Last week spelled the end of the regular season for the MPSF and MIVA. The brackets for those conference tournaments are now set in stone. Technically, the EIVA’s bracket could still change, but trust me — it won’t.
Conference Carolinas actually got their tournament underway last week, and have played down to their championship final. On Wednesday, Erskine will host Mount Olive to determine the conference’s first-ever NCAA tournament representatives. And even though this is #1 vs #3 (Pfeiffer were the #2 seed for the tournament), it feels like the correct two teams to be left standing at the end. Erskine were head-and-shoulders the best team in the conference this season, and Mount Olive have probably the conference’s best player, and a winning history (they’ve historically — if one can use that word for something as young as Conference Carolinas’ men’s volleyball division — been the strongest team in the league).
They’re also the two teams who have put up the most fight against traditional-conference teams this year. Sure, Lees-McRae beat St Francis and Sacred Heart, but I’m a little more impressed by Erskine’s and Mount Olive’s showings against the likes of Lewis and Loyola. It’s tough not to favour the Flying Fleet in this match, though I’m sure whoever come out victorious will have been put to a stern test.
With each other conference tournament for all intents and purposes set, let’s take a look at the seedings and pairings for them, starting back East.
EIVA tournament
(1) Penn State vs (4) George Mason
(2) Harvard vs (3) Princeton
Strictly speaking, it’s still possible for Penn State to not end up hosting, but for that to happen, they’d have to lose in the final week of the EIVA regular season to both Rutgers and NJIT. And that just isn’t gonna happen. So, we have the same four teams in the four-team EIVA tournament as each of the previous two seasons. There’s a change in pairings, though — in 2012 and 2013, Penn State drew Princeton in their first match. This time, the Ivies face each other, while Penn State will take on George Mason.
This is still Penn State’s rodeo. They’re far and away the best team of these four, and with the program’s history it’s gotten to the point where anyone picking one of the other three teams is either a fool or an unabashed homer. Could one of the other three win the tournament? Absolutely. But to expect it to happen is not realistic. The Nittany Lions have missed the NCAA tournament just once since 1990, and you can’t expect that trend to stop. Maybe it will anyway, but acting like you know it will? No way.
MIVA tournament
(1) Loyola vs (8) Quincy
(4) IPFW vs (5) Ohio State
(3) Ball State vs (6) Lindenwood
(2) Lewis vs (7) Grand Canyon
The MIVA tournament expands from six to eight teams this year, which I didn’t know about until recently. This year, that means everybody comes to the party. Presumably with the addition of McKendree next year, one team (either them or Quincy) will get left out.
You don’t need me to tell you Loyola should run away with this. I’ll be surprised if they lose even a set, except maybe in a tournament final to Lewis. Maybe. No one else in the MIVA is remotely in their class this year. Case in point? Even if they lose, hell even if they lose to Quincy, they’re not gonna miss out on the NCAA tournament. I don’t think that’s ever been said about a non-West coast team before. Only once in the 44-year history of the four-team NCAA tournament did the (previously singular) at-large bid go to a team from the Midwest, and that had political reasons behind it (IPFW got the nod when they hosted in 1994). Would Loyola be such a shoo-in for an at-large (if they needed one) under the old four-team rules? I don’t know. Probably.
There really shouldn’t be anything keeping a Loyola/Lewis final from happening. I haven’t kept a close enough eye on the conference this year to have any real idea about the 4/5 and 3/6 matches, but I’m fairly confident in saying that Lewis are a step above those four teams, and Loyola are an even larger step above Lewis. If we do see a Loyola/Lewis final, it should be an interesting match, because Loyola will have pretty much nothing to play for (the only way they’d even maybe fall below a 2-seed in the NCAA’s is with a very early loss) while Lewis must win the tournament if they want to make the return trip to the Gentile Arena in late April.
MPSF tournament
(1) BYU vs (8) USC
(4) UC Santa Barbara vs (5) UCLA
(3) Stanford vs (6) UC Irvine
(2) Pepperdine vs (7) Long Beach State
Wow. This is quite a tournament field. When you’re talking Long Beach State as a 7-seed, you’re talking a deep field. I could see any of the top seven teams winning the automatic bid, now that UCLA seem to have gotten their shinola together at least somewhat. And yet, this seems like as good a year as any for the #1 seed to go down in flames and not be around to host the later rounds of the tourney. Not simply because BYU have limped into the postseason, on a 4-match losing skid, but simply because “expect the unexpected” seems to be the rule in the MPSF this year.
You’ve gotta like Stanford’s chances. They enter the postseason on the nation’s longest winning streak (11 matches), and the likelihood that, barring huge upsets in this tourney and in the MIVA’s, they’re one win away from securing an at-large bid. I thought they were a real championship-calibre team to begin 2014, then I sorta shied away from that, now I’m back on the bandwagon.
Pepperdine’s at-large consideration has to be a little shakier, considering that they didn’t play any counting non-conference matches this year. Not a one. Should Long Beach knock them off in the first round, I think they’re done. Reach the finals, and they’re in. Out in the quarters? Man that’s hard to call. I really do think Stanford have got to be ahead of them for at-large consideration, not least because the Cardinal swept the season series.
I haven’t been able to keep tabs much on UCSB this season. They’ve mostly held their own, losing just twice at home all season. They split with UCLA, each team winning a sweep on their home court. UC Irvine are obviously well down from their back-to-back national championships of the past two seasons, and will need the automatic bid to be able to try for a third in a row. They’ve been playing lineup bingo as much as UCLA have all season, though they haven’t really had the same injury concerns. It’s tough to see them making a great deal of noise.
Since I have suuuuuuch a track-record in prediction making, let’s go ahead and make some more:
CC champs: Erskine
EIVA champs: Penn State
MIVA champs: Loyola
MPSF champs: Stanford
At-larges: BYU, Pepperdine
Seedlines:
1. Loyola
2. Stanford
3. BYU
4. Pepperdine
5. Penn State
6. Erskine
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