Selection Sunday is here — and so to is the season’s final NCAA Tournament projections from Off the Block.

The men’s volleyball Division I-II NCAA Tournament is comprised of 12 teams. Automatic bids are awarded to the winners of the Big West, ConfCarolinas, EIVA, MIVA, MPSF, NEC and SIAC conference tournaments, and the NCAA men’s volleyball committee selects five teams for at-large bids.

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 26.

Off the Block is in its 15th season of providing college men’s volleyball bracketology.

NCAA TOURNAMENT PROJECTIONS

TOP-FOUR SEEDS

Seed	Team	Record	Qualification
No. 1	UCLA	29-1	MPSF champ
No. 2	Hawai’i	27-5	At-large
No. 3	Long Beach State	24-4	At-large
No. 4	Ball State	25-4	MIVA champ

About the seeds: Only the top four teams will receive a seed in the NCAA Tournament. Each seed will be placed in a separate region to ensure that seeded teams will not face each other until at least the NCAA Tournament semifinals. There are no requirements that a seeded team needs to be a conference champion.

UNSEEDED TEAMS

Team	Record	Qualification
Belmont Abbey	20-5	CC champ
Fort Valley State	16-12	SIAC champ
Penn State	22-7	EIVA champ
Saint Francis	18-11	NEC champ
Pepperdine	23-6	At-large
Loyola	20-8	At-large
UC Irvine	18-8	At-large
USC	19-7	At-large

About the unseeded: The eight unseeded teams can be placed into any of the four regions. While geography won’t factor into determining the tournament field, it will factor into the regional placement to reduce travel expenses. Regional locations will be selected from the pool of schools that submit bids to host by the April 17 deadline. A seeded team does not automatically earn the right to host its region, even if its school submits a bid.

LAST IN AND FIRST OUT

Last Two In	First Two Out
UC Irvine (17-7)	Lindenwood (20-7)
USC (19-6)	McKendree (18-11)

Quick breakdown: The tournament may have expanded but the race for the final at-large bid remained just as tight as in previous years. Lindenwood holds the edge over USC in the several key criteria categories of KPI and RPI. However, the sub-components of those criteria categories and record against the top-five and top-10 in RPI ultimately will give USC the overall edge and a spot in the NCAA Tournament. USC with its MPSF Tournament victories improved to 3-6 against top-10 teams in the RPI – better than Lindenwood at 1-4. That datapoint and moving within five ten-thousandths of a percentage point to Lindenwood in the RPI should be enough to put USC in the NCAA Tournament. The top-four seeds remain unchanged following Conference Championship Saturday. Hawai’i despite its loss to Long Beach State in the Big West Tournament will still finish ahead of the Beach for the No. 2 overall seed. Hawai’i continues to hold the edge in the overwhelming majority of criteria categories, including overall head-to-head, KPI and RPI. The finals win for Long Beach State, though, is enough to keep it ahead of Ball State for the No. 3 seed.