The Minnesota volleyball team was ranked No. 8 in the Volleyball Magazine Preseason poll.

Minnesota finished No. 14 in last year's final AVCA Top 25 poll, and was ranked as high as No. 8 during the regular season.

Joining the Gophers in the top 10 in order were Penn State, Texas, Nebraska, Washington, Stanford, Cal, Hawai'i, Florida and UCLA.

Minnesota was the second-highest ranked Big Ten team behind No. 1 Penn State. Illinois and Michigan were in the poll at No. 13 and 15 respectively. Purdue and Wisconsin also received votes.

Golden Gophers non-conference opponents that appeared in the poll included No. 3 Nebraska, No. 4 Washington, No. 11 Iowa State and No. 14 Oregon.