The NCAA will be picking up the tab for the inaugural men’s volleyball NCAA Tournament play-in match this upcoming season.
The NCAA’s Division I Championships/Sports Management Cabinet voted last week to modify its policy on play-in matches and will begin to start paying for all team expenses associated with new postseason match.
It was just four years ago that Billy Ebel and Anders Nelson led the Ball State to the MIVA championship match, but Saturday in Nashville the two former all-conference teammates were facing each other.
Nelson as an assistant coach with the No. 19 Kentucky women’s volleyball team helped guide Kentucky to a sweep against Lipscomb and his former college teammate and roommate Ebel, who is a Lipscomb women’s volleyball assistant coach.
Pacific athletics director Ted Leland is the first to admit he has not been a popular person on campus during the last two weeks.
The fate of Pacific men’s volleyball team remains in limbo since Leland and the athletics department announced in early September a recommendation to drop the program as part of a campus-wide budget reduction initiative.
Pacific has a chance to save its men’s volleyball team if the program can independently raise enough funds.
Athletics director Ted Leland said Friday in an interview with Off the Block that he has amended his initial recommendation to cut the program and allow the team to remain at Pacific if it can financially sustain itself following the 2014 season.
An expansion program will be joining the MIVA for the 2015 season.
The McKendree University athletics department announced Tuesday that it was awarded membership to the MIVA that will begin following the men’s volleyball team’s upcoming inaugural season.
In a cost cutting move, Pacific is considering to eliminate its men’s volleyball program, but the money that the university could save is minimal compared to what other schools spend on the sport.
Pacific at $68,023 had the third lowest annual operating budget of the 13 schools in the MPSF conference, according to the most recent U.S. Department of Education report released in November 2012.
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Harvard will increase its non-conference strength of schedule for the upcoming season with more matches against the MIVA.
The Crimson recently unveiled their 2014 schedule that features a program-record four non-conference matches versus MIVA opponents, including the school’s first meetings with Ball State and Ohio State
Stanford coach John Kosty is doing everything in his power to help ensure its conference rival Pacific does not drop its men’s volleyball program.
Days after the Pacific athletics department recommended that the university eliminate the men’s volleyball team, Kosty during the weekend sent a nationwide letter to college men’s volleyball teams encouraging coaches and players to object to the decision.
For the first time in its program history, Grand Canyon will have a home match against George Mason.
Grand Canyon coach Jeremy Price said in a recent interview with Off the Block that his team will open its 2014 home season with a two-match series against the EIVA Tournament semi-finalists George Mason.
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The Pacific men’s volleyball team is on the chopping blocks.
Pacific athletics director Ted Leland announced Friday that he is recommending the university eliminate the men’s volleyball program following the 2014 season in an effort increase funding to the school’s new strategic investment.