College volleyball bracketology, 1st version

Here we go kids. This will be the first of hopefully nine bracketology posts. Selection Sunday is 1 December; I will do one of these on or about every Sunday from now until then, and hopefully a further two in the week leading up to Selection Sunday. These are a lot of fun to do, and I hope I do even better than I did last year (got 31 at-larges correct, 13 or 14 of the seedlines).

There are some bracketing principles I go by, because the volleyball selectors are similarly charged. In no particular order….

1) Reduce travel as much as reasonably possible. Unlike the better-known NCAA basketball tournament, which, as a much higher-revenue sport, can send anyone just about anywhere, selectors for the volleyball tournament are charged with limiting travel wherever possible. To that end…

2) Place qualifying teams in 'home' regionals. This is in direct dichotomy to the basketball tournament, where teams are forbidden to be placed into regionals they host. In the volleyball tournament, they have to be placed into home regionals. The hosts this year are USC, Kentucky, Illinois, and Nebraska.

3) Avoid conference re-matches in the first two rounds*, but non-conference regular season rematches are okay. This was exemplified last year by the Louisville/Belmont first-round match. Those two teams' last regular season match was also against one another just days beforehand.

*It's possible that there's no way to do this, and we may see it with the Big Ten (or possibly the Pac-12) this year. If a conference get more than eight teams in the tournament, it's impossible to avoid at least a second-round conference matchup.

4) Adjust the S-curve as necessary to accomodate the above. An S-curve (not to be confused with the unrelated mathematical concept), also known as a Serpentine System, refers to the matchups based on 1-64 seeds. #1 faces #64, #2 faces #63, and so on. The "true" rankings may well lead to forbidden matchups like the above; freely adjust the rote rankings to follow the necessary bracketing rules.

And now here we are. Let's get to it. Teams in bold currently hold prospective automatic bids.

SEEDS:

1. USC
2. Penn State
3. Texas
4. Florida
5. Michigan State
6. Hawaii
7. Washington
8. Stanford
9. San Diego
10. Minnesota
11. Nebraska
12. Colorado State
13. Kentucky
14. Wisconsin
15. Michigan
16. Ohio State

USC REGIONAL:

(1) USC vs New Hampshire
St Mary's vs LSU

North Carolina vs Central Arkansas
(16) Ohio State vs Xavier

(9) San Diego vs UW-Milwaukee
Duke vs UCLA

Purdue vs New Mexico
(8) Stanford vs New Mexico State

KENTUCKY REGIONAL:

(5) Michigan State vs North Dakota
Arkansas vs Kansas State

Oregon vs NC State
(12) Colorado State vs Morehead State

(13) Kentucky vs LIU-Brooklyn
Missouri vs Cal State-Northridge

Oklahoma vs VCU
(4) Florida vs Radford

NEBRASKA REGIONAL:

(3) Texas vs. Siena
Ohio vs Miami, FL

Kansas vs Illinois State
(14) Wisconsin vs College of Charleston

(11) Nebraska vs East Tennessee State
BYU vs California

Creighton vs Georgia
(6) Hawaii vs Hampton/Florida A&M (they are currently exactly tied atop the MEAC)

ILLINOIS REGIONAL:

(7) Washington vs Arkansas-Little Rock
Marquette vs Yale

Arizona State vs Louisville
(10) Minnesota vs Georgia Southern

(15) Michigan vs Army
Florida State vs South Dakota

Utah vs Tulsa
(2) Penn State vs Texas Southern

LAST FOUR IN:

1. New Mexico
2. UCLA
3. California
4. NC State

FIRST FOUR OUT:

1. Wichita State
2. Western Kentucky
3. Arizona
4. Iowa State

NEXT FOUR OUT:

1. Colorado
2. West Virginia
3. Pepperdine
4. Virginia Tech

CONFERENCES BY NUMBER OF BIDS:

8 – Big Ten, Pac-12

6 – Southeastern

5 – Atlantic Coast

4 – Big 12

3 – Big East, West Coast

2 – Big West, Mountain West

1 – other 23 conferences

This is the first, roughest, and, well, I'll come right out and say it — worst — look at the field. This will not be the field that is announced on Selection Sunday. I think it's a fair approximation of what we'd be looking at if the tournament started today, but of course it does not. Plenty still has to happen between now and then.

There's a few instances of teams I expect will win automatic bids currently not lying in position to hold one (the most obvious example is Hawaii), which would push a few bolded teams out and some of the first out teams into the field. I definitely expect the Missouri Valley will get at least one at-large bid, and likewise that Western Kentucky will make the field (probably through auto-bid). As far as the teams I have in, I think it's mostly pretty okay, but this bracket probably shares the same problem my final bracket last year did — it's too bearish on the WCC. Will they get six again, who knows, but three seems a little too light.

We'll see how this changes shape in the coming weeks.