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The MIVA Tournament will have a complete relook for the 2024 season, including the name of the trophy that the championship team will hoist.
The conference announced Monday that the championship trophy has been renamed to the Don Shondell MIVA Championship Trophy.
Don Shondell was a Hall of Fame coach who founded the Ball State men’s volleyball team in 1960 and then co-founded the MIVA in 1961. Shondell guided Ball State to 20 conference championships and accumulated a conference-record 769 career wins before retiring in 1999.
Along with a new championship trophy, the MIVA announced it will revamp its entire conference tournament format for the upcoming season.
Not every team will automatically qualify for the MIVA Tournament, unlike past years.
The top eight teams at the end of the regular season will qualify for the conference tournament, while the last-place team will be eliminated. The MIVA expanded from eight to nine teams this season with the addition of Queens.
The conference also unveiled changes to the semifinals and finals.
The highest seeded team at the end of the quarterfinals will be the host site for both the semifinals on Wednesday, April 17 and the finals on Saturday, April 20. In addition, the four teams reaching the semifinals will be reseeded to ensure the highest seeded team plays the lowest seeded team.
The previous structure of the MIVA Tournament did not reseed after the quarterfinals. The semifinals and finals instead of being played at one central location were played at the home court of the highest seeded team in each match.
The quarterfinals in this new format will continue to take place at on-campus sites with the top four teams in the conference standings earning the right to play host to the quarterfinals.
The MIVA Tournament started in 1962 and is the oldest conference tournament in college men’s volleyball. The winner of the MIVA Tournament receives the conference’s automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament.