“We will, we will ROCK YOU! We will, we will ROCK YOU!” From the song “We Will Rock You” by Queen. One team is going to get rocked when the top-ranked Penn State Nittany Lions cross paths with the second-ranked Stanford Cardinal this Friday in the Big Ten/PAC Twelve Volleyball Challenge. Stanford has home court advantage and we’ll see if the Stanford home crowd can overcome the Penn State Volleyball machine.
Waiting in the wings if one of these two teams falter are the ninth-ranked Fighting Illini of the University of Illinois and the unranked, but always dangerous, Bruins of UCLA. The marquee matchup will be shown on the PAC 12 network at 6:00 PM Pacific Time.
| DATE | DAY | TIME | TEAMS |
| September 5 | FRIDAY | 6:00 PM PT | Penn State vs. Stanford |
| September 5 | FRIDAY | 8:00 PM PT | Illinois vs UCLA |
| September 6 | SATURDAY | 5:00 PM PT | Penn State vs. UCLA |
| September 7 | SUNDAY | 11:00 AM PT | Stanford vs. Illinois |
Three more BICS (Our Hammer is in the back row again ‘cause we can’t side out.)
1. The fourth-ranked US MEN’S National Team continues to struggle in the World Championships, losing to Iran, 25 -23, 25 – 19, 19 – 25, 18 – 25, and 17 – 15.
2. The top ten teams from the latest AVCA Coaches Poll (September 1) for D I Women is shown below. An odd factoid is that four of these ten teams also have men’s Volleyball programs. Statistically speaking, the expected number would be one team out of ten.
| RANK | SCHOOL |
| 1 | Penn State University Nittany Lions |
| 2 | Stanford University Cardinal |
| 3 | University of Texas Longhorns |
| 4 | University of Wisconsin Badgers |
| 5 | University of Washington Huskies |
| 6 | USC Trojans |
| 7 | Purdue University Boilermakers |
| 8 | Florida State University Seminoles |
| 9 | University of Illinois Fighting Illini |
| 10 | BYU Cougars |
3. As Concordia University (Irvine) transitions from NAIA to NCAA D II, here are the guidelines which govern this transition. Evidently, Concordia remains eligible for NAIA post-season competition in 2014 -2015.
2014 – 2015 (Candidacy Year 1)
- Member of NAIA and Golden State Athletic Conference (GSAC)
- Provisional member NCAA PacWest Conference
- Eligible for GSAC and NAIA post-season play
2015 -2016 (Candidacy Year 2)
- Provisional Member of the NCAA PacWest Conference
- Play full PacWest schedule
- Not eligible for NCAA post-season
- Not Eligible for NAIA post-season
2016 – 2017 (Candidacy Year 3)
- Provisional Member of the NCAA PacWest Conference
- Play full PacWest schedule
- Not eligible for NCAA post-season
2017 – 2018 (Full NCAA D II Member)
- Full NCAA D II member
- Full PacWest member
- Play full PacWest schedule
- Eligible for NCAA post-season play
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