It was Oct. 10, and a three-set loss to Michigan had sent Illinois under .500 again. Not yet through two-thirds of the regular season, the Illini’s ninth loss matched its highest number ever under head coach Kevin Hambly. Something was wrong — the team, ranked No. 7 heading into the year, had too much talent to be losing more games than it was winning.

Hambly, typically cool and collected, was flustered.

“I’m at a loss right now,” he said after that game. “I thought we had it figured out and we don’t. … I need some more time to figure it out.”

Hambly conferred with his coaching staff, and a decision was made that would change the identity of his team. Looking to the setter position — the show-runner, often compared to a point guard or quarterback — Hambly and his staff decided to pull freshman Alexis Viliunas’ redshirt, a move Hambly had never made before, and relegate senior Annie Luhrsen to the bench.

A Wheaton, Ill., native, Luhrsen transferred in 2009 from Connecticut, where she had been named Big East Freshman of the Year in her lone season, ranking 10th in the country in aces per set and notching the third-most aces in a single season by a Connecticut player. She came to Hambly’s program at Illinois to take the reins in a place where she could compete for titles.

From there, Luhrsen exhibited patience. She sat out 2009 as a redshirt because of transfer rules and sat on the bench for most of 2010 as then-senior Hillary Haen led the team to the Sweet 16 in the NCAA tournament, where Illinois lost to Texas in five sets.

Luhrsen took over in 2011, and with weapons like Colleen Ward and Michelle Bartsch, Illinois rattled off 20 consecutive wins to begin its season. In that time, Luhrsen became fully acclimated to the Illinois offense. She set the team to its best season ever before the Illini were topped by UCLA in four sets in the national championship.

This year was to be Luhrsen’s second and final shot at NCAA glory.

Facing an unprecedentedly grueling schedule, Illinois started slow. A 1-2 record became 3-4, which turned into 6-4 as the team won three in a row. It seemed as though Illinois was about to get rolling, but then Illinois split its next two weekends, carrying an 8-6 record into its most critical weekend of the season, back-to-back games against Ohio State and Penn State.

In a weekend where Illinois competed as hard as it had all season, the results were devastating.

First, it allowed Ohio State to come back from a 2-0 set disadvantage. Then, 24 hours later, the team allowed Penn State to turn a 10-14 deficit in the fifth set into a 18-16 clinching victory.

The following Wednesday, the Michigan match happened.

“Wednesday was the first time that I felt like the team was not responding to the leadership that was out there — so drastically that I absolutely had to make a change,” Hambly said in practice after Viliunas’ first match as starter, a five-set victory over Michigan State. “Before that, I was pondering a change, but definitely things came to a head that night.”

While other teams in the conference have two setters that swap in and out of games, Hambly doesn’t buy into that philosophy. If you have more than one setter, Hambly says, you don’t have any. He said the only way Luhrsen would start at setter again this season is if Viliunas either got injured or played very poorly, which he does not foresee happening.

Hambly said the move was based on team personality and called the decision “probably the hardest one I’ve faced as a head coach.” Luhrsen, who could be used in some capacity other than setter, has taken an insistently team-first approach to the rest of her season.

“I don’t think it’s important, what I’m thinking or how I’m feeling,” Luhrsen said. “I think the team is what’s important, and I think that’s what we’re trying to focus on.”

Though the team expressed in practice this week an impetus to focus on themselves as individuals, Luhrsen is vehemently unselfish, refusing to think — at least publicly — about her own less-than-ideal situation.

“You just can’t focus on that,” she said. “You have to focus on the team. Volleyball’s a team sport, and that’s the most important thing.”

Hambly met with Luhrsen in person at their biweekly player-coach meeting, which Hambly has with all the players, and informed her of his decision. It was not a decision based on Luhrsen’s performance, Hambly said, but rather one made to provide for a more cohesive team personality.

“I have no issues with Annie’s personality,” Hambly said. “Annie is — I love Annie. I love her fiery personality, I love her competitiveness and I thought that’s what the team needed, up until after Wednesday’s match (against Michigan), when I didn’t feel the team was following that anymore.

“For me, I’m worried about if I’m gonna hurt her. I don’t wanna hurt a kid. That’s not my intention. … I have tremendous respect for Annie. The thing is, some of this is out of her control, and that’s the hardest thing, like how do you explain that to somebody?”

Hambly said he “felt a little sick to my stomach” in telling Luhrsen of his decision, but that he felt it was the right call.

Luhrsen, who stands by her coach’s general vision, declined comment on Hambly’s decision.

“I’m not gonna answer that question,” she said.

Hambly informed Viliunas over the phone that she was going to be put in a starting role, and Viliunas said she was “shocked” — she didn’t know she could be taken out of redshirt. According to Hambly, neither did Luhrsen.

Viliunas, by all accounts, is loose, carefree and goofy. She is an underclassman, like most of the team’s offensive weapons, and played with stellar outside hitter Jocelynn Birks in high school. The two share a Justin Bieber obsession.

Luhrsen is still focused on volleyball, just not her personal role on the team. She approaches practice the same way, she said, and feels that bench players fulfill a vital role in team success.

In her first game sitting on the bench, a five-set win against Michigan State, Luhrsen was the player representative who went out for the coin toss that decides who serves first in the final set. Luhrsen had played that role all season and will continue to going forward.

“She’s very much still a leader on the squad, and people are still respecting the leadership even though she’s not playing,” said Laura DeBruler, a volunteer assistant coach who had a prominent career at Illinois before tearing her ACL in her senior season. “I think that might be the toughest thing she’s probably ever had to go through, is to not play, but it just shows the character that she is that people are still following her as a leader even though she’s not on the court.”

Though Luhrsen could come in and play from time to time, her days of leading Illinois on the court are likely over. DeBruler’s final season was cut short as well, but having suffered an injury, DeBruler noted, makes it circumstantially distinct.

“Of course you wanna play, and when you’re not playing, that just sucks,” DeBruler said. “I went through it, but it’s different when — it is different. I commend her, for sure.”

Eliot can be reached at [email protected] and @EliotTweet.