Pitt’s junior opposite hitter Olivia Babcock is legitimately the best athlete in collegiate athletics today. Pitt fans should know that, and the collegiate athletics landscape should know that.
Every time I watch her play, she’s easily the best player on the floor by a wide margin, and it’s impossible to say otherwise.
She is practically an impossible equation to solve for opposing teams and perform feats that have never been done in Pitt volleyball history — a program that has now made it to four consecutive Final Fours.
Babcock is an anomaly.
In all of college volleyball, there is not a single player who has earned 40 or more kills in a match this season besides Pitt’s junior opposite hitter. Babcock has now done it twice against two ranked opponents on the road in must-win games.
On Oct. 19 in Louisville, Kentucky, the Los Angeles, California, native nabbed a program-record 41 kills against bitter rival and then ranked No. 4 Louisville on ESPN. And she did so efficiently, hitting .423 with only eight errors on her 78 swings. You simply can’t ask for much more than that — but she delivered more anyway.
Babcock one-upped her Louisville performance this past weekend on Nov. 2. She surpassed her program record of kills with 45 kills of her own against then No. 21-ranked UNC. Again, she was efficient, hitting .357 with 15 errors on her 84 swings.
Babcock was the first collegiate women’s volleyball player to earn 45 kills this decade, with the last player earning more than 45 kills coming in 2019.
She’s breaking records that multiple-time All-Americans simply couldn’t surpass. But Babcock is making it look like just another day, while Pitt is on its way to another ACC regular season championship and another No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
I simply don’t know what game plan coaches can put together to stop her dominance. The best bet opposing teams have is to hope and pray she has an off day. But that off day hardly ever happens.
Maybe, just maybe, she has a bad set, but she’s more than likely not going to struggle for an entire match. There’s only been one time in the 12 conference games that she hit below .250, which is what most players hope to have on their best days.
She’s clearly going to play in the Olympics one day, and she’s the only athlete in college athletics I can say that with complete confidence.
If Babcock were eligible for a draft after this season, fanbases would beg for their teams to lose so they can get a chance to have her on their team. We would see “Tank for Babcock” signs everywhere — she’s simply that generational.
And it just makes it more unfathomable that she didn’t seriously start playing competitive volleyball until she was a sophomore in high school.
There’s no stopping Babcock — there’s just hoping she doesn’t go nuclear on your team.
If Babcock can lead this Pitt team to a National Championship in 2025 or 2026, because yes, of course, she still has another year in college, then it’s not even debatable — she’s the best athlete in college athletics today. She might just be one of the best in the 21st century.
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