NCAA volleyball first-round: ESPN+ with no early matches, plenty of overlap

One can only wonder why the NCAA is not starting the NCAA Division I women’s volleyball tournament until mid-afternoon Thursday, foresaking the late morning and/or early afternoon as it conducts 16 matches.

That being said, it will take multiple devices to watch — all on ESPN+ — if you want to see most of them, because there will be plenty of overlap. 

First serve is at 4 p.m. Eastern/3 p.m. Central as Western Michigan plays Auburn. A half hour later, South Alabama plays Georgia Tech, Baylor plays James Madison and Eastern Illinois plays Marquette.

We’ll take a look at all 16 first-round matches Thursday and then the remaining 16 on Friday. The Thursday winners play Friday, meaning there are 24 matches that day. The Friday winners play Saturday, leaving eight matches Saturday.

Again, all first-round matches are on ESPN+, an app for which you must have a subscription even if you have ESPN and ESPN2 as part of your cable package. The Longhorn Network, if you have it as part of your cable package, will also broadcast the matches played at Texas.

While NCAA volleyball is relegated to ESPN+, note that Thursday on ESPN at 7 p.m. Eastern there is a regular-season, non-conference women’s basketball game between South Carolina and North Carolina. 

At the same time on ESPN2 there is a regular-season, non-conference women’s basketball game between Arkansas and Florida State. 

At 8 p.m. on ESPN there is a regular-season, non-conference women’s basketball game between Virginia Tech and LSU. 

Volleyball, as mentioned, can be seen on the ESPN+ app.

BIG TEN: The four other Power 5 conferences announced their season-end awards (see our story from earlier Wednesday). The B1G is doing it on the Big Ten Network at noon Eastern. At that time it will announce the all-Big Ten teams and the various honors, top player, coach, top defensive player, setter and freshman.

ESPN 5TH SET: ESPN again…