NCAA Women
November 30, 2024
A day after fourth-ranked Penn State put an end to No. 1 Nebraska’s 25-match winning streak to claim at least a share of the Big Ten title, a regular season that began on August 27 comes to an end Saturday.
There’s a lot on the line for a lot of teams, not the least which is No. 3 Louisville as it plays at No. 6 Stanford in the ACC finale.
At 6 p.m. Eastern Sunday on ESPN the 64-team NCAA Tournament bracket will be announced, including the all important top-four and top-16 seeds. We’ll have a story shortly after and later Sunday we’ll post our annual Zoom with ESPN and Big Ten Network analyst Emily Ehman and tourney participants from around the country, including NCAA Division I volleyball committee chair Danielle Josetti of Marquette.
One team that will hear its name called is Sacramento State, which got 30 kills from Bridgette Smith on Friday and defeated Northern Colorado in the Big Sky final for its first NCAA bid since 2007.
NCAA volleyball Saturday
Three tourmament championships, with NCAA automatic bids on the line will be decided, when top-seeded and fifth-ranked Creighton plays second-seeded Marquette in the Big East, top-seeded Colorado State plays second-seeded San Jose State in the Mountain West and top-seeded Cal Poly plays second-seeded Hawai’i in the Big West.
The Big East loser is assured an at-large NCAA bid but Creighton (RPI 6, KPI 6) has slim hopes of being a top-four seed. Colorado State has a slim chance of getting an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament if it loses, and Cal Poly has to win to get into the NCAA field but Hawai’i has a good shot at an at-large.
The key battle in the ACC pits Louisville (25-4, 17-2, RPI 3, KPI 3) at Stanford (24-4, 16-3, RPI 5, KPI 5). Louisville swept their previous meeting in Louisville on September 28. Also in the ACC, No. 1 Pittsburgh (28-1, 18-1), which has already won a share of the league title, is home for No. 19 Georgia Tech. SMU (24-6, 16-3), hoping to tie for second, plays host to NC State, Notre Dame is at Cal and Boston College is at Virginia.
Three of the SEC’s ranked teams are in action as No. 12 Texas is home for Ole Miss, No. 16 Florida is at Georgia and No. 24 Missouri is home for Auburn and Texas A&M is at South Carolina.
The Big Ten has Nebraska at Maryland and No. 6 Wisconsin home for Michigan State.
The lone Big 12 match has…
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