With the second-ranked Huskers’ 25-22, 25-10, 23-25, 25-22 victory over UCLA at the Devaney Center on Friday, Cook reached 700 wins in Nebraska. He is the third coach at a current Big Ten program to do so, and he did so in 801 games. That’s an 87% winning percentage over 25 seasons at NU.

Nebraska has now won eight straight games while handing the Bruins their first loss in the expanded league.

The California native led Nebraska to an undefeated national championship in his first season at Nebraska in 2000, and three more NCAA titles followed. He has won 13 conference titles, including last year. There have been 11 trips to the Final Four.

Cook helped take the sport to another level in Nebraska by moving into an 8,000-seat arena and contributed to the sport’s rise nationally.

These days there are a lot of games on TV and there are more places than Nebraska that are sold out. The highlight off the field came last season when Nebraska set a world record with 92,003 fans for a game at Memorial Stadium.

Friday marked John Cook Day, as the athletic department had already planned a celebration of Cook’s 25 seasons as Husker coach.

Fans received a bobblehead from Cook and there was a large bouncy castle in the hall where fans could have their pictures taken.

During breaks in the game, video tributes to Cook were played on the big screen by several former Huskers: Nancy Metcalf, Amber Holmquist, Laura Pilakowski, Dani Busboom, Amanda Gates, Gina Mancuso, Kadie Rolfzen, Mikaela Foecke, Kenzie Maloney, Madi Kubik and Nicklin Hames.

During the third set, Garth Brooks’ “Friends in Low Places” played over the speakers and turned into a sing-along – likely another tribute to cowboy Cook.

Cook also coached at Wisconsin for seven seasons and has totaled 861 wins.

While Cook hasn’t been making all the noise, he appreciates all the attention and resources the Athletic Department staff puts into the volleyball program.

“It’s fun and people love it,” he said. “They do a great job connecting people with our program. So hats off to them.”

“It makes it a lot of fun,” Cook added. “And of course I need to have more fun.”

On Friday, Nebraska outside hitter Taylor Landfair fell to Lindsay Krause late in the first set and finished with a season-best 13 kills on .414 hitting, including four kills in the deciding final set.

“We needed a left side to kill some balls out of system and (Landfair) took aggressive swings and did a really good job,” Cook said. “She got some big blocks that we needed. So we’ll see.”

Sophomore middle blocker Andi Jackson also had 13 kills with a .409 hitting percentage. She also had five blocks. Merritt Beason and Harper Murray each had nine kills.

Lexi Rodriguez had twenty digs.

Nebraska’s 14 hitting errors combined over the final two sets dropped the Huskers’ hitting percentage to .246. UCLA hit .153

Outside hitter Cheridyn Leverette had 17 kills for UCLA.

John Cook Day had good times all around until he made a sharp turn late in the third set. Nebraska led 22-14 and was on the verge of a sweep. Then, UCLA libero Kat Lutz stunned the crowd with a 10-0 serve. When her run finally ended after she served into the net, the Bruins led 24-22. After another kill, the Bruins won the set to stay alive.

“It was a complete loss of focus,” Cook said. “We stopped passing the ball, we stopped putting it in the middle. We couldn’t kill a ball.”

In the fourth set, UCLA hit shots on Nebraska’s blockers and led 9-8. Nebraska took the lead during a 4-0 run that included an ace serve from Kennedi Orr and a big block from setter Bergen Reilly. UCLA narrowed the deficit to 23-22. Beason didn’t have great match hitting, but got a huge kill on a back row attack to give Nebraska match point. Landfair’s block was the final point.

The first set was back and forth all the way until Nebraska won 25-22. UCLA made several runs, but Jackson was a run-stopper for the Huskers with the slide attack. She had four kills on eight attempts in the set.

Nebraska won the final two points on a kill by Jackson and a kill by Landfair. The final point came after a lengthy successful review of the challenge map by Nebraska (assisted by Nebraska assistant coach Jaylen Reyes).