Bandwagoner's Guide to the NCAA Volleyball Tournament
Everything you wanted to know about December Madness but were afraid to ask
Before we get to the Tournament Guide, congratulations to Pitt’s Valeria Vazquez Gomez, who was drafted on Monday by the defending Pro Volleyball Federation champions, the Omaha Supernovas.
A draft selection is no guarantee of playing for Omaha, as there will still be cuts before the season begins in January, but Valeria is on the path to joining some of her former Pitt teammates in the league: Courtney Buzzerio (Atlanta), Kayla Lund (San Diego), Leketor Member-Meneh (Indy), Chiamaka Nwokolo (also Indy) and Layne Van Buskirk (Vegas).
I hope one of these upstart pro volleyball leagues1 sees Pittsburgh as an expansion market in the future, but that’s a topic for another newsletter.
What’s the format?
It’s basically the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament from 1985 to 2000 or the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament from 1994 to 2021 — 64 teams, single elimination over the course of three weekends.
And there is a Selection Sunday! We’ll find out the bracket on Sunday, December 1 at 6:00 PM Eastern on ESPN.
Similar to the basketball tournaments, the winners of each of the 31 conferences get an automatic qualifier, and there are 33 at-large bids to fill up the rest of the bracket. Most of the smaller conferences have tournaments to decide their automatic qualifers, but the bigger conferences (including the ACC) don’t.2
What can be confusing is that the NCAA only uses the terms Sweet Sixteen, Elite Eight and Final Four in its basketball tournaments, not for any other sport. So here is a translator for official communications from the NCAA and its schools:
Regional Semifinals (Dec. 12 and 13) = Sweet Sixteen
Regional Finals (Dec. 14 and 15) = Elite Eight
National Semifinals (Dec. 19) = Final Four
National Championship (Dec. 22) = National Championship :)
I’ll use them interchangeably, because what is the NCAA going to do? Sue my not-for-profit email newsletter that is entirely an editorial endeavor and includes no ads?3
Also, only the top 32 teams are seeded. The rest of the field is assigned mostly by geography in order to reduce flights and to keep most teams a bus ride away from their opening-round matches. Expect Pitt to play an automatic qualifier like Delaware State or Cleveland State in Round 1 and a non-ACC team like Tennessee, Missouri or Oklahoma in Round 2.
Where are they playing this darn thing?
Top teams get to host until the National Semifinals (Final Four), so it is hugely important to finish the season in the Top 16 or the Top 4, as determined by the NCAA Volleyball selection committee.
The first two rounds, on the first weekend, will be played at the on-campus venues of the Top 16 teams in the tournament. Regionals, on the second weekend, will be played at the top remaining seed in each region (this is usually the Top 4 overall teams because they almost always advance, but you never know!).
Pitt will play its first two rounds at the Petersen Events Center, but the athletic department has not said if Regionals would also be at the Pete or at Fitzgerald Field House.4
The Final Four will be on Friday, December 19 and Sunday, December 22 at the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, Kentucky.
So, who will the Top 4 teams be?
Almost certainly, in some order: Nebraska, Pitt, Louisville and Penn State.
The final week of the regular season contains some interesting matchups for these teams, including #1 Pitt at #3 Louisville on Wednesday, #2 Nebraska at #4 Penn State on Friday, and #3 Louisville at #7 Stanford on Saturday.
Those will be fun to watch, and the results could shake up the order of the Top 4 for the selection committee, but unless we see something completely unexpected this week (say, Louisville losing both of its matches or Penn State losing to 6-23 Rutgers on Wednesday), Regionals will likely be played in Lincoln, Pittsburgh, Louisville and State College.
And Pitt will be the #1 overall seed, right? RIGHT?
Not necessarily. Even though Pitt has comfortably been the #1 team in the coaches’ poll since early September, that doesn’t mean the selection committee will see it the same way. Their midseason Top 16 had Nebraska on top, and the experts in the Volleyball Magazine poll this week were split evenly between Pitt and Nebraska.
Ultimately, when it comes to Selection Sunday, the #1 overall seed will matter less than Pitt’s path to the National Championship — and the path will be pretty concrete because favorites overwhelmingly win in the NCAA Volleyball Tournament, with upsets few and far between.
Here’s what I’ll be watching, in order of importance:
Is Nebraska on the other side of the bracket from Pitt, avoiding any potential matchup until the National Championship?
Is Louisville on the other side of the bracket from Pitt, avoiding the possibility of Pitt needing to play the Cardinals in their home city in the National Semifinal?
Where are Wisconsin and Texas?5 Wisconsin will find itself somewhere in the #6 to #8 overall seed range, while two-time defending champions Texas could be in the #10 to #12 overall zone. But top seeds will want to avoid them as long as possible, as they were both Final Four teams a year ago and both feature two of the scariest outside hitters in the country — 2023 National Player of the Year Sarah Franklin of Wisconsin and 2023 Final Four Most Outstanding Player Madisen Skinner of Texas.
Who are the players to watch?
Well, I just gave you Sarah Franklin and Madi Skinner. How about standout players for the other top teams?
Pitt — Sophomore pin hitters Olivia Babcock and Torrey Stafford, and senior setter Rachel Fairbanks, all AVCA National Player of the Year (POTY) semifinalists
Nebraska — PVF #1 overall pick Merritt Beason, POTY semifinalists setter Bergen Reilly and libero Lexi Rodriguez, and honestly a bunch of others, but let’s move on
Louisville — PVF #2 overall pick outside hitter Anna DeBeer, in her 11th year of college eligibility, and POTY semifinalist libero Elena Scott
Penn State — Outside hitters Jess Mruzik (POTY semifinalist) and Camryn Hannah (PVF #4 overall pick)
Creighton — PVF #3 overall pick Norah Sis and POTY semifinalist setter Kendra Wait
Wisconsin — Tall people Devyn Robinson (6’2”, PVF #5 overall pick), Carter Booth (6’7”, POTY semifinalist) and Anna Smrek (6’9”, Canadian)
Stanford — Senior setter Kami Miner (POTY semifinalist) and senior libero Elena Oglivie
Purdue — PVF #7 overall pick middle blocker Raven Colvin and POTY semifinalist outside hitter Eva Hudson
Arizona State — Senior outside hitter Geli Cyr and senior libero Mary Shroll
SMU — Point-scoring seniors Naya Shime and Maya Tabron
Will the matches be on television?
All of the matches from the Sweet 16 onward will be broadcast on either ESPN, ESPN2 or ABC (but mostly ESPN2). This is great, and it represents a larger platform than we’ve seen in the past.
Rounds 1 and 2… unclear at the moment. Those are usually only streaming on ESPN+, but the plans for 2024 have not yet been announced.
I will certainly credit ESPN for giving more publicity to the NCAA Volleyball tournament, including putting the championship on ABC last year, and getting more regional matches onto its main channels (with less overlap) this year.
And there is a Tournament Challenge game for volleyball this time, with a cash prize! You can join a Pitt Volleyball Bandwagoners group at this link.
How about tickets? What’ve you got for me there?
You don’t need to worry about tickets right now if you’re reading this before the tournament begins.
Pitt emailed pre-sale information for the first two rounds to its season ticket holders and Panther Club members on Monday, but you’ll still have plenty of time to buy good seats from PittsburghPanthers.com, even if you did not receive one of those emails. All seats will be reserved, no general admission like in past years at the Pete.
If you’re a Pitt student, pay close attention to your email for NCAA information — the protocol is often different from the regular season.
I would not recommend buying tickets to the Final Four at the moment, not because I believe in jinxes, but because I believe you would be overpaying. The get-in price for the National Championship on Ticketmaster or StubHub is close to $100 right now. I’ve seen this before; prices will go down the week of the Final Four, and then even more the day of the match.
If you’re a particularly anxious person, you could lock in a pair of tickets for the National Semifinals for about $20 each right now. Again, I’d recommend against that — you’ll be able to get much better seats if you wait it out.
With a capacity over 22,000, the KFC Yum! Center will be the largest arena to host volleyball’s Final Four in more than a decade. Plenty of tickets will be available, stay patient, and keep your eyes on the NCAA Ticket Exchange in the weeks ahead.
One final note: when you purchasing tickets to an NCAA Tournament event, you’re either buying all-session tickets (meaning everything in Rounds 1 and 2, everything in Regionals, or everything in the Final Four) or a single-session ticket (meaning you will see multiple matches if they’re happening on the same day in the same arena). You can expect to pay about $15 for a single-session ticket and $25 for an all-session ticket in the early rounds.
If you have any questions that I did not answer, please leave a comment! And forward this guide to your friends who are casual volleyball fans to get them ready for the tournament. It’s December Madness, and it’s going to be good.
Another operation, League One Volleyball (LOVB) will begin its inaugural season in January. It could win out over Pro Volleyball Federation, given that it has 10 players from the U.S. Olympic Team, an ESPN deal and just announced a $100 million funding commitment, led by a private equity group. Of note for Pitt fans, former Panthers middle blocker Serena Gray is slated to play for the Salt Lake team.
That may change in the future. The SEC is starting a volleyball tournament in 2025, which will take place in Savannah, Georgia. Other conference commissioners will likely be watching closely to see if it’s worth their while to do the same.
Please don’t, NCAA. You’re too busy for that.
Okay, in a perfect world, Pitt would play all of its tournament matches at the Petersen Events Center so that every Pitt fan who wanted to attend could attend, and Pitt would win everything, right? Well we don’t live in a perfect world. We live in one with previously-scheduled basketball games and NCAA requirements about having the arena available for full days of practice. Pitt in the past has played its early-round matches at the Pete and then shifted over to Fitz for regionals. And it’s entirely possible that Pitt likes the advantage of playing on its true home floor at Fitz, a place where it is 39-2 in its last 41 matches, including four straight NCAA Regional wins. That’s a long way of saying: Regionals could be at Fitz. Stay tuned.
Not on a map, on the bracket.