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Three matches remain before Selection Saturday and little is settled in the college men’s volleyball bracketology .
Off the Block each week during the rest of the regular season and throughout each round of the postseason will unveil its latest projections to the NCAA Tournament.
The men’s volleyball Division I-II NCAA Tournament is comprised of six teams. Automatic bids are awarded to the winners of the Conference Carolinas, EIVA, MIVA and MPSF conference tournaments, and the NCAA men’s volleyball committee selects two teams for at-large bids.
The three-person selection committee meets following all of the conference tournaments to decide the at-large teams and the tournament seeding. For an in-depth look at the criteria used by the selection committee and the Off the Block bracketology projections, check out this breakdown.
The field for the NCAA Tournament is scheduled to be released during Selection Saturday.
The NCAA Tournament will begin with the two play-in matches Tuesday in Palo Alto, California. In addition, the NCAA Tournament semifinals and finals will take place Thursday through Saturday in Palo Alto.
Off the Block is in its fifth season of college men’s volleyball bracketology. It has in previous seasons accurately projected 94 percent of the teams in the NCAA Tournament field and 72 percent of the teams’ NCAA Tournament seed.
PROJECTED NCAA TOURNAMENT FIELD
LAST FOUR OUT
Pepperdine (24-5)
Ohio State (22-9)
USC (19-10)
BYU (17-10)
Quick breakdown: Pepperdine defeated Hawai’i in four games on Thursday to advance to the MPSF Tournament championship match, but the Rainbow Warriors continue to hold the advantage for the final at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. Hawai’i has an edge against Pepperdine in the majority of selection committee criteria categories, including head-to-head record and record against teams under NCAA Tournament consideration. Pepperdine can still make the NCAA Tournament as an automatic bid if it defeats UC Irvine in the MPSF Tournament finals on Friday. That conference championship victory would likely give the Waves the No. 4 seed for the NCAA Tournament. UC Irvine would get an at-large bid ahead of Hawai’i if it lost in the conference finals but could drop from the No. 2 seed to the No. 3 seed for the NCAA Tournament. That would also leave open the possibility of Loyola and Lewis earning the top two seeds. Both the Flyers and Ramblers remain virtual locks for NCAA Tournament regardless of the outcome of their MIVA Tournament championship match with the loser receiving the first at-large bid.