December is a very exciting time of year for volleyball fans all around the country. This is when the best teams in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) are placed into a 64-team bracket in which they have the chance to compete for a national title.
The round of 64 began on Dec. 5, with 18 of the 32 first-round matches taking place. The remaining matches were played the following day, which cut the total number of teams in the single-elimination tournament in half. In order to make it to the first round, 31 teams are automatically qualified by winning their conference, and then the rest of them are selected based on their performances throughout the season. Only two upsets took place in the first round, with Loyola Chicago sweeping No. 5 seeded BYU, and Ole Miss beating No. 7 Florida State in an intense five sets.
In the second round of the tournament, played on Dec. 6 and 7, a couple more upsets took place. The most notable was No. 7 Missouri beating No. 2 SMU in four sets. This was unfortunate for SMU, as they had been having one of their most successful seasons in school history. In the regular season, they were the only team to beat the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament, Pittsburgh, and were one of two teams to beat the No. 2 overall seed, Nebraska. The rest of the one and two seeds remained in the tournament, beating the lower seeds. This round left 16 teams remaining in the tournament.
The first round of regionals, referred to as the Sweet Sixteen, took place on Dec. 12 and 13. On paper, none of the games were upsets, as the higher seed in each match won. However, No. 2 Creighton beating No. 3 Texas is considered an upset by many. Texas has won the last two national championships, both in 2022 and in 2023, and has had notable runs in the tournament over the last couple of years. Last year when they won the championship, they were a No. 2 seed and ended with a record of 28-4. No one was expecting them to come into the tournament as hot as they did, but with a couple of star players, they were able to sweep No. 1 overall-seeded Nebraska in the championship. Watching Creighton beat Texas this year was a relief for many fans, as people all around the country wanted the Longhorns’ tournament winning streak to end.
The Elite Eight matches ended with all No. 1 seed victories. Pittsburgh, Louisville, Nebraska and Penn State will all advance to the Final Four on Dec. 19, where they must win to make it to the championship game. It will only be the second time in history that a school from the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is in the championship. Pittsburgh and Louisville are both members of this conference and will face each other at 5:30 CT on Thursday.
These last three games of the 2024 collegiate volleyball season will be a battle. Each one of the four teams is hungry for a championship. Pittsburgh, who has been ranked No. 1 throughout the majority of the season, has never even made it to the championship game. Nebraska has lost in the last three finals they have been in, most recently in 2023. Penn State has not been to the championship game since they won it back in 2014. Louisville has only been to the finals once, back in 2022 when Texas easily beat them in three sets. It will be very interesting to see how the season pans out for these teams. On Sunday, Dec. 22, the final two teams will compete in the championship game at 2 p.m. CT at the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, Kentucky.
