For the better part of the 2025 Kansas volleyball season, as first-year KU coach Matt Ulmer sought to figure out how the pieces of his new team best fit together, there was one player he rarely even thought about.
Setters changed. Outside hitters came and went. Injuries created opportunities for some and took opportunities away from others.
And through it all, freshman Logan Bell just kept doing her thing.
“I never worry about her,” Ulmer said of Bell midway through the 2025 season. “She’s our youngest kid on the team and I don’t worry about her. She’s always locked in and her heart is definitely in the right place. She wants to win so bad.”
As it turned out, Bell’s play was pretty damn good for a player of any age and at all positions, not just for a freshman.
She was steady, solid, strong and reliable. And she competed as hard as anybody, using that inner drive to fuel her during the biggest moments of the season while keeping it from taking the joy out of the way she plays the game.
Ulmer referred to Bell’s balancing act as her “trying to channel that appropriately,” which, more times than not, can be tough for freshmen to do and often takes a while.
But Bell, Indiana’s high school player of the year who had committed to Ulmer at Oregon before following him to Kansas, leaned mostly on her talent and love for her teammates to lead her through Year 1 in the Big 12 Conference.
“She’s got so much game,” Ulmer said. “Most people can’t do all the things she can do. She makes great reads. Her IQ is very high. And she shows up every day.”
He knew she could play. That’s why he recruited her. Twice. And why it was a big deal both times when she committed to play for him.
But it’s that last part — showing up every day while learning how to be a college student for the first time — that impressed Ulmer the most in the early going.
“Most freshmen, when they get there in the fall, their life is wild,” he said. “They’ve got laundry, figuring out how to live, how they can eat and all those things. None of that with her. She’s locked in.”
Bell credits that to her upbringing.
The daughter of a former college volleyball player and minor league baseball pitcher, Bell said being passive when it came to competition was a no-go in her house.
“That’s in my blood,” she told R1S1 Sports this week. “We can’t even play board games in my house because we get too competitive. Me, my brother and my sister playing games? No. Because one of us will get hurt.”
When she first arrived at KU this summer, Bell wasn’t quite sure how quickly or easily that would allow her to fit in at the college level. But her older teammates, who double as her roommates, encouraged her and even demanded that she use her voice early and often.
That was music to Bell’s ears because being quiet while playing the game she loves is next to impossible.
“I am a very talkative person, I like to help those around me and I don’t shut up when I’m on the court,” she said. “I sound like I’m psycho. But it helps me play my game and I’m also helping out my team.”
Bell didn't lead the Jayhawks in any major statistics or land on the top of any Big 12 lists. She was just solid in everything. Including reliability. So far, she has played in all 34 matches — with 24 starts — and appeared in 126 of 128 possible sets.
It doesn’t take long watching her play to see what motivates her. She has something to say after every point, good or bad, and brings as much fire and passion to the court as all-out intensity, even if the two traits occasionally blend into one big ball of explosive energy.
When asked why she thought Ulmer was so complimentary of her approach and preparedness so early in the season, Bell smiled and said hearing something like that from your head coach makes it mean even more.
“I just always tried to be consistent every day, bringing energy, the fire and also pushing my teammates,” she said. The idea of coming in as the only true freshman was scarier than it actually has been. And it’s just been me being fearless. That’s the big thing about college volleyball. If you want to reach your goals, be fearless and just be you.”
Bell, undeniably, has been her throughout the 2025 season and it has helped push Kansas (24-10) into the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament, with a match against top-seeded Nebraska looming at 8:30 p.m. Friday night in Lincoln.
Recent scenes of Kansas freshman Logan Bell during KU matches from the 2025 season. [Kansas Athletics photo]
It’s a tall task. The Jayhawks are 0-88-1 all-time against the Huskers and this particular Nebraska team (32-0) has lost just seven sets all season long, including just one since Sept. 20.
Bell knows that. Ulmer knows that. And the rest of the Jayhawks know it, as well.
But one of the things Ulmer has fought hard for during his first season at Kansas is for his team to win the mental war that goes on each year. Believe you’re good. Know you can win. Embrace all challenges. And tackle all obstacles with a smirk and a smile.
Few players on this roster do that better than Bell, who recently sent Ulmer the words of the speech from “Miracle,” the hockey movie chronicling the 1980 U.S. Olympic team’s major upset of the Soviet Union in Lake Placid, New York.
In the film, actor Kurt Russell, who played Team USA coach Herb Brooks, said the following words to the U.S. players in the locker room before their miracle victory.
“Great moments are born from great opportunity. And that’s what you have here tonight, boys. That’s what you’ve earned here tonight. One game. If we played ‘em 10 times, they might win nine. But not this game. Not tonight.”
Bell knows it will take a heck of an effort by the Jayhawks to bring those words to life for her team. But that’s where that whole fearless thing comes back into play.
“Anything is possible,” she said. “So, why put doubt around it when you can overcome all of it? Obviously, we’ll have to play a lot of good volleyball. But the biggest thing is a calm presence. You can’t be an emotional roller coaster. That’s when it’s gonna fall apart. You just have to keep chipping away. … It’s gonna take a lot of grit and you have to be fearless (and think) you truly have nothing to lose. So, why not go in there and ball out with your teammates and have so much fun? We’re playing for each other because we believe we can do it.”
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