The women's volleyball team at Texas Tech University, where I'm on the faculty, just finished a Big 12 season that seems hard to describe as anything other than a disaster. After winning their conference opener against Colorado, the Red Raiders lost all 19 of their remaining Big 12 matches (Oklahoma State does not field a team in this sport, meaning that each partcipating school faces 10 opponents, twice each). In Texas Tech's final 11 matches, it only won one game (i.e., 10 times it was swept 3-0 and once lost by a 3-1 score). Above is a photo I took at Tech's home match against Iowa State, relatively early in conference play. Among the misfortunes experienced by the Raiders, senior setter Emily Ziegler went out -- for the season, it turned out -- after the eighth Big 12 match with a foot injury that required surgery ( here and here ). Replacing Ziegler for the Raiders' remaining 12 conference matches was Kourtney Dunnam , whose path to the Texas Tech s