DENVER – So this matchup was going to be amazing.
 
No. 1 Nebraska-Kearney. Fast-rising MSU Denver.
 
Then MSU Denver moved up to No. 4.
 
Nebraska-Kearney? Well, the Lopers dropped out of the ratings.
 
What?
 
UNK was the preseason No. 1 in the national coaches poll, but then – for the third poll of the season – the AVCA decreed that only teams which have played matches were eligible for the rankings. Not everyone got the message – Nebraska-Kearney still received votes, but not enough to keeping the Lopers from dropping all the way out of the top 25.
 
There's a possibility, perhaps, that Nebraska-Kearney is No. 1 next week.
 
But the Lopers would first have to beat MSU Denver in an 11 a.m. match Saturday at the Auraria Event Center. The Lopers are, after all, the returning national runners-up.
 
You know what? Weird rankings aside, this should still be amazing.
 
It was just last season, albeit in December, 2019, that Nebraska-Kearney played for the NCAA Division II national championship in the very same Auraria Event Center, losing only in the championship match against Cal State San Bernardino.
 
"We're very excited to be able to play a team that made it that far, and to be able to measure ourselves against them," MSU Denver outside hitter Kayla White said. "Because, honestly, it was emotional for the entire team to watch them play on our home floor as we hosted. It was cool to host, but I didn't realize how much it would lead you to start to dream about it.
 
"Watching them play on our home floor gave us a lot of motivation, and respect. We're super-excited to play against a high-level team. They have so much history."
 
As UNK advanced, MSU Denver watched.
 
"We saw the things we needed to get better at, and what it would take to get to that national championship level," senior setter Jessa Megenhardt said. "We've been grinding this past year to get better at those things. The coaches have worked really hard behind the scenes to find those little improvements we need to make to get better so that we can be right there with them."
 
What stuck out about Nebraska-Kearney?
 
"The biggest thing I noticed was their sideline, their bench culture," Megenhardt said. "They're a unit. Very loud on the sideline. And they were very calm. Nothing got to them. There was just a presence about them. And then they had the ability to calm a play down, get back in system when they needed to."
 
The 2019 national championship field of eight also included Regis, which reached the semifinals. MSU Denver played Regis three times that season, winning once and losing to the Rangers in a five-set thriller in the NCAA Tournament. It was Regis' toughest NCAA Tournament match until losing in the semifinals to the eventual champions.
 
"The fact that we beat Regis shows the potential we had last year," White said. "We just didn't quite breakthrough some paper ceilings. I think we needed that. I think we needed to see people play on our home floor, see their culture, see how they push through when it gets tough. That visual helped us create a solution for ourselves. It was tough to watch, but honestly I think we needed it. I think we know now that we're capable of being there as well."
 
For years, Nebraska-Kearney and MSU Denver were among the RMAC's premier programs (and UNK has a decided edge in the all-time series between the teams), before UNK left for the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association after the 2011 season.
 
But the teams have faced each other recently, in scrimmages before the 2017 and 2018 seasons.
 
"(UNK coach) Rick (Squiers) and I worked hard for this to happen, and I'm really glad it worked out that they were able to come here because it's a really good opportunity for us," MSU Denver coach Jenny Glenn said. "We're excited to play someone outside of the RMAC, just to see a different style of volleyball. We're excited to see how we match up against them. They have a big, deep roster, so you never know who you're going to see. But they have a lot of returners from their championship run last year."
 
That championship run, in MSU Denver's building, may have been tough to watch. But it was also valuable.
 
"So often we bring new people in and we say our mission is to win a national championship and that's always what we're striving for," Glenn said. "But you don't really know what it looks like until you actually see a national championship. So it was a really cool opportunity for our athletes, and as a staff, to watch the full tournament and say, 'What are these teams doing better than we're doing? What do we need to do, what do we need to hit, what kind of efficiency do we need to have, what's the difference between us and them?'
 
"It was an opportunity to build confidence in our student-athletes as well as give them fuel for motivation. This last fall, we were really in a good spot from a motivation standpoint. We had a laser-like focus, but COVID had other plans for us. So we have to manage that."
 
The Roadrunners are off to a 5-0 start, all in RMAC play, and have achieved their highest national ranking since ascending to No. 2 in 2003. One win this season was in four sets over then-No. 19 Colorado School of Mines, but the others have been three-set cruises.
 
"Rankings are rankings, and this year it's a little bit wild," Glenn said. "But to be ranked fourth shows that we're getting some acknowledgement for the work we've done. This team has worked its tail off since last March. So it's nice to see them get some recognition for that hard work. We haven't taken a vacation for 11 months. We've been engaged in training and improving our volleyball IQ."
 
The degree of difficulty will increase sharply on Saturday.
 
"I think what we'll see Saturday is the same speed as our offense, which we haven't seen yet, a team that is really good at a system," White said. "I'm expecting more rallies, longer rallies. It's going to be a faster-paced match, more like what we see in practice. It'll be challenging because it will be a more aggressive, bigger, taller team.
 
"Will be hard to adjust? Yes and no, because it's hard to play at a slower pace, too. We'll be playing more of our style of volleyball, just against different faces than we're used to in practice, different tendencies. Volleyball is a game of adjusting, and a game of mistakes. I think it will come down to little errors that will turn the match."