photo by: John Young

Kansas' Madison Rigdon (14), Ainise Havili (11) and Cassie Wait (5) celebrate a point during their volleyball match against Iowa State Saturday afternoon at the Horejsi Center. The Jayhawks swept the Cyclones, 3-0, to remain a perfect 17-0 on the year. The tenth ranked Jayhawks will next face Baylor on Wednesday evening in Waco.

For years, you might have heard about what a blast Kansas volleyball matches are at the Horejsi Center, where 1,300 spectators bring so much passion they sound more like a crowd of 10,000.

And then last year you paid attention as the Jayhawks advanced to the Final Four by knocking out No. 1 overall seed USC on one of the most dramatic and longest rallies in NCAA tournament history.

So now you finally will do what you have said you were going to do for so many years. You are going to pick up the phone, call the Kansas athletic department and buy tickets to watch a match live for the first time.

Allow me to save you the trouble of wondering just where it was you left your iPhone. You don’t need to make that call because it’s too late.

Every regular-season seat is sold out. Some season-ticket holders from seasons past were disappointed to find out there was no room at the intimate building for them this year.

Now there remains only one way to see the KU volleyball team live in Lawrence and that is to show up Saturday at 1 p.m. at Horejsi for the Crimson and Blue Scrimmage. Admission is free and coach Ray Bechard is pondering unveiling the Final Four banner on Saturday as a means of thanking fans for showing up.

The steady growth of the program under Bechard, the current spike of which can be traced to the hiring of assistant Todd Chamberlain in 2010 and associate head coach Laura “Bird” Kuhn in 2011, means the team’s popularity has outgrown its home court.

That’s what happens when a team goes 30-3, makes it to the Final Four and returns two All-Americans and several other key players.

All three losses (Texas twice, Nebraska) came vs. the teams that played in the national-championship match in Omaha. Serving problems in the home loss to Texas and in the first set vs. Nebraska did in the Jayhawks. The loss to the Cornhuskers came in front of a rowdy pro-Nebraska crowd.

“We tried to simulate it here at practice but there is really no way to simulate that experience, 17,000 people all wearing red, nobody really cheering for us,” junior setter Ainise Havili said. “We had never been through anything like that before. Now we have and we’ll be ready if anything like that happens again.”

When Havili and fellow All-American Kelsie Payne are seniors, the Final Four will be in Sprint Center in Kansas City.

First things first. If you want to watch extraordinary athletes who genuinely appreciate fan support, head to Horejsi at 1 p.m. Saturday.