Bracketology: Off the Block’s latest NCAA Tournament projections

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

The men’s volleyball Division I-II NCAA Tournament is comprised of seven teams. Automatic bids are awarded to the winners of the Big West, ConfCarolinas, 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 five-person selection committee meets following all of the conference tournaments to decide the at-large teams and the tournament seeding. The field for the NCAA Tournament is scheduled to be released during Selection Sunday on April 24.

The NCAA Tournament will begin with a play-in match and then two first-round matches. The top-two seeds will receive byes to the semifinals and will play the winners from the first round.

Off the Block is in its 11th season of providing college men’s volleyball bracketology.

PROJECTED NCAA TOURNAMENT FIELD


FIRST-FOUR TEAMS OUT
Loyola (18-8)
UC Santa Barbara (17-8)
Lincoln Memorial (17-7)
Pepperdine (16-9)

Quick breakdown: Chaos nearly hit the bracketology during the weekend. Long Beach State was one point away from losing to CSUN and dropping from the top seed all the way down to the No. 3 seed. UCLA could have fallen from a top-two seed if it didn’t rally from a two-game deficit to beat BYU. In addition, USC was in the midst of a bracketology free fall before it rallied and swept a two-match road series against Grand Canyon. The weekend instead of chaos ended with the status quo in the bracketology. Long Beach State, UCLA and Penn State all remain in a tight race for the top-two seeds and byes to the semifinals. This is the first time since the NCAA Tournament expanded in 2014 that no team entering conference tournament week has locked up a top-two seed. Hawai’i and USC are currently the clear favorites to get the at-large bids if all the No. 1 seeds win their conference tournaments. Things will start getting murky for the selection committee if there are upsets, especially if Ball State loses in the MIVA Tournament.