Charitie Luper needed just one word to describe the atmosphere Wednesday night inside the KFC Yum! Center, with 12,760 fans packing the lower bowl to watch the Louisville volleyball team battle Kentucky.
Jumpin'.
"It was jumpin'," said Luper, a junior outside hitter who was playing her first match in the arena after transferring in from UCLA. "It was jumpin'."
Luper had the Louisville fans in the crowd, the largest for a home volleyball match in program history, jumping for joy when her ace capped the No. 2 Cardinals' third win in a row over the No. 21 Wildcats and their first sweep in the series (25-19, 25-23, 25-18) since Sept. 7, 2005. Afterward, the Dallas native spoke to reporters with the wonderment of someone who had never before seen the passion of the U of L-UK rivalry in person.
But in her defense: no one had seen it elevated to a stage quite like this before in volleyball.
"I can't even describe my emotions; it was just so surreal," said Luper, who led the team with 13 kills. "It was amazing seeing the smoke, the fans, the red lights. It was everything I could have ever dreamed of, for real."
There had been plenty of Louisville volleyball matches at the Yum! Center prior to Wednesday night. But the Cardinals' dominant win, broadcast nationally on ESPN, felt like the next step for a program that has been dreaming big with seventh-year head coach Dani Busboom Kelly at the helm.
For reference, Wednesday night's crowd was larger than the Yum! Center average attendance for the 2022-23 men's (12,497) and women's (8,779) basketball teams — although the former was mired in its worst season in modern history.
"I go back to the culture that she's created," athletics director Josh Heird told The Courier Journal when asked what makes Busboom Kelly a successful coach. "Her ability to bring a group of people together and make sure that they're all rowing in the same direction at the same time — that's not easy to do. But she somehow seems to do it every year.
"It's just a really good mix of who she's put together on her staff; she's really intentional in who she recruits — it's not just, 'Let me go get the most talented,' it's, 'Are they gonna fit into the culture that we're trying to create here?' It's really cool to watch her do it."
Busboom Kelly doesn't want to get into the comparison game with her alma mater, Nebraska, which in August set a record for the largest crowd to watch a women’s sporting event in the United States (92,003), but has taken it upon herself to prioritize growing volleyball in the community she now calls home.
Back-to-back trips to the Final Four and the program's first NCAA runner-up finish last winter have certainly helped.
"I think part of being a great program, and a top program, is the responsibility to continue to move the sport forward," Busboom Kelly told reporters during the preseason. "If we can't get more eyes on us, that's not really moving the sport forward."
So, how did setting a home attendance record feel?
"It means a lot to this program, the staff, the university and, most importantly, our athletes when they get to come out here and put on a show for so many people and just enjoy it," she said Wednesday night. "They're, like, one of the most appreciative bunches in the country, so I know they were loving every minute of it."
There will be two more matches at the Yum! Center this season: at 1 p.m. Sunday against No. 5 Stanford (ESPN2) and at 7 p.m. Oct. 13 against No. 8 Pittsburgh (ESPNU) — a rematch of last year's NCAA tournament semifinal.
Busboom Kelly thinks the team can play at the 22,000-seat venue in downtown Louisville "more than a few times a year" but said it would be hard to permanently move out of the on-campus L&N Federal Credit Union Arena (capacity: 1,331) because "that place is pretty special and so convenient."
"I'd love to challenge Card Nation to get between 5,000 and 10,000 fans at every game that we have down here," Busboom Kelly said, referring to the Yum! Center. "I definitely think we can do it."
Heird was surveying the postgame scene inside the arena Wednesday night when he told The Courier Journal his goal is to "have every seat in this place filled at some point" for a volleyball match and that he and Busboom Kelly will catch up at the end of the season to discuss next steps in the growth process.
For now, he's going to let the coach focus on chasing more program history. Heading into another ranked matchup this weekend, that means finding fault in a night when her Cardinals (9-0) had the Yum! Center jumping like never before.
"I'm always expecting more and expecting better," Busboom Kelly said. "I think there's a lot of things we can improve on. But, again, that's the beauty of this group: they understand that; they know there's more work to be done."
Reach Louisville men's basketball reporter Brooks Holton at bholton@gannett.com and follow him on X at @brooksHolton.
