The USA men's college volleyball season starts in January and goes through May. We'll start with the pre-season conference polls as a guide to which teams are expected to do well.
One thing that happened right before the season started was that the defending champions Loyola University Ramblers head coach Shane Davis was hired by Northwestern University to coach their women's team.
While this may be shocking to some people, Northwestern plays in the Big Ten Conference and is also located in the Chicago area (Loyola is in Chicago). How often can a coach in the USA take a new job, get higher pay and not have to move. Only in the Los Angeles or San Francisco Bay Area. One of Davis' assistants from last year, Mark Hulse, has taken over the head coaching position.
Six teams make the post season tournament
4 Conference Champions
2 At-large teams
Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (EIVA) Poll
1. Penn State 62 points (6 first place votes)
2. George Mason 58 (2)
3. Princeton 38
4. (Tie) New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) and St. Francis (of Pennsylvania(Pa)) 35
6. Harvard 33
7. Sacred Heart 19
8. Charleston (of West Virginia (WV)) 8
Charleston's first year in Division 1 and also in EIVA
Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (MIVA) Poll
1. Loyola-Chicago 74 points (5 first place votes)
2. Ohio State 73 (3)
3. Lewis 68 (1)
4. Ball State 52
5. Grand Canyon 35
6. Indiana Purdue at Fort Wayne (IPFW) 31
7. McKendree 30
8. Lindenwood 23
9. Quincy 19
Arnie Ball, Lloy Ball's father, retired as IPFW's head coach after 35 years. No Lloy is not replacing him. He even said that in his autobiography.
Conference Carolinas Poll
1. Pfeiffer 77 points (6 first place votes)
2. Erskine 68 (1)
3. Mount Olive 65
4. Limestone 55 (1)
5. King 54
6. Barton 49 (1)
7. Belmont Abbey 44
8. North Greenville 31
9. Lees-McRae 25
Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) Poll
1. Brigham Young University (BYU) 112 (8 first place votes)
2. UC-Irvine (UCI) 106 (2)
3. UCLA 95 (1)
4. Long Beach State 89
5. UC-Santa Barbara (UCSB) 86 (1)
6. Hawaii 75
7. Pepperdine 63
8. Stanford 53
9. Southern California (USC) 50
10. Cal State University Northridge (CSUN) 30
11. Cal Baptist 21
12. UC-San Diego (UCSD) 12
Ben Patch is returning from his Mormon mission. He played with Taylor Sander (junior at the time) in 2013 as a freshman and was part of the reason that BYU was so dominating, but didn't win the title. BYU has to be a leading candidate to win the NCAA this year.
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