Kansas University volleyball players pose for a portrait after practice afternoon on Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2015, in Omaha, Nebraska.

Omaha, Neb. ? A red sea of Cornhuskers volleyball backers will fill CenturyLink Center for tonight’s national semifinal match between Nebraska and Kansas.

It will make for quite the spectacle, but the Kansas volleyball players will be the last ones able to describe the crowd. Their eyes will be elsewhere, specifically where they always are trained: on each other.

“I know that no matter what, my team has my back,” was how junior Tayler Soucie put their bond. “Whether I make a mistake or I’m having a rough day, they’re going to help me out.

“Sometimes we get more excited for each other than we do for ourselves. That makes me feel good. We feed off of each other. When one person gets going, it kind of makes everyone else get going. That’s worked for us all year.”

Nebraska rides a 14-match winning streak into tonight and has a series advantage of 86-0-1 vs. Kansas.

The Cornhuskers’ last two losses, on consecutive days (Oct. 23-24), came against Final Four participant Minnesota and then Wisconsin.

Kansas (30-2) lost twice to Texas, which is in the Final Four for the fifth consecutive year.

The KU players were their relaxed selves in the locker room and focused at their public practice.

The partisan crowd makes Nebraska the favorite, but Cornhuskers coach John Cook knows the lopsided series history was not built by the current players.

Shortly after the American Volleyball Coaches Association announced its 14-deep All-American first team that included Kansas setter Ainise Havili and right-side hitter Kelsie Payne, Cook said, “Right there shows you they’ve got talent. I think they’re a very good passing defensive team and solid.”

For Nebraska, junior Kadie Rolfzen, like Payne a right-side hitter, earned first-team All-American honors to go with the two third-team honors she had won in her previous seasons. Her twin, Amber, a middle blocker, earned second-team All-American honors, and junior libero Justine Wong-Orantes was recognized on the third team. Two other Cornhuskers earned honorable mention.

Channeling emotions properly under difficult circumstances will be key for Kansas.

Tiana Dockery, the only player in program history to participate in four NCAA tournaments, has been known to get hot serving and attacking. That doesn’t happen when she gets amped up, rather when she settles down, she said.

“More focus, calming myself down a little bit, going up to Janae (Hall) a little bit more, saying, ‘OK, help me out here.’ I think that’s for everyone,” Dockery said. “Everyone just kind of looks in each other’s eyes and says, ‘All right, let’s calm it down here.’ I know that helps a lot.”

Havili and Payne earning All-American honors Wednesday was a “big deal, a really big deal,” according to sophomore Madison Rigdon, who scored the final point of KU’s remarkable fifth-set comeback against USC, the tournament’s top seed.

The poker faces worn by Havili and Payne didn’t reveal as much.

KU’s first two first-team All-Americans went to the U.S. Collegiate National Team trials in Colorado Springs with Dockery last summer. All three were selected to compete in New Orleans.

Dockery said that nothing about the way they competed there revealed their relative youth.

“I mean, they’re pretty nonchalant about a lot of things,” Dockery said. “They just kind of take it and go with it. You can never really tell if they’re nervous about anything. They just kind of go in with a lot of confidence and play and have fun.”

Of their selection to the All-American team, Dockery said, “I’m ecstatic. I thought back to when we went to USA Trials, watching them learn so much and progress and get better, and they’re only sophomores. I’m really excited to watch them play for the rest of their years here and progress as individuals and young women. It’s a wonderful honor, but they’re so good it’s not really a surprise.”

After defeating USC in the Elite Eight, nothing the Jayhawks do should count as much of a surprise anymore. Sure, it’s their first Final Four. It also was their first Elite Eight, and look how well that turned out.