the Jayhawks’ way — the Wildcats snapped an eight-match losing streak in the rivalry in five-set fashion — the off-court outcomes were clearly encouraging enough for Ulmer and the KU athletic department to return to Allen Fieldhouse for 2026.
“I think we’ll have two matches in Allen,” Ulmer said on his “Hawk Talk” radio show on Tuesday.
That news didn’t come out of nowhere, of course. In the lead-up to last year’s contest, albeit while emphasizing that KU won’t ever stray from using Horejsi as its primary home arena, athletic director Travis Goff said there could be an opportunity going forward for “one to two unique matchups in Allen Fieldhouse.”
So now two seems like the number of choice for the 2026 campaign.
“I think Allen was amazing,” Ulmer said, “and I think just giving our fans an opportunity to come see us and the students more opportunity to come to a match, I think, is really important.”
What those matchups might be is not yet clear. Last season’s K-State match took place the night before the football team hosted the Wildcats; this year the football Sunflower Showdown shifts back to Manhattan, preventing any sort of synergy in that realm.
The volleyball matches may also need to occur prior to the start of basketball games at Allen Fieldhouse, which could be a bit earlier this year depending on the date of KU’s home men’s basketball exhibition against Louisville.
KU volleyball’s nonconference schedule is already out, and it includes five home matches in September, but those don’t seem likely candidates for this sort of selection. Whatever the case, scheduling news for this fall’s matches at the Phog may not be far away. Last year the release of the Big 12 schedule and KU’s Allen Fieldhouse match came on Monday, April 21.
