International Volleyball

NCAA Volleyball: Round of 16 begins; DII, NIVC updates; transfer portal bursting at the seams

NCAA Volleyball: Round of 16 begins; DII, NIVC updates; transfer portal bursting at the seams

Wyoming’s Kasia Partyka is helpless as Arizona’s Jordan Wilson, left, and Journey Tucker are all over this ball/Rebecca Sasnett, Arizona Athletics

The NCAA Tournament round of 16 begins Thursday with four matches in a row beginning at 1 p.m. Eastern. The schedule with notes follows.

So does some NIVC action after Northern Colorado — which pulled off a reverse sweep against Arkansas State — and Arizona joined Bowling Green in the semifinals. 

We’ve got some transfer portal updates, not something we’re going to follow daily, but they’re part of this all-NCAA edition of Volleyball Today:

NCAA volleyball Thursday, Friday

All matches on ESPN2

THURSDAY

At Pittsburgh (second matches start 30 minutes after the first ends)
1 p.m. — Missouri (22-8) vs. Kentucky (22-7), Oregon (24-7) vs. Pittsburgh (31-1)
At Louisville
7 p.m. — Florida (23-7) vs. Stanford (27-4), Purdue (27-6) vs. Louisville (27-5)

FRIDAY

At Penn State
1 p.m. — Texas (20-6) vs. Creighton (31-2), Marquette (25-8) vs. Penn State (31-2)
At Nebraska
7 p.m. — Texas A&M (21-7) vs. Wisconsin (25-6), Dayton (31-2) vs. Nebraska (31-2)

See the updated bracket at NCAA.com. 

ICYMI:

HEAD-TO-HEAD: Kentucky swept visiting Missouri in SEC play on October 6 and then beat the Tigers in four at Mizzou on November 27 to end the regular season … Pitt opened the season on August 30 with a sweep at Oregon … Stanford and Florida played from 2021-23 in pre-conference, did not play each other this season… Purdue, 13-4 all-time against Louisville, did not play the Cardinals this year. Louisville swept the last three meetings, twice in 2022 including the NCAA Tournament … this is the first meeting between Texas and Creighton since the Longhorns swept their 2016 NCAA tourney match … Marquette and Penn State have met once, early in 2013 … Wisconsin had played Texas A&M eight times, the last in 2019, before sweeping the visiting Aggies on September 21 … Dayton and Nebraska have played four times, the last early in 2014.

HISTORY: Texas swept Nebraska in 2023, giving the Longhorns back-to-back titles. Texas defeated Wisconsin four in the semifinals. Pittsburgh got swept by Nebraska as the Panthers made their third national semifinal appearance in a row.

Just 12 programs have won since the NCAA began holding women’s volleyball championships in 1981: Stanford (9 times), Penn State (7), Nebraska (5), UCLA (4), Hawai’i (3), Long Beach State (3), USC (3), Texas (4), Pacific (2), Kentucky (1), Wisconsin (1) and…

Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Volleyballmag.com…