2016 NCAA Volleyball Tournament

[flyingMoose]

The Web site post now says 11am Tuesday for ticket requests.

[flyingMoose]

You could head out to the watch party at the Champions Club in Koch Arena. Doors open at 7:45 pm.

I went and just watched the video from the watch party. I am in the background in a couple of shots, the one wearing the moose antlers.

[1972Shocker]

I don't pretend to be knowledgeable about volleyball, but if that's true -- and to this layman's eye it certainly appears to be, else how to explain the much gentler treatment given to MoState vs. the Shocks, despite the RPI discrepancy -- it's just one more reason not to take seriously the NCAA and its management of much of anything.

I guess it does give value to the regular season conference championship, and that would be a good thing in my view, regardless of the sport, but I suspect that those who follow volleyball more closely than I do could probably find examples in this year's field where a regular season championship wasn't so highly rewarded, so maybe it's just coincidence.

I think the ability to generate big TV revenues is really what drives these things anymore. I don't know if any Volleyball programs are net revenue generators. If there are any they are few and far between. The Valley schedules conference games typically on Friday and Saturday and assign travel partners based on proximity to each other to minimize travel costs. The Valley went to scheduling mid-week matches to free up and extra weekend of non-conference play hoping teams would be able to use that to schedule RPI building matches. One of the biggest concerns expressed about that is that it does add travel costs. There was one weekend this season where the Illinois State asked and received permission to schedule the normal Friday match on Sunday. The Shocks played Indiana State on Friday and then Illinois State on Sunday. I remember Lambo commented on that adding to the Shocks travel costs and that maybe Illinois State should have picked up the tab for the added day on the road.

If the team that was #12 nationally in average attendance and has one of, if not the best, pre-season fundraisers in the VB101 Dinner is that concerned about travel costs then perhaps it is not too surprising that geographic proximity is used as a key factor in the NCAA making regional assignments keeping most teams within bus driving distance of their assigned spot. One positive of that is that it does make it easier for fans of most teams to travel for the regional games if they so desire. However, when you go to Nebraska where the arena is sold out at 103% of listed capacity that option is somewhat limited. No doubt a good contingent of Shocker fans would follow the Shocks to Lawrence and Manhattan and perhaps even Columbia, MO if that were the option. Ticket availability would certainly be easier. With the Valley getting multiple-bids in recent years that complicates the picture a bit in sending the Shockers east with their geographic location vis-a-vis the other Vallley teams.

Unfortunately for the Shocks and other Valley Schools the B1G and the Big 12 are perhaps the two best volleyball leagues in the nation.

This is the Shocker's 10th regional assignment and the 5th time they have been assigned to Lincoln. The other 5 were Lawrence x 2, Austin, Ames and Norman. So landing in Lincoln seems to be the Shocker's lot in their NCAA life.

[flyingMoose]

End-of-season RPIs:

21 Shockers
44 Missouri State
45 Northern Iowa

[WSUwatcher]

We need to get the NCAA aboard the greenhouse gas / fossil fuel / climate doom bandwagon (although it would surprise me if they aren't there already) -- then they could send WSU to Manhattan, MoState to Lawrence, and the UNIs to Lincoln, thereby reducing the collective mileage traveled and thus the amount of death-dealing diesel pollution generated by their team buses.

Quick -- someone get Al Gore on the volleyball committee. He isn't doing anything useful these days anyway, and he seems to have plenty of money, so a little bit of volunteer work might be a good thing.

[Dave Stalwart]

We need to get the NCAA aboard the greenhouse gas / fossil fuel / climate doom bandwagon (although it would surprise me if they aren't there already) -- then they could send WSU to Manhattan, MoState to Lawrence, and the UNIs to Lincoln, thereby reducing the collective mileage traveled and thus the amount of death-dealing diesel pollution generated by their team buses.

Quick -- someone get Al Gore on the volleyball committee. He isn't doing anything useful these days anyway, and he seems to have plenty of money, so a little bit of volunteer work might be a good thing.

Conference realignment based on environmentalism! No more jets. Only fuel efficient team buses and no travel of more than 5 hours. That puts WSU in a conference with KU, KSU, Creighton, Nebraska, UNO, Tulsa, Okay State, OU, Mizzou, Arkansas, Missouri State, North Texas, TCU, UTA, and SMU. I'll take it. :)

[1972Shocker]

So UNI, who is geographically closer to Nebraska, has a substantially lower RPI, finished 3rd in the conference, didn't even make it out of the semifinals of their own conference tournament on their home floor goes to lower rated KU, while WSU, with a near Top 20 RPI, who are the conference champions, gets sent further away to the most dominant team in volleyball in years.

Makes total sense. Just as much sense as how women's basketball does it. Will never be taken seriously.

Actually Wichita is ever so slightly closer to Lincoln according to Google than Cedar Falls. Wichita is shown as 279 miles and 4 hours and 8 minutes and Cedar Falls 295 miles and 4 hours and 40 minutes. On the other hand Cedar Falls is 420 miles from Manhattan so sending Creighton and UNI to Lincoln and TCU and WSU to K-State would have made sense geographically.

However, Creighton may not have been all that far from being a national seed with an RPI of 17 and perhaps they thought the overall No. 1 seed deserved what the committee percieves as a somehwat easier path. Hard to say. Creighton actaully gave Nebraska a decent match in the non-con at Lincoln with the Huskers prevailing in 4 sets by scores of 23-25, 25-13, 27-25 and 25-18. Creighton also lost to KSU in the non-con in 4 sets with KSU winning by scores of 18-25, 25-23, 28-26 and 25-21. (Total points KSU 96 - Creighton 95).

https://youtu.be/66jgS-CEBuI

[flyingMoose]

Actually Wichita is ever so slightly closer to Lincoln according to Google than Cedar Falls. Wichita is shown as 279 miles and 4 hours and 8 minutes and Cedar Falls 295 miles and 4 hours and 40 minutes. On the other hand Cedar Falls is 420 miles from Manhattan so sending Creighton and UNI to Lincoln and TCU and WSU to K-State would have made sense geographically.

The NCAA uses this mileage calculator. Measuring from institution to institution, Wichita State is 274 miles from the University of Nebraska and Northern Iowa is 312 miles away.

The mileages are not really the point. I'm just noting the "measuring tool" the NCAA uses.

And you are right - the Committee could have done a number of other things that made (better) sense geographically - but why start now?

[1972Shocker]

I would love to see the Shocks go to 7-3 in 1st round NCAA matches which I think would something to be quite proud of. TCU has a couple of wins over national seeds. They defeated #7 seed North Carolina 3-2 at home on September 17th and they swept #14 national seed K-State in Ft. Worth on November 5th. So TCU will certainly will be a capable opponent.

No need to worry about Nebraska unless the Shocks can get by the Horned Frogs.

[1972Shocker]

National Seeds By Conference:

Big 10 = 6; Nebraska (1), Minnesota (2), Wisconsin (3), Michigan State (9), Michigan (12) and Penn State (16)
Big 12 = 3; Kansas (4), Texas (5), K-State (14)
Pac 12 = 3; Stanford (6), Washington (8) and UCLA (10)
SEC = 2; Forida (11), Missouri (15)
ACC = 1; North Carolina (7)
WCC = 1; BYU (13)

Seems odd to see Penn State as a 16 seed.

[1972Shocker]

Touranment Bids By Conference:

Big 10 = 8
Pac 12 = 8
Big 12 = 7
ACC = 3
SEC = 3
MWC = 3
MVC = 3
Big East = 2
AAC = 2
MAC = 2
WCC = 2
Single Bid Conferences = 21

[The Mad Hatter]

I don't pretend to be knowledgeable about volleyball, but if that's true -- and to this layman's eye it certainly appears to be, else how to explain the much gentler treatment given to MoState vs. the Shocks, despite the RPI discrepancy -- it's just one more reason not to take seriously the NCAA and its management of much of anything.

I guess it does give value to the regular season conference championship, and that would be a good thing in my view, regardless of the sport, but I suspect that those who follow volleyball more closely than I do could probably find examples in this year's field where a regular season championship wasn't so highly rewarded, so maybe it's just coincidence.

The examples are not hard to find. Texas was given a higher seed that Kansas in spite of KU winning the B12 and Stanford was likewise given a higher seed than Washington.

[1972Shocker]

The NCAA uses this mileage calculator. Measuring from institution to institution, Wichita State is 274 miles from the University of Nebraska and Northern Iowa is 312 miles away.

The mileages are not really the point. I'm just noting the "measuring tool" the NCAA uses.

And you are right - the Committee could have done a number of other things that made (better) sense geographically - but why start now?

You mean Hawaii and Southern Cal aren't that close to Minnesota? While UNI is about 220 miles from there or roughly have the distance to Manhattan. I guess if you are Hawaii another 2,000 miles won't make much difference. Why not Hawaii to UCLA cutting their one-way trip from 4,000 miles to 2,000 miles and Murray State to Minnesota cutting them from 2,000 miles to 800 miles.

Obviously, proximity isn't the end all and be all. And I suppose with 75% of the national seeds/hosts from the Big 10, Big 12 and Pac 12 someone is bound to have to travel.

Obviously, there a consideration other than proximity at work. I'm sure it's harder than it looks.

[JayJ79]

the NCAA considers any trip within a certain mile radius (for some reason, I'm thinking 400) to be a "bus trip" (they pay for teams to travel by bus), and anything over that to be a flight (they pay for air travel).
They'll look to minimize the number of flights they have to pay for, but beyond that I don't think they put too much effort into favoring 200 mile bus trips over 375 mile bus trips.

Penn State getting a seed is ridiculous. And as usual, they are sent some cupcakes from the weak one-bid conferences (though Dayton seems to be playing well).
I've heard that Kansas isn't able to host regionals (their volleyball facility is too small, and their basketball arena is unavailable that weekend), so I'm guessing that may be one reason why they were dropped to a 5 seed, and Texas was given the 4. (plus texas tends to get prefential treatment similar to PSU).

I found it odd that UNI gets set up with a rematch against a team they played during the regular season (Creighton), and if they win that, they'll face another team that they played in the regular season (Kansas)
Similarly, Missouri State is set up with another rematch (Ohio State). But that kind of just goes to show that the top MVC teams always schedule tough non-conference schedules (teams that always tend to end up in the NCAAs)

[1972Shocker]

I think all 3 Valley teams are capable of winning their 1st round matches (and perhaps about an equal chance all 3 could lose those matches).

Matchups with RPI ranking:

WSU (#21) vs TCU (#20) hosted by #1 National Seed Nebraska
Missouri State (#44) vs Ohio State (#35) hosted by #14 National Seed K-State
UNI (#45) vs Creighton (#17) hosted by #5 National Seed Kansas

WSU and TCU have never met.

Missouri State defeated Ohio State in Springfield on September 9th in 5 sets by scores of 21-25, 25-23, 25-21, 22-25 and 15-12 (Total Points 108 - 106)

Creighton swept UNI at Southern Cal on September 2nd by scores of 20, 30, 25 which was a very competitive showing by UNI.

I do not expect the 3 hosts to have any difficulty advancing to the Round of 32.

Missouri State clearly has the most favorable draw of any of the 3 Valley teams. Luck of the draw I guess.