Volleyball bracketology! 10/14

Don’t look now, folks, but Selection Sunday is a scant six weeks away for the Division I volleyball tournament. Division II Selection Sunday is a week prior, and if this were a paying job, I’d be thrilled to do a D-II bracketology as well. But it’s not, so I’ll focus on the big girls.

Not that many of the same bracketing principles apply in the volleyball tournament as do in the better-known NCAA basketball tournaments. Regionals are held at pre-determined sites, hosted this year by California, Nebraska, Texas, and Purdue. There is no restriction against placing a team into the regional which they will host. In fact, it seems just the opposite is the case — last year Florida hosted a regional in Gainesville, and despite not carrying a tournament seed (only the top 16 teams overall are seeded), they were placed there. So since Nebraska, Texas, and Purdue are all mortal locks to be NCAA tournament teams, you can bet they’ll be bracketed into their home regionals. There are rules restricting conference matchups and regular-season rematches in the first and second rounds, unless a conference has so many teams in the tournament restricting them would be unavoidable. In practice, that can really only happen with the 15-team Big East Conference, so it’s something the basketball tournament committee has to be aware of, but not so much the volleyball selectors.

Each of the 31 conferences gets their regular-season champion in, but that does not mean that 33 bids are up for grabs. For the easiest illustrative example, consider the Pac-12 — Stanford, Oregon, Washington, USC, and UCLA. Regardless of who ends up as Pac-12 champion, none of these teams are going to be biting their nails on Selection Sunday. They’re all in, no question about it. By my reckoning, I count 13 at-large bids that are by all rights spoken for at this time. That number could increase if someone falters in a conference tournament.

I will update this every week, now that the hard part is done. I may update it multiple times in the week leading up to Selection Sunday.

SEEDS

1. Penn State

2. Washington

3. Nebraska

4. Stanford

5. Texas

6. Oregon

7. UCLA

8. Louisville

9. USC

10. Kansas State

11. Minnesota

12. Hawaii

13. Florida

14. Florida State

15. San Diego

16. BYU

LAST FOUR TEAMS IN:

1. Notre Dame

2. Clemson

3. Georgia Tech

4. Illinois

FIRST FOUR TEAMS OUT:

1. California

2. Santa Clara

3. Colorado

4. Seton Hall

NEXT FOUR TEAMS OUT:

1. Wichita State

2. Duke

3. Southern Illinois

4. St. John’s

The first two rounds are held at the home court of the seeded team. I have employed a little creative bolding to make it clear how the first and second rounds would “pod” together, since the double-spacing tendencies of WordPress make it a little less than obvious.

PURDUE REGIONAL:

(1) Penn State vs. Canisius

Missouri vs. Creighton

Purdue vs. Idaho State

(16) BYU vs. Central Arkansas

(9) USC vs. Albany

Texas A&M vs. Notre Dame

Dayton vs. Colorado State

(8) Louisville vs. LIU-Brooklyn

TEXAS REGIONAL:

(5) Texas vs. Jackson State

North Carolina vs. Marquette

Ohio State vs. Bowling Green

(12) Hawaii vs. Utah State

(13) Florida vs. Towson

Pepperdine vs. Tulsa

Oklahoma vs. Michigan State

(4) Stanford vs. Maryland-Eastern Shore

NEBRASKA REGIONAL:

(3) Nebraska vs. Yale

Tennessee vs. Oregon State

Miami vs. Illinois

(14) Florida State vs. Morehead State

(11) Minnesota vs. College of Charleston

Western Kentucky vs. Georgia Tech

Kentucky vs. St. Mary’s

(6) Oregon vs. Florida-Gulf Coast

CALIFORNIA REGIONAL:

(7) UCLA vs. Liberty

Arkansas vs. Northern Iowa

Iowa State vs. Clemson

(10) Kansas State vs. Cleveland State

(15) San Diego vs. UNLV

Kansas vs. IPFW

North Carolina State vs. Michigan

(2) Washington vs. Colgate

Conferences by number of bids:

8 – Big Ten

6 – Pac 12, Southeastern, Atlantic Coast

5 – Big 12

4 – West Coast

3 – Big East

2 – Missouri Valley, Mountain West

1 – Other 22 conferences

Keep in mind it’s early yet. I don’t fancy this to be anything close to perfect, and I can all but guarantee you the SEC is not going to get 6 bids. They might get 5. Last year, at-large bids went to the Missouri Valley (2), the Mid-American (3), and the Sun Belt Conferences in addition to the power six and perennial volleyball powerhouse West Coast Conference.

So there will be some movement, and some of the teams I have as “gimmes” will end up needing at-large bids. But this it the first look at it.

**OF NOTE** The conference count was originally wrong — I somehow had Clemson down as an SEC team.