The 8 teams chosen for the 2018 NCAA Beach Volleyball Championship will be announced on Sunday at 7PM Eastern Time. This will set the stage for the 3rd-ever NCAA beach volleyball championship which takes place next weekend, May 4th-6th, in Gulf Shores, Alabama.
The 8 teams chosen will play in a double-elimination tournament, with Pac-12 Champions UCLA on a 30-match win streak and expected to be the #1 seed (ahead of rivals USC, who have won the previous two titles).
Also expected to be in the field are the West Coast Conference Champions Pepperdine, who were the last team to beat UCLA with a 4-1 victory in March.
After the top few teams, things get very interesting, with arguably the weakest East region we’ve seen in 3 years of this tournament so far. Remember that the East is guaranteed 3 spots in the tournament (full selection procedure is below), so Florida State is probably a lock, but the other 2 west bids are very much up-in-the-air. LSU lost to Florida State in the CCSA tournament final, but earlier in the week thumped South Carolina 4-1. With LSU being ranked 8th and South Carolina 9th in the last AVCA coaches’ poll before the announcement, that win should be enough for LSU to enter the tournament for the 2nd straight season.
Both at-large bids will go to the west for the 3rd-straight year, meaning that one among Cal Poly, two-time defending champions USC, and Long Beach State will probably be left home.
Selection Show Details:
- Sunday, April 29th at 7PM Eastern/4PM West Coast Time
- Watch HERE.
Championship matches will be aired on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU this year, after being shown on TBS in their first two editions in 2016 and 2017.
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.
You can never tell with the NCAA so much favoritism and politics involved in their tournament selections.