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Chaos has struck the college men’s volleyball bracketology with Hawai’i losing three consecutive matches.
Off the Block each week during the rest of the regular season and throughout each round of the postseason will unveil its latest detailed projections to the NCAA Tournament.
The men’s volleyball Division I-II NCAA Tournament is comprised of seven teams. Automatic bids are awarded to the winners of the Big West, ConfCarolinas, 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 Sunday on April 22.
The NCAA Tournament will begin a play-in match and then two first-round matches. The top-two seeds will receive byes to the semifinals and will play the winners from the first round.
Off the Block is in its eighth season of college men’s volleyball bracketology. In previous seasons, Off the Block has accurately projected more than 95 percent of the teams making the NCAA Tournament field.
PROJECTED NCAA TOURNAMENT FIELD
Pepperdine (13-6)
Hawai’i (13-6)
Lewis (14-8)
Ohio State (15-4)
Quick breakdown: Hawai’i going 0-3 on its road trip last week did significant damage its at-large bid chances. The Rainbow Warriors went from being projected to have to the top at-large bid to falling completely out of the NCAA Tournament field. The team still has a chance at earning one of the two at-large bids, but it will likely need to win at least five of its remaining six regular season matches, including beating undefeated No. 1 Long Beach State. With the Hawai’i losses, the amount of teams under NCAA Tournament consideration has expanded, according to the latest Off the Block bracketology. Both Pepperdine and Lewis are back in at-large bid contention. In addition, UC Irvine surpassed Hawai’i for the final at-large bid. Along with the at-large bid race, Loyola continues to bolster its resume for a possible No. 2 overall seed and bye to the NCAA Tournament semifinals. Loyola swept its in-state rival Lewis during the weekend to improve to 6-2 against teams under NCAA Tournament consideration. The No. 1 seed Long Beach State is the only other team with a better record than Loyola versus teams under NCAA Tournament consideration. In addition, George Mason holds the edge against Barton to be the No. 6 seed and host the play-in match.