Second-ranked UCLA got 19 kills from Ethan Champlin and overpowered No. 9 Pepperdine in the MPSF and Conference Carolinas wrapped up regular-season play Thursday.
Things heat up considerably Friday in NCAA Division I-II men’s volleyball. Read on for a conference-by-conference breakdown with an eye on postseason.
In the Big West, the big match has No. 4 Long Beach State home for No. 5 UC Irvine. Top-ranked Hawai’i is home for UC San Diego, while No. 14 CSUN plays host to UC Santa Barbara.
There is one MPSF match, but it’s key for both teams as No. 8 Stanford goes to No. 6 BYU.
Third-ranked Penn State is home for No. 15 Charleston in the EIVA, where Princeton entertains NJIT and George Mason is at Harvard.
The NEC slate includes first-place Daemen at Fairleigh Dickinson, Merrimack at LIU, Sacred Heart at St. Francis Brooklyn and D’Youville at Saint Francis (PA).
The SIAC shows Morehouse at Edward Waterse and Central State at Kentucky State. EWU won in five Thursday at Fort Valley State.
Want to watch a match? We have the viewing links in our VolleyballMag.com TV & Streaming Listings.
The MIVA quarterfinals are Saturday. Click here for the MIVA Tournament bracket.
Conference Carolinas finished its regular season Thursday. League-leading North Greenville won in four at Belmont Abbey, Lees-McRae did the same at King, Erskine swept Emmanuel and Mount Olive swept Barton.
Click here for the Conference Carolinas bracket for the tournament that starts Tuesday.
Men: 5 automatic bids, 2 at-large
Five Division I-II men’s conferences get automatic bids to the NCAA Tournament, the Big West, Conference Carolinas EIVA, MIVA and MPSF.
Two other teams will get at-large bids to the seven-team field, and it would be hard to imagine a bracket without the Big West loser of either Hawai’i or Long Beach State.
Here’s how all five conferences stand.
BIG WEST: Heading into the final weekend of the regular season, Hawai’i (24-2, 7-1, No. 2 RPI) has the upper hand as Long Beach State (18-3, 7-1, 4 RPI) and UC Irvine (16-8, 6-2, 9 RPI) battle it out. Hawai’i is home for two matches with UC San Diego (8-14, 2-6), while UCI goes to Long Beach on Friday and then they play at Irvine on Saturday.
The Big West tournament starts April 20 at Irvine and two of those teams will have a bye into the semifinals as the No. 4 plays the No. 5 and the No. 3 plays the No. 6. The next day is the semifinals with the final on ESPNU on April 22.
UCI…
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