With less than 6 hours to go before the announcement of the full field for the 2018 women’s beach volleyball championships, it’s time for our final prediction for the 8 that will advance to the double-elimination NCAA tournament.
In an effort to not bury the lead, we’ve put the tournament qualification at the end of this article. The TLDR; is that 3 teams from the East Region and 3 teams from the West Region are guaranteed of spots in Gulf Shores. Then, there are two at-large bids available (that we believe will almost certainly go to teams from the West Region).
Without further adieu, here are our picks, broken down to West, then East, then at-large.
West Region Bids
Not withstanding the travel cost shenanigans we saw with the men’s selection last week, which won’t apply here, there is a clear-cut favorite 3 for the 3 West Region bids. The champions of the 3 major west coast conferences should get the top 3 seeds in the tournament. In order, that’s Pac-12 champions UCLA (on a 30 game winning streak), WCC champions Pepperdine (the last team to beat Pepperdine), and Big West Champions Hawaii (who swept UCLA 5-0 early in the year).
They’re all 3 loss teams, they all played huge and competitive schedules against each other, and all emerged with just 3 losses.
Things get hairier out west for the 2 at-large bids, but we’ll fight that battle in a later section.
Picks:
- UCLA
- Pepperdine
- Hawaii
| UCLA | Pepperdine | Hawaii | Cal Poly | USC | Long Beach State | |
| Conference Finish | Pac-12 Champ | WCC Champ | Big West Champ | Big West Semis | Pac-12 Finals | Big West Finals |
| Win-Loss | 35-3 | 24-3 | 35-3 | 27-7 | 25-12 | 26-8 |
| Vs. Regional Opponents | 27-3 | 14-3 | 22-3 | 23-6 | 21-11 | 22-8 |
| Best Wins | 3-1 record vs. USC, 2-1 record vs. Pepperdine, 2-1 record vs. Hawaii | 4-1 win over UCLA in March | 5-0 over UCLA in February | 3-2 over Pepperdine in February | 3-2 over UCLA in March, | Two Big West Tourny Wins over Cal Poly |
| Worst Losses | 5-0 loss to Hawaii in February | 3-2 loss to Cal Poly in February | 4-1 to Florida State in March | 3-2 loss to LSU in February, two losses to LBSU in Big West Tourny | 0-4 record vs. Pepperdine, 4-1 loss to LSU, 3-2 loss to Cal | All losses have been to other teams in the top 6 |
East Region Bids
For the 3rd-straight year, the East region is likely to only receive the required 3 bids to the NCAA Championship.
LSU’s late win in the CSCAA tournament 4-1, combined with two far better wins (Cal Poly and USC), is enough to give them the nod over South Carolina. LSU at times this year looked like a top-5 team, but a few early losses to East opponents weighs their resume down a little. At 5-5, among East contenders, they’ve got the best record against West Region teams.
A late loss 4-1 to LSU in the CCSA semi-finals hurts South Carolina’s bid, but a win over FIU 3-2 in the same tournament and an early-season win over LSU should be enough for them to grab the 8 seed in the tournament. Their record is inflated slightly by the fact that they only had to play the best team in the East, Florida State, once this season.
South Carolina finished 1-1 vs. FIU. The two have very, very similar resumes, both made the CCSA semi-finals, both have similar results to common opponents. This will probably be one of the committee’s toughest decisions, but the most probable tie-breakers are that South Carolina has a few more quality matches on their resume (they played LSU, FIU did not), and South Carolina won the most recent head-to-head. The AVCA committee had South Carolina one spot ahead of FIU in the last poll, and that was before the latest result. That win by South Carolina will cement the opinion.
Picks:
- Florida State
- LSU
- South Carolina
| Florida State | LSU | South Carolina | FIU | |
| Conference Finish | CCSA Champ | CCSA Finals | CCSA Semis | CCSA Semis |
| Win-Loss | 30-6 | 26-12 | 24-7 | 23-10 |
| Vs. Regional Opponents | 28-0 | 21-7 | 23-4 | 22-5 |
| Best Wins | 4-1 win vs. Hawaii | 3-2 win vs. Cal Poly, 4-1 win vs. USC | 4-1 win vs. LSU in March, 3-2 win vs. FIU | 4-1 vs. South Carolina in March, 3-2 vs. Georgia St. in March |
| Worst Losses | All 6 losses came to Big West top 6 teams, including 4-1 to Long Beach State | 3-2 loss to Georgia State, 4-1 loss to FAU, 4-1 loss to S. Carolina | 3-2 loss to UAB, 4-1 to FIU | 3-2 loss to Tulane, 3-2 loss to College of Charleston |
At-Large Bids
We’ve included FIU, the best at-large candidate from the east, just for comparison purposes and to highlight the gap between east and west.
The at-large bids are the next-best toughest choice to make. There’s 3 really serious candidates here: Cal Poly, USC, and Long Beach State. We would be remiss to not address the potential politics in play either – USC are the two-time defending champions, and while this year’s team is clearly not as good as the last two, they are the pre-eminent collegiate beach program in the sport’s history, and have done a lot to build the sport. It’s going to be hard for the committee to overcome that reputation.
Built purely on resume, Long Beach State remade this discussion by beating Cal Poly twice in the Big West Conference final. Cal Poly won 3-2 earlier in the season, but the sets aggregate on the season is 10-6 in favor of Long Beach State. USC and Cal Poly both lost to LSU, and USC had a significant loss to Cal late in the season.
But USC has a trump card: one of the 3 wins earned this year against UCLA, and a head-to-head win over Cal Poly in their lone matchup.
At this point, we like USC and Long Beach State, in some order, as the at-large choices:
- USC
- Long Beach State
| Cal Poly | USC | Long Beach State | Cal | FIU | |
| Conference Finish | Conference Semis | Pac-12 Finals | Conference Finals | Pac-12 Semis |
Conference Semis
|
| Win-Loss | 27-7 | 25-12 | 26-8 | 24-8 | 23-10 |
| Best Wins | 3-2 over Pepperdine in February | 3-2 over UCLA in March, | Two Big West Tourny Wins over Cal Poly | 3-2 win over Stanford | 4-1 vs. South Carolina in March, 3-2 vs. Georgia St. in March |
| Worst Losses | 3-2 loss to LSU in February, two losses to LBSU in Big West Tourny | 0-4 record vs. Pepperdine, 4-1 loss to LSU, 3-2 loss to Cal | All losses have been to other teams in the top 6 | 3-2 loss to Arizona, 3-2 loss to Washington, 3-2 loss to Stanford | 3-2 loss to Tulane, 3 loss to College of Charleston |
Seedings
The west gets the top 3 seeds with very little discussion, and we think there’s a pretty clear order among them that have emerged.
After that, there’s lots of debate to be had, especially given that LSU has head-to-head wins over both Cal Poly and USC. Ultimately, though, the full body of work out west will prevail in those cases. We’ll take Florida State to be the only East Region team to break order, given a total dominance of their region.
The final picks:
UCLA (West)
Pepperdine (West)
Hawaii (West)
USC (West)
Florida State (West)
Long Beach State (West)
LSU (East)
South Carolina (East)
TOURNAMENT QUALIFICATION PROCEDURES
The National Collegiate Beach Volleyball Committee will select the 8 teams in a two-step process:
Step 1: Regional Bids
The committee will select the top 3 teams from the East Region along with the top three teams from the West Region. Here are the selection criteria for those bids, direct from the NCAA pre-championships manual:
Selection criteria for regional bids into the championship:
Record versus regional opponents
Head-to-head competition
Results versus common opponents
Strength of schedule
Overall record (must be .500 or above)
You can find the regional divides of all eligible institutions in the pre-championships manual linked above.
Step 2: At-Large Bids
The final two spots will be filled by at-large bids for teams from either region. Here are the criteria for those bids:
Selection criteria for at-large bid into the championship:
Head-to-head competition
Results versus common opponents
Strength of schedule
Overall record (must be .500 or above)
Those 8 teams will then be seeded. Regional bids are not guaranteed to be seeded higher than at-large bids, so the at-large bids are not necessarily teams #7 and #8.
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