Wisconsin wins first place in NCAA Women’s 48-a-side Volleyball Tournament

by

18:31 ET

  • Mechelle VoepelESPN.com

    Close

      Mechelle Voepel covers WNBA, college women’s basketball and other college sports for espnW. Voepel began covering women’s basketball in 1984 and has worked at ESPN since 1996.

Wisconsin won first place in the NCAA Women’s Volleyball Tournament, which begins April 14.

Support was released Sunday for the 48-team tournament, which will be played entirely in a bubble environment in Omaha, Nebraska.

Women’s volleyball is typically a fall sport with a 64-team NCAA tournament in December. But due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the season split this school year, as some teams, including those in the Big Ten and Pac-12 conferences, only played after January, while others also had games in the school year. autumn. Thus, the teams involved show a great disparity in the number of matches they have played in the face of the tournament.

The tournament was reduced to 48 teams, so the top 16 finishers have all the goodbyes of the first round. Teams from the same conference are not paired during the first two rounds.

Wisconsin became national runners-up in 2019, 2013 and 2000, and the 13-0 badgers are looking for their first NCAA volleyball championship. Volleyball does not sow its entire field, only the first 16. The first four seeds are completed by Kentucky No. 2, Minnesota No. 3 and Texas No. 4.

The rest of the seeds are: no. 5 Nebraska, núm. 6 Washington, núm. 7 Purdue, núm. 8 Florida, núm. 9 Ohio State, no. 10 Oregon, núm. 11 Louisville, núm. 12 Baylor, núm. 13 Penn State, 14 Utah, 15 Washington State and 16 BYU.

Defending champion Stanford, who has won three of the last four championships and won the top nine NCAA titles overall, lost the field for the first time since the NCAA tournament began in 1981. having several games canceled due to COVID-19 problems, and played only 10 all season, going 2-8.

Penn State is now the only program that has created every NCAA tournament.

The Big Ten has six teams on the field to lead all the conferences, while the Pac-12 has five and the ACC four. NC A&T and Utah Valley are debuting in the NCAA tournament.

All matches will be on the premises of the CHI Health Center Omaha, which has a pavilion and a convention center. The first round matches will be played from April 14 to 15, with regional semifinals scheduled for April 18. All these parties will be at the convention center.

The regional finals will be on April 19th. The four finals will take place on April 22 and 24 on ESPN2. All these matches will be in the sand. Matches throughout the tournament will be played live on ESPN3.

.Source