• Minnesota will open up its season at the Billiken Invitational on Sept. 1-2. The Golden Gophers will play their season opener against host St. Louis on Friday, Sept. 1 at 7 p.m. On the second day of the tournament, Minnesota will face LSU at 12 p.m. and Texas A&M at 7 p.m. St. Louis and Texas A&M both enter the tournament with undefeated records at 3-0, while LSU is 2-1. LSU’s only loss came in a five-game home defeat to No. 2 Penn State.

• The Golden Gophers have won six straight non-conference tournaments and 18 straight non-conference tournament matches. Minnesota’s last loss in a non-conference tournament came against No. 1 USC in the NACWAA Classic in Fort Collins, Colo. on Aug. 28, 2004. Since that point, the Golden Gophers have won the Wyoming Tournament (UT-San Antonio, Idaho State, Wyoming - 9/3-4, 2004), the Diet Coke Classic (No. 15 Kansas State, No. 4 Florida, Northern Iowa - 9/10-11, 2004), the North Carolina Tournament (Rice, No. 20 Loyola Marymount, North Carolina - 9/17-18, 2004), the Diet Coke Classic (North Dakota State, Central Florida, Xavier - 9/2-3, 2005), Kansas State Invitational (Houston, Florida State, No. 24 Kansas State - 9/9-10, 2005) and the TCU Invitational (Campbell, Maine, TCU). Dating back to the 2003 Diet Coke Classic, Minnesota has won 22 of its last 23 non-conference tournament matches.

• Four of Minnesota’s first six opponents competed in the 2005 NCAA Tournament. The Golden Gophers will face a pair of those opponents on Sept. 2 when they meet LSU and Texas A&M in the St. Louis Tournament. Minnesota will also take on No. 12 Louisville in the Ameritas Players Challenge in Lincoln, Neb. on Sept. 9, before facing No. 1 Nebraska on Sunday, Sept. 10.

• Minnesota sophomore setter Rachel Hartmann will start as the Golden Gophers primary setter in the 5-1 system this year. The past two years, Minnesota has played the 6-2 system. Kelly Bowman started in the 6-2 as a sophomore for the Golden Gophers, and Lindsey Taatjes started as the primary setter in 5-1 for Minnesota in her sophomore season. Last year, Hartmann started and played the backrow in the 6-2 for Minnesota. She was the first setter to start the bulk of the Golden Gophers matches as a freshman setter, since Lindsey Berg did so in 1998.

• Minnesota returns 12 letterwinners from last year’s team that finished 25-8, tied for third in the Big Ten at 14-6 and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Seven of those players were newcomers to last year’s team. Four of the returning letterwinners are seniors, including three players (Kelly Bowman, Meredith Nelson and Malama Peniata) who have been with the program for the past three seasons.

• The Golden Gophers had some extra practice in this past offseason when they traveled to Europe for a 12-day, six-match trip. Minnesota faced three club teams from the Czech Republic in Olymp Praha and Slava Praha from Prague, and OK Brno from Brno. The Golden Gophers also faced the Croatian Junior National Team twice and Slovenian National Team in Maribor Slovenia. Minnesota went 4-2 on the trip. The NCAA permits athletic programs to go out of the country for the offseason once every four years.