Rita Stubbs pulls in a well-known name in Arizona history and size in the middle
Arizona head volleyball coach Rita Stubbs landed two big commitments on Friday afternoon. A big name from Wildcat history and size in the middle joined the class of 2027 with the announcements of Nylah Bibby and Londyn Pope.
The 6-foot-2 Pope plays a premium position at middle blocker. Arizona tries to get one from the transfer portal almost every year. They have been successful roughly 50 percent of the time. They will go with three this season instead of the four that Stubbs would prefer.
Stubbs is addressing the future of the position through the high school pipeline. She got a late addition to the 2026 class in Marina Vosloo. Pope will follow Vosloo in 2027.
Pope plays prep volleyball for V.R. Eaton High School in Fort Worth, Tex. She played club for TAV 15 Black, but moved to Dallas Premier 16 Black this year.
Over her first two years of high school volleyball, Pope has played 158 sets with 1.3 kills per set. She has a career hitting percentage of .244.
Her offensive stats jumped considerably between her freshman and sophomore seasons, going from 0.7 k/s her rookie year to 1.6 k/s in her second year. After playing just 50 sets as a freshman, she was on the court for 108 in 2024-25. On the downside, Pope’s hitting percentage dropped from .280 to .238.
Pope has been fairly consistent with her blocking numbers. Despite a jump in the number of sets she played, she went from 0.6 blocks per set as a freshman to 0.7 b/s as a sophomore. She had 16 solo blocks out of her 75 total blocks during her second season. She also had 41 blocking errors in her 108 sets last season.
She has had some good showings in this year’s club tournaments. USA Volleyball named her to the all-tournament team for the 16 Freedom group at the 2025 Girls Junior National Championship last week. Her team came in ranked ninth, but she helped lead them to a second-place finish in 16 Freedom.
Pope’s highlights from her time with TAV can be found on her HUDL page. More recent personal highlights are on her Sports Recruits profile. Team highlights for Dallas Premier from recent tournaments can be found on the club’s Sports Recruits page.
Bibby’s name is known to every Wildcat fan. Her father Mike Bibby helped lead the men’s basketball team to its only national title in 1997.
The younger Bibby started her high school career at Desert Mountain in Scottsdale but transferred to Scottsdale’s Saguaro High before her sophomore year. She plays club volleyball for Arizona Storm Elite, which regulary produces some of the best volleyball players in Arizona. Bibby plays alongside some of the top players in the country on the Arizona Storm Elite 16 Thunder roster.
While Bibby is listed as an outside hitter and opposite on the Storm’s roster, she also lists herself as a libero/defensive specialist elsewhere. With a listed height of just 5-foot-9 or 5-foot-10, depending on the source, it’s open to debate whether she will be able to play at either pin at the Power 4 level. Her height would seem to make L/DS a more likely landing spot.
On the prep level, Bibby will be entering her second year at Saguaro but her third year of varsity volleyball. During her freshman season at Shadow Mountain, she played in 82 sets, averaging 2.8 kills per set on a .156 hitting percentage. She had 0.3 aces per set with 8.7 percent of her serves going for aces. She had a 90.1 serve percentage with 263 serve attempts.
On the defensive side of things, Bibby had 0.2 blocks per set and 2.5 digs per set as a freshman. On serve receive, she received serve 4.0 times per set with 0.3 reception errors per set.
Bibby did not play as many sets after transfering to Saguaro her sophomore year, but her stats improved. Her kills almost doubled to 5.0 per set. Just as important, she was more efficient with a .252 hitting percentage.
Her aces doubled to 0.6 per set and her ace rate shot up to 14.7 percent. The only negative movement came on her serve percentage, which dropped to 86.6 percent.
Bibby had 0.3 blocks per set in her second season, slightly better than her rookie year. Her digs were dramatically higher at 3.5 per set.
She received the ball more often as a sophomore with 5.4 receptions per set. Her reception errors also increased, going up to 0.4 per set.
Her father isn’t the only one in the family with college sports experience. Bibby’s older sister Janae Bibby played NCAA volleyball for one year at Division II Fresno Pacific in 2019.
Additional highlights can be found on Bibby’s HUDL profile.
Lead photo by Photo by Rebecca Sasnett / Arizona Athletics