NCAA volleyball round of 16 set as Stanford survives, seven others also advance

The NCAA Division I women’s volleyball tournament round of 16 is set, but not before there was some late-Saturday night excitement.

Second-seeded Stanford took a 2-0 lead over Houston, but the visiting Cougars battled back to force a fifth set before the Cardinal regained its form and dominated.

Fourth-seeded Pittsburgh lost the first set to USC but then won in four.

Also advancing were Tennessee, Creighton, Nebraska, Arkansas, Arizona State and Washington State.

It sets up eight Thursday matches that include three conference battles — Kentucky-Arkansas, Wisconsin-Penn State and Arizona State-Stanford — and five others that are sure to continue this NCAA season of unpredictability.

Thursday’s round of 16

All times Eastern
No. 1 Nebraska (30-1) vs. Georgia Tech (24-6), 2 p.m., ESPN2
No. 2 Stanford (28-3) vs. Arizona State (28-6), 11:30 p.m., ESPNU
No. 3 Wisconsin (28-3) vs. Penn State (23-8), 7 p.m., ESPN2
No. 4 Pittsburgh (27-4) vs. No. 13 Washington State (26-7), 2:30 p.m., ESPNU
No. 5 Louisville (26-4) vs. No. 12 Creighton (29-4), noon, ESPN2
No. 6 Oregon (28-5) vs. No. 11 Purdue (23-8), 9:30 p.m., ESPNU
No. 7 Texas (24-4) vs. No. 10 Tennessee (26-4), 9 p.m., ESPN2
No. 8 Kentucky (21-7) vs. No. 9 Arkansas (27-5), 4:30 p.m., ESPNU

Some quick notes before the recaps and an NIVC update:

The three seeds that didn’t advance were No. 14 Kansas, No. 15 BYU and No. 16 Florida … Stanford and Arizona State split their Pac-12 regular-season meetings. Both results were home sweeps … Penn State beat visiting Wisconsin in four in their only Big Ten regular-season match … Kentucky, which has won 18 in a row, the longest streak of the remaining teams, beat Arkansas in both their SEC regular-season matches … The SEC, which got eight teams in the 64-team field, is down to Kentucky, Arkansas and Tennessee. The Big Ten and Pac12 have four each, the ACC has three, Texas is the lone Big 12 team left, and Creighton is carrying the torch for…