NCAA men's volleyball tournament

NCAA men's volleyball tournament
Sport	College indoor volleyball
Founded	1970
No. of teams	7 (as of 2018)
Country	United States
Most recent; champion(s)	Long Beach State (3rd title)
TV partner(s)	ESPN2
Official website	NCAA.com

The NCAA Men's Volleyball Tournament, officially titled the NCAA National Collegiate Men's Volleyball Championship, is an annual competition that determines the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) championship in American college men's volleyball. It had been the only NCAA championship in the sport from 1970 until 2012, when the NCAA launched a Division III championship.

In the past, schools from the Pacific Coast region have dominated this sport, in particular UCLA with coach Al Scates leading the program to 19 NCAA titles (more than any other coach). However, in recent years Midwestern teams have made their presence known in men's volleyball, winning 5 of the last 7 national championships. Ohio State leads the Midwest in national championships, with 3 total national championships.

Competition structure

Before the 2011–12 school year (2012 championship), men's volleyball did not have an official divisional structure; even now, that structure is truncated. The National Collegiate Championship remains as the NCAA's top-level championship, but Division III members now have their own championship event.

With the introduction of an official Division III championship, schools in that division are no longer eligible for the National Collegiate Championship. The last exception was Rutgers–Newark, whose men's volleyball program had been a grandfathered scholarship program, and could compete for the National Collegiate Championship through 2014. Rutgers–Newark completed a transition to Division III men's volleyball at the end of that season, and joined the D-III Continental Volleyball Conference effective with the 2015 season.

There are three general regions for men's volleyball: "West", "Midwest", and "East". Four "major conferences", defined here as leagues that include full members of Division I, represent these regions. The three "traditional" major conferences are the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF), Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (MIVA), and Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (EIVA). In the 2018 season, the ranks of "major" conferences expanded to include the Big West Conference, the first Division I all-sports conference ever to sponsor men's volleyball. As of the next NCAA men's volleyball season in 2021, two Division II conferences will sponsor men's volleyball at the National Collegiate level. Conference Carolinas (CC) was the first NCAA conference ever to sponsor men's volleyball as a scholarship sport, having launched its men's volleyball league in the 2012 season. The 2021 season will be the first for the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SIAC), which will have six men's volleyball members. CC has had an automatic berth in the National Collegiate championship since the 2014 season, and the Big West received an automatic berth upon the creation of its men's volleyball league, while the SIAC will not be eligible for an automatic berth until the 2023 season (assuming that all six inaugural men's volleyball members continue to play in that conference). Members of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), a separate athletics governing body whose members are primarily smaller institutions, regularly play matches against NCAA teams.

Because of the historic lack of an official divisional structure in men's volleyball, three of the four major conferences have members that normally compete in Division II. Before the creation of the Division III national championship, the EIVA had several Division III members, but all of those schools now compete in D-III men's volleyball. The Big West became the first men's volleyball conference to consist entirely of D-I members in the 2021 season; this immediately followed UC San Diego, previously a Big West affiliate in men's volleyball (as well as women's water polo), starting its transition to Division I and fully joining the Big West.

Through the 2013 tournament, each of the three major conferences (MPSF, MIVA and EIVA) received an automatic bid to the Final Four, with one additional at-large bid. The remaining bid was an at-large bid that could be awarded to any team in Division I or II (including Rutgers–Newark). Generally, the best team not receiving an automatic bid (usually from one of the three major conferences) received the at-large bid.

Beginning with the 2014 championship, the field expanded to six teams, with the two new teams being the champion of Conference Carolinas and one extra at-large entry. The new format featured two quarterfinal matches involving the four lowest-seeded teams in the field, with the winners joining the two top seeds in the semifinals. Originally, the quarterfinals were to be played at campus sites, with the Final Four at a separate predetermined site, but it was decided instead to have the entire championship tournament at one site.

With the Big West Conference adding men's volleyball for the 2018 season and qualifying for an automatic tournament berth, the championship now involves seven teams. The bottom two tournament seeds contest a "play-in" match; from that point, the tournament format is identical to the one used from 2014 to 2017.^[1]

Division I participation

The number of Division I schools sponsoring men's volleyball has fluctuated between 20 and 24 teams since 1986.^[2] No traditional D-I conferences sponsored men's volleyball until the Big West Conference added the sport for the 2018 season. Of the other three major conferences, the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (EIVA) and Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (MIVA) are volleyball-specific conferences, while the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) is a multi-sport conference of schools whose primary conferences do not sponsor its ten sports. In addition to the 23 D-I schools, 26 Division II schools competed in D-I volleyball in the coronavirus-shortened 2020 men's volleyball season:

Charleston (WV) competes in the EIVA.
Lindenwood, Lewis, McKendree, and Quincy compete in the MIVA.
Concordia–Irvine, currently transitioning from the NAIA to NCAA Division II, has been an MPSF men's volleyball member since the 2018 season.
UC San Diego began Big West competition as a single-sport member in the 2018 season, added women's water polo to its Big West membership for 2019–20, and became a full Big West member in 2020–21.
Conference Carolinas, the first all-sports conference in either Division I or II to sponsor men's volleyball, currently has 9 competing teams.
Ten schools competed as men's volleyball independents. Three of these are campuses of the University of Puerto Rico. Of the remaining seven, only Coker had sponsored the sport before the 2016 season. The others are Alderson Broaddus (2016), Lincoln Memorial (2017), Queens (NC) (2018), Daemen (2019), Urbana (also 2019), and Tusculum (2020). Urbana permanently closed after the 2020 season.

The Division II Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference will begin men's volleyball competition in the 2021 season with six newly launched teams, all full conference members—Benedict, Central State, Fort Valley State, Kentucky State, Morehouse, and Paine.^[3] Additionally, D'Youville, a Division III member which played the 2020 season in its full-time home of the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference, will join the National Collegiate division for the 2021 season as it starts a transition to Division II and the East Coast Conference, which sponsors volleyball only for women.^[4]

Division II does not have a separate national championship, and neither Division I nor II has a sufficient number of teams to sponsor a national championship without the other.

Champions

NCAA Men's National Collegiate Volleyball Championship^[5]
Year	Site (Host)	Host Arena	Final			Third Place Final / Other participants
Year	Site (Host)	Host Arena	Winner	Score	Runner-up	Third Place	Score	Fourth Place
1970 Details	Los Angeles (UCLA)	Pauley Pavilion	UCLA (24–1) ¹	3–0	Long Beach State	UC Santa Barbara	2–0	Ball State
1971 Details	Los Angeles (UCLA)	Pauley Pavilion	UCLA (29–1) ²	3–2	UC Santa Barbara	Ball State	2–0	Springfield
1972 Details	Muncie, Indiana (Ball State)	Irving Gymnasium	UCLA (27–7) ³	3–2	San Diego State	Ball State	2–0	UC Santa Barbara
1973 Details	San Diego (San Diego State)	Peterson Gym	San Diego State (21–5)	3–1	Long Beach State	Ball State	2–0	Army
1974 Details	Santa Barbara, California (UCSB)	Robertson Gymnasium	UCLA (30–5) ⁴	3–2	UC Santa Barbara	Ball State	2–1	Springfield
1975 Details	Los Angeles (UCLA)	Pauley Pavilion	UCLA (27–8) ⁵	3–1	UC Santa Barbara	Ohio State	2–0	Yale
1976 Details	Muncie, Indiana (Ball State)	Irving Gymnasium	UCLA (15–2) ⁶	3–0	Pepperdine	Ohio State	2–0	Springfield
1977 Details	Los Angeles (UCLA)	Pauley Pavilion	USC (18–1) ¹	3–1	Ohio State	Pepperdine	2–0	Rutgers–Newark
1978 Details	Columbus, Ohio (Ohio State)	St. John Arena	Pepperdine (21–4) ¹	3–2	UCLA	Ohio State	2–0	Rutgers–Newark
1979 Details	Los Angeles (UCLA)	Pauley Pavilion	UCLA (30–0) ⁷	3–1	USC	Rutgers–Newark	3–2	Ball State
1980 Details	Muncie, Indiana (Ball State)	Irving Gymnasium	USC (22–6) ²	3–1	UCLA	Ohio State	3–0	Rutgers–Newark
1981 Details	Santa Barbara, California (UCSB)	UCSB Events Center	UCLA (32–3) ⁸	3–2	USC	Penn State	3–1	Ohio State
1982 Details	University Park, Pennsylvania (Penn State)	Rec Hall	UCLA (29–0) ⁹	3–0	Penn State	USC	2–1	Ohio State
1983 Details	Columbus, Ohio (Ohio State)	St. John Arena	UCLA (27–4) ¹⁰	3–0	Pepperdine	Ohio State	3–1	Penn State
1984 Details	Los Angeles (UCLA)	Pauley Pavilion	UCLA (38–0) ¹¹	3–1	Pepperdine	George Mason	3–0	Ball State
1985 Details	Los Angeles (UCLA)	Pauley Pavilion	Pepperdine (25–2) ²	3–2	USC	George Mason	3–0	Ball State
1986 Details	University Park, Pennsylvania (Penn State)	Rec Hall	Pepperdine (22–7) ³	3–2	USC	Penn State	3–0	Ohio State
1987 Details	Los Angeles (UCLA)	Pauley Pavilion	UCLA (28–3) ¹²	3–0	USC	Penn State	3–0	Ohio State
1988 Details	Fort Wayne, Indiana (IPFW)	ACWMC	USC (34–4) ³	3–2	UC Santa Barbara	Ball State	3–1	George Mason
1989 Details	Los Angeles (UCLA)	Pauley Pavilion	UCLA (29–5) ¹³	3–1	Stanford	Penn State	3–0	Ball State
1990 Details	Fairfax, Virginia (George Mason)	Patriot Center	USC (26–7) ⁴	3–1	Long Beach State	Ball State	3–1	Rutgers–Newark
1991 Details	Honolulu, HI (Hawaii)	Neal S. Blaisdell Center	Long Beach State (31–4) ¹	3–1	USC	IPFW	3–1	Penn State
1992 Details	Muncie, Indiana (Ball State)	John E. Worthen Arena	Pepperdine (24–4) ⁴	3–0	Stanford	Penn State	3–0	IPFW
1993 Details	Los Angeles (UCLA)	Pauley Pavilion	UCLA (24–3) ¹⁴	3–0	Cal State Northridge	Penn State	3–2	Ohio State
1994 Details	Fort Wayne, Indiana (IPFW)	ACWMC	Penn State (26–3) ¹	3–2	UCLA	Ball State	3–0	IPFW
1995 Details	Springfield, Massachusetts (Springfield)	Springfield Civic Center	UCLA (31–1) ¹⁵	3–0	Penn State	Ball State	3–1	Hawaii
1996 Details	Los Angeles (UCLA)	Pauley Pavilion	UCLA (26–5) ¹⁶	3–2	Hawaii	Lewis and Penn State
1997 Details	Columbus, Ohio (Ohio State)	St. John Arena	Stanford (27–4) ¹	3–2	UCLA	Ball State and Penn State
1998 Details	Honolulu, HI (Hawaii)	Stan Sheriff Center	UCLA (28–4) ¹⁷	3–0	Pepperdine	Lewis and Princeton
1999 Details	Los Angeles (UCLA)	Pauley Pavilion	BYU (30–1) ¹	3–0	Long Beach State	IPFW and Penn State
2000 Details	Fort Wayne, Indiana (IPFW)	ACWMC	UCLA (29–5) ¹⁸	3–0	Ohio State	Penn State and Pepperdine
2001 Details	Long Beach, California (Long Beach State)	The Pyramid	BYU (23–4) ²	3–0	UCLA	Ohio State and Penn State
2002 Details	University Park, Pennsylvania (Penn State)	Rec Hall	Hawaii (24–8)†	3–1	Pepperdine	Ball State and Penn State
2003 Details	Long Beach, California (Long Beach State)	The Pyramid	Lewis (29–6)†	3–2	BYU	Penn State and Pepperdine
2004 Details	Honolulu, HI (Hawaii)	Stan Sheriff Center	BYU (29–4) ³	3–2	Long Beach State	Lewis and Penn State
2005 Details	Los Angeles (UCLA)	Pauley Pavilion	Pepperdine (25–2) ⁵	3–2	UCLA	Ohio State and Penn State
2006 Details	University Park, Pennsylvania (Penn State)	Rec Hall	UCLA (26–12) ¹⁹	3–0	Penn State	UC Irvine and IPFW
2007 Details	Columbus, Ohio (Ohio State)	St. John Arena	UC Irvine (29–5) ¹	3–1	IPFW	Penn State and Pepperdine
2008 Details	Irvine, California (UC Irvine)	Bren Events Center	Penn State (30–1) ²	3–1	Pepperdine	Long Beach State and Ohio State
2009 Details	Provo, Utah (BYU)	Smith Fieldhouse	UC Irvine (27–5)	3–2	USC (21–11)	Ohio State and Penn State
2010 Details	Stanford, California (Stanford)	Maples Pavilion	Stanford (24–6) ²	3–0	Penn State (24–8)	Cal State Northridge and Ohio State
2011 Details	University Park, Pennsylvania (Penn State)	Rec Hall	Ohio State (26–6)	3–2	UC Santa Barbara (18–15)	Penn State and USC
2012 Details	Los Angeles (USC)	Galen Center	UC Irvine (26–5) ³	3–0	USC (24–6)	Lewis and Penn State
2013 Details	Los Angeles (UCLA)	Pauley Pavilion	UC Irvine^[6] (25–7) ⁴	3–0	BYU (26–5)	Loyola Chicago and Penn State
2014 Details	Chicago (Loyola Chicago)	Gentile Arena	Loyola Chicago (29-1) ¹	3-1	Stanford (24-9)	3rd–BYU and Penn State 5th–Lewis and Erskine
2015 Details	Stanford, California (Stanford)	Maples Pavilion	Loyola Chicago^[7] (28-2) ²	3-2	Lewis (27-4)	3rd–UC Irvine and Penn State 5th–Hawaii and Pfeiffer
2016 Details	University Park, Pennsylvania (Penn State)	Rec Hall	Ohio State (31-2) ²	3-0	BYU (27-4)	3rd–UCLA and Long Beach State 5th–Erskine and George Mason
2017 Details	Columbus, Ohio (Ohio State)	St. John Arena	Ohio State (32–2) ³	3-0	BYU (26-5)	3rd–Hawaii and Long Beach State 5th–Barton and Penn State
2018 Details	Los Angeles (UCLA)	Pauley Pavilion	Long Beach State (28-1) ²	3-2	UCLA (26-8)	3rd-Ohio St., BYU 5th-UC Irvine, Harvard
2019 Details	Long Beach, California (Long Beach State)	The Pyramid	Long Beach State (28-2) ³	3–1	Hawaii	3rd-Pepperdine, Lewis 5th-Princeton, USC
2020 Details	Fairfax, Virginia (George Mason)	EagleBank Arena	Cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic
2021 Details	Columbus, Ohio (Ohio State)	Covelli Arena
2022 Details	Los Angeles (UCLA)	Pauley Pavilion

†Vacated due to NCAA violations

Team titles

UCLA

Pepperdine

USC

UC Irvine

BYU

Penn State

Stanford

Loyola

Ohio State

⇙ Hawaii

Lewis

Long
Beach
State

San
Diego
State

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Schools with national championships

– 19 championships,

– 5 championships,

– 4 championships,

– 3 championships,

– 2 championships,

– 1 championship

School	#	Year won
UCLA	19	1970, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1987, 1989, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2006
Pepperdine	5	1978, 1985, 1986, 1992, 2005
Southern California	4	1977, 1980, 1988, 1990
UC Irvine	4	2007, 2009, 2012, 2013
Ohio State	3	2011, 2016, 2017
BYU	3	1999, 2001, 2004
Long Beach State	3	1991, 2018, 2019
Penn State	2	1994, 2008
Stanford	2	1997, 2010
Loyola Chicago	2	2014, 2015
Vacated	2	2002, 2003
San Diego State	1	1973

Past tournaments

Historically, California-based universities have dominated the men's volleyball national championship; Loyola Chicago, Penn State, Ohio State and BYU are the only non-California universities to have won the National Collegiate championship; Hawaii and Lewis also won the championship tournament, but had their victories vacated due to NCAA rules violations. Only seven non-California universities have participated in the National Collegiate championship match (Loyola, BYU, Penn State, Ohio State, IPFW, Hawaii, and Lewis), although other universities such as Princeton and Ball State have participated in the final four. Only four finals have involved two non-California schools: the 2003 final, when Lewis defeated BYU but had its win vacated; the 2015 final, in which Loyola defeated Lewis; and the 2016 and 2017 finals, when Ohio State defeated BYU.

UCLA, Southern California, Penn State, Stanford, and Long Beach State are the only schools in Division I to have won an NCAA national championship in both men and women's volleyball. (But for Hawaii's vacated 2002 title, it would have matched this feat with 3 NCAA and 1 AIAW women's national championships.) In addition, Stanford (1996–97) and Penn State (2007–08) are the only universities whose men and women's volleyball programs won the national championship in the same academic year. The 2016 championship tournament took place from May 3–7 at Rec Hall on the campus of Penn State.

2011

May 5, 2011 – UC Santa Barbara def. Southern California, 29-27, 24-26, 25-15, 25-18; Ohio State def. Penn St., 25-18, 24-26, 25-22, 25-23
May 7, 2011 – Ohio State def. UC Santa Barbara, 20-25, 25-20, 25-19, 22-25, 15-9

Semi-Finals Thursday, May 5, 2011 Rec Hall, University Park, Pennsylvania						Championship Saturday, May 7, 2011 Rec Hall, University Park, Pennsylvania

1	Southern California (1)	27	26	15	18

4	UC Santa Barbara (3)	29	24	25	25
						4	UC Santa Barbara (2)	25	20	19	25	9

						3	Ohio State (3)	20	25	25	22	15
2	Penn State (1)	18	26	22	23

3	Ohio State (3)	25	24	25	25

2012

April 29, 2012 – Selections
May 3, 2012 – Semifinals (6 p.m./8 p.m. PT) at Galen Center, Los Angeles, California: #1 seed UC Irvine defeated #4 seed Penn State 3-1 (18-25, 25-18, 25-15, 25-19); #2 seed Southern California defeated #3 seed Lewis 3-1 (25-18, 25-12, 18-25, 27-25)
May 5, 2012 – Championship (7 p.m. PT) at Galen Center, Los Angeles, California: UC Irvine defeated Southern California 3-0 (25-22, 34-32, 26-24); 9,612 attended (record)

Semi-Finals Thursday, May 3, 2012 Galen Center, Los Angeles, CA						Championship Saturday, May 5, 2012 Galen Center, Los Angeles, CA

1	UC Irvine (3)	18	25	25	25

4	Penn State (1)	25	18	15	19
						1	UC Irvine (3)	25	34	26

						2	Southern California (0)	22	32	24
2	Southern California (3)	25	25	18	27

3	Lewis (1)	18	12	25	25

2013

April 28, 2013 – Selections
May 2, 2013 – Semifinals (6 p.m./8 p.m. PT) at Pauley Pavilion, Los Angeles, NCAA.com: No. 2-seed UC Irvine defeated No. 3-seed Loyola-Chicago 3–0; No. 1-seed BYU defeated No. 4-seed Penn State 3–0
May 4, 2013 – National Championship (6 p.m. PT) at Pauley Pavilion, Los Angeles, ESPNU: UC Irvine defeated BYU 3-0 ( 25-23, 25-22, 26-24)
May 4, 2013 – Game Notes: UC Irvine head coach David Kniffin became just the second coach in NCAA men's volleyball history to win a national title in his first season; 6,295 attended the title game
May 4, 2013 – All-Tournament Team: Connor Hughes, who had 11 kills in the title game for UC Irvine (Most Outstanding Player); Chris Austin, UC Irvine; Michael Brinkley, UC Irvine Collin Mehring, UC Irvine; Kevin Tillie, UC Irvine; Ben Patch, BYU; Taylor Sander, BYU

Semi-Finals Thursday, May 2, 2013 Pauley Pavilion, Los Angeles					Championship Saturday, May 4, 2013 Pauley Pavilion, Los Angeles

1	Brigham Young (3)	25	25	25

4	Penn State (0)	21	16	22
					1	Brigham Young (0)	23	22	24

					2	UC Irvine (3)	25	25	26
2	UC Irvine (3)	26	25	29

3	Loyola University Chicago (0)	24	18	27

2014

The semifinals and finals 2014 tournament were held in the Gentile Arena in Chicago on the campus of Loyola University Chicago. Two quarterfinal "play-in" matches were held at the Gentile Arena two days prior to the national semifinals, as the 2014 tournament expanded to six teams for the first time ever. A second at-large was added to the field, and the champions of the newly-eligible Conference Carolinas men's volleyball division got an automatic qualification. The six teams were seeded according to the same methods used to seed the teams in previous tournaments, with the top two seeds receiving byes into the Final Four, and the third seed facing the sixth seed and the fourth seed facing the fifth seed in the quarterfinals.^[8]
Apr. 29: Quarterfinals (#3 vs. #6 seed; #4 vs. #5 seed)
May 1: Semifinals (#1 vs. #4-#5 winner; #2 vs. #3-#6 winner)
May 3: NCAA Championship

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2015

The semifinals and finals of the 2015 tournament were held in the Maples Pavilion on the campus of Stanford University. Two quarterfinal "play-in" matches were held at the Maples Pavilion two days prior to the national semifinals. The six teams were seeded according to the same methods used to seed the four teams in previous tournaments; the top two seeds received byes into the Final Four, while the third seed faced the sixth seed and the fourth seed faced the fifth seed in the quarterfinals.
May 5: Quarterfinals (#3 vs. #6 seed; #4 vs. #5 seed)
May 7: Semifinals (#1 vs. #4-#5 winner; #2 vs. #3-#6 winner)
May 9: NCAA Championship