Indiana volleyball has reached new heights. Not only have the Hoosiers earned a trip to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2010, but they’ve earned a Top-4 seed, which comes with a special perk.

The Hoosiers get to host the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament, which increases their chances of making the Sweet Sixteen.

A record number of Hoosiers were honored on All-Big Ten teams, this was IU’s highest-ranked recruiting class in history and they finished with a 25-7 overall record.

While the rookies expected the team to have success in their first year with the program, it was better than they could have imagined.

“When you get recruited, you hear all these things and you want to believe it’s true,” IU freshman Victoria Gray said. “For some reason, it was just true. Automatically when I got here, it was true.”

When head coach Steve Aird first arrived in Bloomington eight years ago, he inherited a team that had just one conference win the year prior.

But Aird is no stranger to rebuilds.

He did it at Maryland just before his time at Indiana and, despite others telling him that taking this job was crazy, he knew he could do it in Bloomington.

“We’ve had 10, 11 or 12 players in the last few years go play pro,” Aird said. “We’ll have these kids drafted… I think if you come to Indiana now, it’s a place you can come to and then 3-4 years later, you’re ready to do a whole bunch of stuff.”

The Hoosiers will host Toledo this Thursday at Wilkinson Hall.