Seeding, bracket announced for 2020 Top of the Class Tournament

Photo courtesy of Hawai’i athletics

The bracket has been finalized in the tournament to decided which senior had the best college men’s volleyball career.

Off the Block unveiled on Saturday the 64-player bracket for the inaugural Off the Block Top of the Class Tournament.

The Top of the Class Tournament is a bracket-style, five-round event that recognizes the best individual performances from NCAA Division I-II men’s volleyball seniors. Seniors in this tournament will face each other in head-to-head matches with the winners being the player who had the best college career as decided by the fans through online voting on the Off the Block website.

This is the inaugural Top of the Class Tournament and will take place in lieu of the annual Off the Block Fan Choice of the Year, which had a similar tournament format. Off the Block opted to make this change to honor the seniors whose 2020 season were ended early because of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States.

The tournament begins first-round matches starting on Monday and then continues with the second-round matches starting on Tuesday.

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Off the Block determined the tournament field and seeding using a variety of factors including a player’s performance during their career, all-conference and All-American honors and how the player’s team fared.

Players selected to the tournament were placed into four regions.

Off the Block named the regions after a former player on each of the top-four teams in the national rankings at the time the 2020 season was suspended.

Below is a first-round matches and the tournament schedule.

Tournament Schedule

Monday, March 23: First round for Carlos Moreno Region and Yuval Katz Region
Tuesday, March 24: First round for Tom Bonynge Region and TJ DeFalco Region
Wednesday, March 25: Second-round matches
Thursday, March 26 to Friday, March 27: Regional semifinals
Saturday, March 28 to Sunday, March 29: Regional finals
Monday, March 30 to Tuesday, March 31: Championship round
*Polls close at 10 p.m. (CST) for every round

Carlos Moreno Region (first-round matches)

No. 1 seed Daenan Gyimah, UCLA vs.
No. 16 seed Chris Woolslayer, Lees-McRae

No. 2 seed Hayden Wagner, George Mason vs.
No. 15 seed Caleb Blazer, Grand Canyon

No. 3 seed Pelegrin Vargas, Purdue Fort Wayne vs.
No. 14 seed Lucas Galifos, McKendree

No. 4 seed Oscar Fiorentino, Barton vs.
No. 13 seed Austin Matautia, UCLA

No. 5 seed Jason Donorovich, Penn State vs.
No. 12 seed Stephen Moye, Stanford

No. 6 seed Wil Stanley, BYU vs.
No. 11 seed Rob Chatterton, Sacred Heart

No. 7 seed Casey McGarry, UC Santa Barbara vs.
No. 10 seed Omari Wheeler, Quincy

No. 8 seed Jackson Gilbert, North Greenville vs.
No. 9 seed Rob Mullahey, Pepperdine

Yuval Katz Region (first-round matches)

No. 1 seed Rado Parapunov, Hawai’i vs.
No. 16 seed Zach Yerington, Daemen

No. 2 seed Evan Cory, Lincoln Memorial vs. 
No. 15 seed Bryce Gatling, George Mason

No. 3 seed Scott Stadick, UC Irvine vs.
No. 14 seed Kyle Piekarski, Loyola

No. 4 seed Liam Maxwell, Belmont Abbey vs.
No. 13 seed Zach Schnittker, McKendree

No. 5 seed Luca Berger, NJIT vs.
No. 12 seed Aleksa Lakic, Emmanuel

No. 6 seed Randy DeWeese, UC Santa Barbara vs.
No. 11 seed Greg Luck, Princeton

No. 7 seed Matt Szews, Ball State vs.
No. 10 seed Connor Walbrecht, UC San Diego

No. 8 seed Sam Greenslade, George Mason vs.
No. 9 seed Ryan Lew, UC San Diego

TJ DeFalco Region (first-round matches)

No. 1 seed George Huhmann, Princeton vs.
No. 16 seed Ksawery Tomsia, CSUN

No. 2 seed Patrick Gasman, Hawai’i vs.
No. 15 seed Reese Devilbiss, Ohio State

No. 3 seed Raymond Barsemian, Concordia-Irvine vs.
No. 14 seed Roy McFarland, UC Santa Barbara

No. 4 seed Paul Bischoff, Stanford vs.
No. 13 seed Henrik Falck Lauten, Penn State

No. 5 seed Parker Dixon, Princeton vs.
No. 12 seed Kyle Bugee, Lewis

No. 6 seed Noah Dyer, Pepperdine vs.
No. 11 seed Colton Cowell, Hawai’i

No. 7 seed Chase Howard, Harvard vs.
No. 10 seed Luke Braswell, Penn State

No. 8 seed Richie Diedrich, Purdue Fort Wayne vs.
No. 9 seed Ben Hamsho, North Greenville

Tom Bonynge Region (first-round matches)

No. 1 seed Ryan Coenen, Lewis vs.
No. 16 seed Blake Reardon, Ball State

No. 2 seed Angelos Mandilaris, Barton vs.
No. 15 seed Grady Yould, UC Santa Barbara

No. 3 seed Pedro Carvalho, Lincoln Memorial vs.
No. 14 seed Shane Yeo, Mount Olive

No. 4 seed Michael Fisher, Saint Francis vs.
No. 13 seed Andrew Holman, Limestone

No. 5 seed Keenan Sanders, UC Santa Barbara vs.
No. 12 seed Adriel Roberts, Charleston

No. 6 seed Matthew Crtvlik, Harvard vs.
No. 11 seed Don Thompson, Emmanuel

No. 7 seed Miki Jauhiainen, BYU vs.
No. 10 seed Calvin Mende, Penn State

No. 8 seed Sam Schindler, Lindenwood vs.
No. 9 seed Jordan Hoppe, Concordia-Irvine