USA NCAA Men's Volleyball 2019 (DI-II)

    AVCA Coaches Poll / National Stats


    Big West
    Schedule
    (Preseason ranking)    		 Conference Carolinas
    Standings / Schedule
    		 EIVA
    Schedule
    (Preseason ranking)    		 MIVA
    Schedule
    (Preseason ranking)    		 MPSF
    Schedule
    (Preseason ranking)
    #1 Long Beach State Barton #1 Princeton #1 Lewis #1 UCLA
    #2 Hawaii Belmont Abbey #2 Penn State #2 Loyola #2 BYU
    #3 UC Irvine Emmanuel (Ga.) #3 George Mason #3 Ohio State #3 Pepperdine
    #4 UC Santa Barbara Erskine #4 NJIT #4 Ball State #4 Stanford
    #5 CSUN King (TN) #5 Harvard #5 Purdue Fort Wayne #5 USC
    #6 UC San Diego Lees-Mcrae #6 Saint Francis #6 Lindenwood #6 Concordia
    Limestone #7 Charleston #7 Mckendree #7 Grand Canyon
    Mount Olive #8 Sacred Heart #8 Quincy
    North Greenville



    Other Independent teams:

    Alderson Broaddus / Coker / Daemen / Lincoln Memorial / Queens (NC)

    Excuse my mistakes if I still didn't get the finals participants correctly, I have always struggled with any American sports system. However, based on the latest updates and news, the semis for the title (for the national title altogether, not some divisions or conferences) should look like this:


    (1) Hawaii vs. Lewis

    (2) Long Beach vs. Pepperdine


    Long Beach are hosting the finals. Yesterday Lewis overcame USC by 3-1, whereas Pepperdine beat Princeton 3-2.

    That is correct.


    Hawaii and LBSU will play on Saturday for the National Championships.


    The NCAA format is a little bit different for the men's side since they are only few colleges that have volleyball program. So technically there are only six teams based on the rankings made by the committee that played for the national championships. So 3 vs 6 and 4 vs 5 (quarters) then the winning teams faced LBSU and Hawaii respectively for the semis.

    Quote from Mapuan

    That is correct.


    Hawaii and LBSU will play on Saturday for the National Championships.


    The NCAA format is a little bit different for the men's side since they are only few colleges that have volleyball program. So technically there are only six teams based on the rankings made by the committee that played for the national championships. So 3 vs 6 and 4 vs 5 (quarters) then the winning teams faced LBSU and Hawaii respectively for the semis.

    They have enough for a bigger tournament now in my opinion.


    Also for those outside the States how do you plan on streaming this?

    Quote from Bahkawdi

    They have enough for a bigger tournament now in my opinion.


    Also for those outside the States how do you plan on streaming this?

    They can surely make it bigger like top 16 teams but men’s volleyball isn’t as big as the women’s side.


    I only watch in YouTube since there are uploaders who post videos within few hours after the actual game.

    Quote from Bahkawdi

    They have enough for a bigger tournament now in my opinion.


    Also for those outside the States how do you plan on streaming this?

    There are actually 7 teams in the tournament, the first play-in match was Barton vs. Princeton last Thursday.


    As far as I know, the number of teams in the tournament has to do with the number of conferences and also number of teams overall (I could be wrong about this so don't quote me!). There are only 5 conferences sponsoring MVB, hopefully we'll see more teams and conferences in the near future.


    The quarterfinals were on bigwest.tv

    USC vs. Lewis: https://bigwest.org/watch/?Archive=4474

    Pepperdine vs. Princeton: https://bigwest.org/watch/?Archive=4475


    Semis were on NCAA.com

    https://www.ncaa.com/video/volleyball-men

    you could find full replay here.


    The final is tomorrow on ESPN2, it should be pretty easy to find a stream link even if you're not in the US, and the match will probably on Youtube a few days later!

    The champions from Conference Carolinas since 2018 have to play a first round. The other teams start their tournament from QFs or SFs.


    I love the NCAA vibes! <3

    16 is probably way too many for the men's tournament. You would have to play two weekends (not that the play-in game is already the weekend before).


    We are begging and pleading with the NCAA just to get it to eight. Have all the matches in the one location for the week.

    Quote from QueenPiccininiLover

    The champions from Conference Carolinas since 2018 have to play a first round. The other teams start their tournament from QFs or SFs.


    I love the NCAA vibes! <3

    This is only due to the NCAA seeding. The NCAA puts the teams in order and that is out of the Conference Carolinas control. However, they are much smaller schools than in the other conferences on average.

    The hosts of Long Beach were chosen before the season was started. The hosts are rotated between the Conferences. This year is the Big West, 2020 the EIVA (George Mason), 2021 the MIVA (Ohio State) and 2022 MPSF (UCLA).


    Teams making the tournament were from the 5 Conferences and 2 Wild Cards. The NCAA ranks the teams from 1-7 to create the bracket.


    Hawaii won the Big West Conference Tournament championship match over Long Beach State and was given the #1 seed. Long Beach State had only lost 2 matches, one to USC and the other to Hawaii in the Big West Tournament and given the #2 seed as a wild card.


    Pepperdine (3 seed) won the MPSF tournament, Lewis (4 seed) the MIVA, Princeton the EIVA, Baron the Conference Carolinas and USC was given the other wild card. USC was given the 5 seed.


    Princeton and Barton were considered to the be the weakest teams and were seeded 7 and 6 respectively.

    Thank you very much for the detailed explanation! Are there seeds before the season starts (thus, also different from the ones assigned for the finals)? Also, how many teams are there in total and do DI teams play only against DI or also against DII? How does a school move up or down between divisions or is there no relegation/promotion system? How is the "regular season" schedule determined? Meaning, Hawaii entered the finals with a 13-2 record. Does it mean there are only 16 teams in total and Hawaii played them each once? If you look at any team's schedule, however, you will see them play some teams multiple times and it is close to impossible (from a neutral perspective) to comprehend what counts for the regular season and what not.


    I watched almost the entire first semifinal between Lewis and Hawaii thanks to the NCAA on-demand upload. Unfortunately, I can't say the level was very good. The game started with a lot of serve errors and even though I found Hawaii quite nervous, they still played more confidently, given their physical prowess and the presence of "big hitters", as the commmentator stated. Lewis were mostly about Ryan Coenen, who is an athletic OH, probably a NT prospect, but it was never really enough to beat Hawaii. As I said, I found Hawaii nervous, they couldn't quite show their usual display from previous matches I had seen this season. Credit goes to Joe Worsley who was very consistent, also from the service line, throughout the entire encounter. I wached highlights of the last meeting between Hawaii and Long Beach, both teams are quite balanced, so we should be set for a great final. Long Beach will have a home advantage, so much more will be needed from Hawaii in comparison to today. Without the home factor, I would have said Hawaii has a slight margin in their favour due to the physical superiority to perhaps any other university team, but based on their semifinal display and LB's home fans, it should be 50-50.

    Seeding is done after the Conference Tournaments which all finish on the same day. The next day the field and bracket are announced.

    There are 43 teams, 5 teams are independent and the remaining 38 teams are broken into 5 conferences (displayed in the first post in this topic). In other sports Division 1 & 2 rarely play against each other, but in men’s volleyball the two divisions are combined. Conference Carolinas is all Div 2, while all other 4 conferences have both Div 1 & 2 teams.

    There are preseason polls which are voted on by coaches in each conference to give their opinion as to which team would be strongest at that time. The do similar polling throughout the season as well.

    Season record includes in conference and out of conference records. Teams play home and away inside of their conference. Out of conference opponents are usually faced only once, but some schools will play twice due to scheduling difficulties.

    For wild card berth season records do matter but also head-to-head and other factors are taken into account. However if you win your conference you are automatically in the tournament.

    You guys got to watch the finals? I thought it was refreshing to see unconventional plays. I'm not so sure, but I thought the double quick with TJ De Falco was Long Beach's response to Dalton Solbrig's slides. Perhaps Ensing's pipe attacks from six served the same purpose too. Too many complaints from the coaches, though.

    I was rooting for Hawai'i and kind of wished that the finals were a series. I hope we get to see more of Joe Worsley.

    NCAA only does series for baseball. These teams Hawaii and Long Beach played in the same conference so you say that Long Beach won the best of 5 (ok they played only 4 times)

    Quote from barnabas

    You guys got to watch the finals? I thought it was refreshing to see unconventional plays. I'm not so sure, but I thought the double quick with TJ De Falco was Long Beach's response to Dalton Solbrig's slides. Perhaps Ensing's pipe attacks from six served the same purpose too. Too many complaints from the coaches, though.

    I was rooting for Hawai'i and kind of wished that the finals were a series. I hope we get to see more of Joe Worsley.

    I feel like they had Ensing hitting the pipe because he and Tuaniga weren't really connecting on the super fast D set. Tuaniga did have a really great back quick set behind 10 ft line to Amado!

    Quote from barnabas

    So I'm just excited to find out that Rado Parapunov has made it to the senior men's team of his country Bulgaria. :D Carry on...

    was he able to play?

    Quote from barnabas

    Yeah. Close to the end of the second set against Germany last week. He scored two or three points.

    Thanks i'll look it up. :win: