The ACC saved its wildest for last, ensuring that the NCAA Division I volleyball regular season would end with a bang.
And did it ever.
To wit:
Unranked NC State all but assured itself an at-large NCAA tourney bid with a five-set, reverse-sweep upset at No. 9 SMU;
No. 6 Stanford knocked off visiting No. 3 Louisville;
Top-ranked Pittsburgh, which has won 14 in a row, came pretty close to entering the tournament with a loss before the Panthers got past No. 19 Georgia Tech in five, 17-15 in the fifth.
There was more.
In the SEC, Georgia upset No. 16 Florida in four, sending the Gators into the tournament on a two-match losing skid and all but ensuring they will not get a top-16 seed;
No. 13 Texas had to go five to hold off visiting Ole Miss, also winning 17-15 in the fifth after trailing 13-7.
Three more NCAA bids were claimed when No. 5 Creighton won the Big East, Hawai’i won the Big West and Colorado State won the Mountain West tournaments.
This, of course, is the day we’ve all been waiting for. No, not a Sunday with no matches, but the 6 p.m. Eastern NCAA Tournament selection show on ESPN.
We will have a story posted here ASAP and then soon after, 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.
Also in this edition of Volleyball Today:
— The KPI is a factor in the NCAA selection process and the MasterCoaches are all over it. We’ve got the link below.
— Americans Molly Shaw and Toni Rodriguez won the Volleyball World Pro Beach Tour Nuvali Challenge in the Philippines.
— And Micha Hancock had quite a scare in August, hours after getting her Olympic silver medal. There’s a link to a feature on the LOVB Salt Lake setter.
NCAA volleyball Saturday
ACC: NC State (16-12, 11-9) came away with an improbably 15-25, 22-25, 25-14, 25-18, 17-15 victory at SMU (24-7, 16-4). It left NC State with a RPI of 35 and KPI of 42, while SMU, sure to be a top-16 seed, is No. 7 in the RPI and ninth in KPI. Amanda Rice led the Wolfpack with 23 kills, five digs and six blocks, one solo. Ava Brizard had 16 kills, three blocks and nine digs. Jada Allen had six kills with one error in 11 attacks and 10 blocks, one solo. NC State won despite hitting .179 and having 19 serving errors against five aces, three by setter Naomi Cabello, who had six…
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