Follow
Two weeks before the start of the college men’s volleyball postseason and the bracketology remains in absolute flux.
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
FIRST FOUR TEAMS OUT
Pepperdine (13-6)
Hawai’i (13-6)
Lewis (16-8)
Ohio State (17-4)
Quick breakdown: With the majority of West Coast teams not playing last week, there is little to no change in the new bracketology. Loyola, though, bolstered its resume beating Ball State and Fort Wayne last week. If Loyola can pull off a road win against Ohio State on Thursday it will be in prime contention for a No. 2 overall seed and bye into the Volley Four. The Ramblers also continue to be in a solid position for a possible at-large bid if they lose in the MIVA Tournament. However, the at-large bid race remains tight with UC Irvine, UCLA, Hawai’i and BYU all in the contention. The other intriguing race in the bracketology is what team will finish at the No. 6 seed and earn the right to play host to the NCAA Tournament play-in match. The ConfCarolnas champions and EIVA champions are projected to play in that match, according to the Off the Block bracketology. The defending ConfCarolinas champions Barton is continuing to close the gap with the top-two EIVA teams — George Mason and Penn State. The Bulldogs in the RPI rankings are now ahead of the Nittany Lions and four spots behind the Patriots.