While Thursday marked Northwestern’s first meeting with No. 21 USC in more than 40 years, coach Tim Nollan has a long history with the Big Ten newcomers.
“That school will always have a special place in my heart,” Nollan said. “But I won’t say that we didn’t talk about it in the locker room tonight that we wanted to have a great performance tonight.”
Nollan’s Wildcats (5-20, 3-14 Big Ten) took the second set from the ranked Trojans (19-8, 11-6 Big Ten) but ultimately fell in four sets to the visitors.
After the loss, Nollan reflected on his years at USC, saying the time spent there taught him what it takes to build a winning program.
“USC is a very storied program,” Nollan said. “They won the first NCAA championship ever in women’s volleyball. I think this program can do some similar things. We’re just (in) different stages of our program.”
Nollan, a Ventura, California, native, enrolled at USC as an international relations major in 1996. After a coaching stint at his high school alma mater, he joined the Trojans as a volunteer assistant coach in 2003, helping the Trojans secure their second consecutive national title.
Nollan took a brief hiatus from USC from 2004 until 2007, serving as an assistant coach at Pepperdine, which made three NCAA tournament appearances during that period — including a Sweet Sixteen run.
But after four years, Nollan returned to the Trojans as an assistant coach. By 2011, Nollan was an associate head coach under Mick Haley, the winningest coach in program history. Nollan helped coach the Los Angeles-based program to three Final Four appearances and six Elite Eights.
“I think, definitely, I’ve taken stuff from both my previous stops, when I was at Pepperdine and then at (USC), and I kind of implemented that into how I run our program here at Northwestern,” Nollan said.
Nollan’s coaching stops at Pepperdine and USC both focused on recruiting, culminating in three top-10 classes in Malibu and another five in Los Angeles. His 2010 recruiting class at USC was ranked No. 1 by PrepVolleyball.com. He also trained 17 Trojan All-Americans.
He cited these recruiting experiences as crucial takeaways from his time in California.
“It’s about building it and building blocks, and you have to do it in chunks,” Nollan said. “You can’t do it all at once. You know, we’re just fortunate. Won some recruiting battles, and we learned kind of how to recruit there and then how to train and we’re doing a lot of similarities here.”
A glimpse of Nollan’s recruiting prowess was revealed last week with the signing of outside hitter Bella Bullington and middle blocker Kayla Kauffman. Bullington was an AAU and an Under Armor All-American, while Kauffman led her high school team to two Colorado state titles.
Nollan’s recruiting acumen was immediately tested upon his arrival in Evanston. He was hired in February, more than two months after NU’s 2023 slate ended and after the team mutually parted ways with former coach Shane Davis.
Despite the abbreviated recruiting time, Nollan landed outside hitter Buse Hazan from South Florida, the ’Cats leader in kills, and graduate student middle blocker Sophia Summers, who is ranked second on NU’s squad in blocks.
The importance of these two transfer portal acquisitions shone through on Thursday. Despite the four-set loss, Hazan tallied a team-leading 11 kills, while Summers added four kills and five blocks.
“I just think we’re so close,” Nollan said. “…We had a chance to be up 2-0 tonight against a really quality club, and I think that’s a testament to our athletes. And we’re still fighting, we’re still preparing, they’re still training hard in the gym. They’re still proud to wear the Northwestern jersey, and I just think it’s a big credit to them.”
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