NCAA Women
November 26, 2023
Three months to the day after it started, the NCAA Division I women’s volleyball regular season ended with a flourish Saturday.
Back on August 25, the tone was set.
That was the opening day that Long Beach State, which won’t make the NCAA Tournament, stunned Texas. Colorado State, which won’t make the tournament, beat Kentucky. A then-full-rostered Florida beat Penn State. Nebraska swept Utah State. At-large lock Utah State, who knew? BYU beat Pittsburgh. UTEP beat Washington.
Yeah, it was going to be that kind of season.
And it was, right through Saturday, when unranked South Carolina hit .488 and not only beat Tennessee, the No. 9 team in the VolleyballMag.com Super 16, it swept the visiting Vols. Tennessee will be a top-16 host. South Carolina had lost its previous three matches and seven of nine.
Kentucky? The No. 8 Wildcats are arguably the hottest team in the country and their sweep of AVCA No. 23 Florida gave them their 16th win in a row and the SEC title.
Florida State, an injured team that limped into ACC play 6-6, swept Notre Dame and tied Pittsburgh for the conference title after winning its eighth in a row.
Creighton, which has won 15 in a row, crushed St. John’s to win the Big East Championship and Hawai’i swept Long Beach State to win the Big West Championship.
Nebraska finally lost Friday at Wisconsin, but bounced back to win in four at Minnesota and Wisconsin swept Iowa.
And now everyone waits until 6 p.m. Eastern when the NCAA Tournament bracket and its 64-team field is announced live on ESPN.
We’ll have the bracket recap and soon after we’ll have our post-selection show Zoom featuring ESPN and Big Ten analyst Emily Ehman and VolleyballMag.com editor Lee Feinswog. We’ll be interviewing an incredible collection of players and coaches from top teams and will visit with the chair of the NCAA Division I committee, Holly…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Volleyballmag.com…