NCAA Volleyball: Round of 16 begins; DII, NIVC updates; transfer portal bursting at the seams

The NCAA Tournament round of 16 begins Thursday with four matches in a row beginning at 1 p.m. Eastern. The schedule with notes follows.

So does some NIVC action after Northern Colorado — which pulled off a reverse sweep against Arkansas State — and Arizona joined Bowling Green in the semifinals. 

We’ve got some transfer portal updates, not something we’re going to follow daily, but they’re part of this all-NCAA edition of Volleyball Today:

NCAA volleyball Thursday, Friday

All matches on ESPN2

THURSDAY

At Pittsburgh (second matches start 30 minutes after the first ends)
1 p.m. — Missouri (22-8) vs. Kentucky (22-7), Oregon (24-7) vs. Pittsburgh (31-1)
At Louisville
7 p.m. — Florida (23-7) vs. Stanford (27-4), Purdue (27-6) vs. Louisville (27-5)

FRIDAY

At Penn State
1 p.m. — Texas (20-6) vs. Creighton (31-2), Marquette (25-8) vs. Penn State (31-2)
At Nebraska
7 p.m. — Texas A&M (21-7) vs. Wisconsin (25-6), Dayton (31-2) vs. Nebraska (31-2)

See the updated bracket at NCAA.com. 

ICYMI:

HEAD-TO-HEAD: Kentucky swept visiting Missouri in SEC play on October 6 and then beat the Tigers in four at Mizzou on November 27 to end the regular season … Pitt opened the season on August 30 with a sweep at Oregon … Stanford and Florida played from 2021-23 in pre-conference, did not play each other this season… Purdue, 13-4 all-time against Louisville, did not play the Cardinals this year. Louisville swept the last three meetings, twice in 2022 including the NCAA Tournament … this is the first meeting between Texas and Creighton since the Longhorns swept their 2016 NCAA tourney match … Marquette and Penn State have met once, early in 2013 … Wisconsin had played Texas A&M eight times, the last in 2019, before sweeping the visiting Aggies on September 21 … Dayton and Nebraska have played four times, the last early in 2014.

HISTORY: Texas swept Nebraska in 2023, giving the Longhorns back-to-back titles. Texas defeated Wisconsin four in the semifinals. Pittsburgh got swept by Nebraska as the Panthers made their third national semifinal appearance in a row.

Just 12 programs have won since the NCAA began holding women’s volleyball championships in 1981: Stanford (9 times), Penn State (7), Nebraska (5), UCLA (4), Hawai’i (3), Long Beach State (3), USC (3), Texas (4), Pacific (2), Kentucky (1), Wisconsin (1) and Washington (1).

Kentucky of the SEC was the only team outside of the Big Ten or Pac-12 to win the crown since Texas of the Big 12 won in 2012 when the Wildcats won in the spring of 2021.

Eight teams remain in Division II

The NCAA Division II tournament has four quarterfinals Thursday and it’s straight chalk.

Top-seeded Ferris State plays eighth-seeded Bentley and No. 4 Lynn faces No. 5 Wingate on one side of the bracket, while second-seeded Central Oklahoma State plays No. 7 San Francisco State and third-seeded Angelo State plays No. 6 Gannon on the other.

Click here for the NCAA DII bracket.

NIVC

A couple of Big East teams fight it out Thursday for the fourth NIVC semifinal spot when UConn (26-7) plays St. John’s (23-12). The winner plays Bowling Green of the MAC, which advanced Monday with a four-set win over the Big East’s DePaul. 

In Wednesday’s other quarterfinals, at Arizona, Northern Colorado of the Big Sky came back for a 20-25, 17-25, 25-16, 25-20, 15-13 victory over Arkansas State of the Sun Belt, and Arizona — the last Big 12 team left in the postseason — swept the Mountain West’s Wyoming.

Northern Colorado’s Alayna Tessena and Annette Baker had 12 kills each and Isabel Bennett had 10, hitting .444, to go with five blocks, one solo. Bella LePore had nine digs, an assist and four aces, and Sam Steel had 13 digs, four assists and three aces. UNC is 28-7; ASU ended its season 28-6.

Arizona (22-9) won 25-19, 25-18, 25-17, ending Wyoming’s season 17-13. Jordan Wilson led AU with 13 kills, an ace, 12 digs and a solo block. Jaelyn Hodge had 10 kills, four blocks and five digs, and Carlie Cisneros had 10 kills and eight digs.

NCAA volleyball transfer portal chock full

NCAA kills leader Caylen Alexander, the 6-foot junior outside for Hawai’i, is in the portal. 

One player who is not is Ohio State’s Grace Egan. She said she’ll transfer to Wisconsin.

Queue up Charleton Hester in the original Planet of the Apes: “It’s a madhouse! A madhouse!”

As khon2 in Hawai’i reported:

Alexander, a native of Alpharetta, Georgia, was a dominant force for the Rainbow Wahine during the 2024 season. In Hawaii’s NCAA Tournament loss to TCU last week, she capped off a stellar campaign in which she led NCAA Division I in total kills (611) and total points (676.5). She ranked fifth nationally in kills per set (5.09) and seventh in points per set (5.64). Alexander was named Big West Offensive Player of the Year and became a member of UH’s prestigious 1,000-kills club, finishing the season with 1,225 career kills, ranking 16th in program history.”

Egan, a 6-foot-1 product of Sterling, Illinois, redshirted in 2023 after getting hurt 18 sets into the season. This year, the outside was fourth in kills for the Buckeyes with 200 (2.52/set), hitting .170. She averaged 2.03 digs/set. Interestingly, Egan had a season high, and more than 10 percent of her kills, on November 27 when she had 22 in a five-set loss to Wisconsin.

Among the others in the transfer portal who can help top-level teams immediately are Auburn’s Madison Scheer, Baylor’s Allie Sczech, Cal’s Maggie Li, Kansas’s Ayah Elnady, Ohio State’s Emmi Sellman and USC’s Jadyn Livings. That’s only a portion of a huge list, but like the man said, it’s a madhouse.

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