NCAA Tournament Projections: Latest college men’s volleyball bracketology

One month until Selection Saturday and the race for the NCAA Tournament at-large bids and seeding only continues to get tighter.


Off the Block each week during the rest of the regular season and throughout each round of the postseason will unveil its latest projections to the NCAA Tournament.

The men’s volleyball Division I-II NCAA Tournament is comprised of six teams. Automatic bids are awarded to the winners of the Conference Carolinas, EIVA, MIVA and MPSF conference tournaments, and the NCAA men’s volleyball committee selects two teams for at-large bids.

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The three-person selection committee meets following all of the conference tournaments to decide the at-large teams and the tournament seeding. For an in-depth look at the criteria used by the selection committee and the Off the Block bracketology projections, check out this breakdown.

The field for the NCAA Tournament is scheduled to be released during Selection Saturday on May 2.

The NCAA Tournament will begin with the two play-in matches on May 5 in Palo Alto, California. In addition, the NCAA Tournament semifinals and finals will take place May 7-9 in Palo Alto.

PROJECTED NCAA TOURNAMENT FIELD

LAST FOUR OUT
Pepperdine (19-4)
Ohio State (17-6)
USC (14-7)
UC Santa Barbara (15-8)

Quick breakdown: There is no movement among teams in the NCAA Tournament field with this latest bracketology. All six teams projected to make the NCAA Tournament went undefeated last week to maintain their seeding. In addition, Loyola strengthened its hold on the No. 1 overall seed because of its rise to the top of the RPI rankings. That No. 1 seed, though, could be in significant jeopardy if Loyola loses to No. 4 Lewis in their conference match tonight. Despite Pfeiffer holding an advantage against No. 7 Penn State in the majority of selection criteria categories, the Nittany Lions are projected to surpass the Falcons for the No. 5 seed because of their better RPI ranking and record versus teams under NCAA Tournament consideration. No. 3 Pepperdine remains the last team out of the NCAA Tournament field but gap is now even more narrow for that final at-large bid. In addition, both No. 8 USC and No. 9 UC Santa Barbara have moved ahead of No. 6 BYU in the race for the final at-large bid.