“I may be the tallest, but the people around me make me feel small because they’re mighty. I have some small, mighty people around me.”
— Arkansas middle Zoi Evans
This story actually has a back story, but ultimately it’s about Arkansas, a simply scrappy, undersized, fun team to watch that happens to be really good — No. 13 in the VolleyballMag.com Super 16 Media Poll — and one that is riding a 12-match winning streak and just one of two SEC teams still unbeaten in league play.
Before getting to the 2023 Razorbacks, however, here’s the back story.
One year and a few weeks ago, Arkansas visited Baton Rouge to play open SEC play at LSU. The Razorbacks were 9-1 at the time, off to the program’s best start since 2012. It was a team with two undersized outsides, 5-foot-10 Taylor Head and 5-7 (really) Jill Gillen who were crushing it, along with a 5-8 setter in Hannah Hogue and a 5-8 libero in Courtney Jackson.
We visited the night before the LSU match, Head, Gillen and me, and had a wonderful interview. Then I took this picture:
I wasn’t sure when I would get around to writing the story, but …
Arkansas…
