The top teams will be guaranteed to not play each other until the semifinals in the newly reformatted men’s volleyball NCAA Tournament.
The top four seeds for the tournament will be protected from the chances of an early-round matchup and placed into separate regions, according to a recent NCAA memo sent to conference commissioners.
The NCAA Tournament in the offseason expanded from a nine to 12-team field resulting in the transition from all matches being played at a single venue to a multiple-site regional format. Each region will consist of three teams – one seeded team that will receive a bye to regional finals and two teams that will play in the regional semifinals.
Only the top four teams will receive seeds for the tournament. The eight remaining unseeded teams could be placed in any of the regions.
Anthony Holloman, chair of the NCAA men’s volleyball committee and SIAC commissioner, said in an interview with Off the Block that geography will play a role in determining the region placement of the unseeded teams.
“We have to be fiscally responsible, while preserving the top of the bracket,” Holloman said.
The NCAA provides the travel funding for teams participating in the NCAA Tournament. The multi-site regional tournament format historically has been used in other NCAA sports to help reduce the amount of cross-country travel by placing nearby tournament teams in the same region.
Geography, though, will not be a contributing factor in determining what teams make the NCAA Tournament.
The men’s volleyball tournament field is comprised of seven automatic bids from the conferences and five at-large bids.
The committee’s process on Selection Sunday is to first determine the five at-large teams. The criteria used to decide the at-large bids remains unchanged from last season with the geographic location of a school not being a component.
Once the field is determined, the committee will use the same selection criteria to determine the four seeded teams. All tournament teams are eligible to receive a seed, regardless if they were a conference champion automatic bid or an at-large bid.
The final part of establishing the bracket is determining the region sites from the pool of bids submitted by schools.
Holloman said one of the biggest misconceptions right now is the committee has already determined the locations of the four regionals. Instead, the regional sites are non-predetermined and will not be finalized until hours before the bracket is revealed during the Selection Show on April 26.
There also is no guarantee that a seeded team will serve as the host site for their regional.
Holloman said there is a possibility that if all four seeded teams are from the same geographic region at least one of those seeded teams may have to travel across the country.
West Coast teams have earned at least the top three seeds in the NCAA Tournament each of the last two seasons.
The makeup of the NCAA Tournament, though, will feature five non-West Coast teams via conference automatic bids. There also could be more non-West Coast teams making the tournament as at-large bids.
The decision to host a regional at a non-seeded team’s arena could potentially reduce travel expenses with only one team instead of two teams having to fly across the country for a match.
The deadline for schools to submit a bid to host a regional will be April 17 – nine days before the bracket is announced.
Schools making the NCAA Tournament are not required to submit a bid to host. In addition, some schools may be unable to submit bids because of previous commitments taking place at their home arenas during the regionals such as graduation ceremonies, concerts or scheduled renovations.
Holloman said the committee has not eliminated any school from potentially hosting a regional, including Hawai’i.
Hawai’i annually leads the nation in men’s volleyball home attendance and has placed a bid to host in the NCAA Tournament championships in recent years. The school, though, was not selected as a championship site during the most recent cycle and has not hosted a men’s volleyball NCAA Tournament since 2004.
Holloman said the new tournament setup helps the chances of Hawai’i possibly hosting an NCAA Tournament match.
The regional format would limit the amount of teams traveling to Hawai’i to two programs instead of the entire tournament field in the old single-site format.
Hawai’i last season was the No. 2 seed and advanced to the NCAA Tournament semifinals. The Rainbow Warriors through the first month of the season have a nation-best 10 victories.
The regionals will take place May 1-2 with the winners of each region advancing to the NCAA Tournament semifinals. Both the semifinals and finals will take place at UCLA.
The four venues selected to host the regionals must meet a variety of requirements. Among the requirements outlined in the NCAA checklist includes the venue having a ceiling at least 41 feet from the playing surface, a seating capacity of at least 500, a challenge review system of at least four cameras, and the ability to produce an ESPN+ broadcast.