The NCAA DI-II tournament field has been set! Check out the Bay to Bay connections with the event along with information on when and how to watch the games.
Selection Sunday held plenty of excitement in the Men's Volleyball community as the bracket was announced for the newly expanded DI-II tournament. Long Beach State comes in as the #1 overall seed and earns a bye into the semi-finals. Defending National Champion Ohio State will face-off against King (champion of the Conference Carolinas) with the winner facing UC Irvine.
On the opposite side of the bracket BYU earns the #2 seed and will face the winner of UCLA and Harvard. The play in match will take place on April 28th at Ohio State, with the first round matches happening the following week on May 1st at host site UCLA.
Final Four matches will take place on May 3rd and the National Championship happening on Saturday May 5th (Broadcast information TBA).
BAY TO BAY CONNECTIONS
UC Irvine: Alum Joel Schneidmiller and the Anteaters earned the at-large bid into the NCAA tournament narrowly edging out University of Hawaii. Check out the teams reaction to the news from the @UCImvb twitter:
Schneidmiller was named the Big West Conference Freshman of the Year after his stellar rookie campaign. Joel and the Anteaters will take on the winner of King University vs. Ohio State on May 1st in the opening round of the tournament.
Harvard: The Harvard Crimson won their first ever EIVA conference title defeating Ivy League foe Princeton in the finals. Harvard assistant coach Jared Goldberg (brother of Club Director Arielle Houlihan) is in his first season with Harvard.
Goldberg and the Crimson will take on the UCLA Bruins in the first round of the tournament on May 1st in Westwood.
UCLA: The Bruins earned an at-large bid to the tournament after falling in 4 sets to #2 overall BYU in the MPSF finals. The Bruins assistant coach Brad Keller founded Bay to Bay back in 2000 and was the head coach of the first Bay to Bay team before moving to the college coaching ranks in 2007.
UCLA is also the host site of this years NCAA Championships and will look to take advantage of that home court advantage against Harvard in the first round of the tournament on May 1st.
Summer season tryouts will take place on Saturday, May 12th! Know someone who would be a good fit for Bay to Bay? Invite them to attend our free open gym on May 5th and attend tryouts on May 12th!