Two NCAA National Championship tournaments for women’s volleyball will start this week – besides the much-anticipated women’s Division I tournament, the Division II tournament will also begin at campus sites around the country.
The Division II Championship is decided among 64 teams, split into eight regional brackets of eight teams each. Teams are bound to the region in which they’re grouped by the NCAA all season long, and as such the #1 seeds are not necessarily the 8 best teams in the country.
Teams are seeded from #1 to #8 in each of the eight brackets in a single-elimination tournament, and after 63 games will crown a national champion.
#1 Seeds (with rank in parenthesis being thier rank in the last AVCA poll)
- #4(t) Wheeling Jesuit (Atlantic)
- #1 Concordia-St. Paul (Central)
- #10 Palm Beach Atlantic (South)
- NR South Carolina – Aiken (Southeast)
- NR NYIT (East)
- #12 Angelo State (South Central)
- #9 Alaska – Anchorage (West)
- #15 Ferris State (Midwest)
The Division II seeding system leaves a few unusual spots – for example, two un-ranked teams get top seeds and hosting duties in the first round, while the #2 ranked team in the country, Nebraska-Keraney, has to travel. The top 4 teams in the last AVCA Coaches’ Poll all play in the Central region. That includes top-seeded, and top-ranked, Concordia – St. Paul, who won 7 straight NCAA titles from 2007-2013, but haven’t won since. Tampa won the 2014 title and Wheeling Jesuit won in 2015.
Play in the Division II bracket begins on December 1st, and that same weekend will decide the 8 teams that will play in the quarterfinals beginning on December 8th. Semi-final games will be played on December 9th, and the NCAA Division II National Championship game will be held on December 10th in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Click here to view the full bracket.
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