As we hit February and get into the beginning of conference matches and league play, it’s time to unveil our second bracketology of the 2018 Men’s NCAA Division I-II Volleyball season. Starting with last week, VolleyMob will be releasing an updated bracketology of the seven-team tournament once a week until the official brackets come out.
Before we get started with the second early bracketology, here’s a reminder of how this year’s tournament works. With the addition of the Big West, the tournament will feature seven teams with five automatic bids and two at-large picks. A full article detailing it all can be seen here.
Since conference season is about a week away for the Big West while others have played a handful of matches, the current results may be odd, but the at-larges are picked on what is currently happening as opposed to projection. A link to the updated conference tables can be seen here.
THE AUTOMATIC BIDS:
Big West: #1 Long Beach State (12-0, 0-0)
- Big West action starts up soon as for now we just go on overall record and standing in the VolleyMob Top 20 Rankings. Sitting on top of both of those is Long Beach State, who have dominated their competition and lost just one set all season long.
Conference Carolinas: (RV) King (7-2, 4-0)
- None of the top three in the Conference Carolinas standings played last week, so King, who is receiving votes and has the best overall record of the 4-0 group with Barton and Mount Olive remains the automatic bid.
EIVA: (RV) Charleston (6-1, 2-0)
- Last week Harvard sat in this slot with a 1-0 start, but that seems extremely unlikely for what will happen. Of course, these are based on if the tournament started today, so now Charleston takes this spot as the lone 2-0 team in the EIVA after they downed Princeton twice.
MIVA: #5 Loyola Chicago (9-2, 2-0)
- The MIVA was in a similar situation with the EIVA last week where McKendree led the league after others hadn’t played yet. Now we’ve got a three-team race of 2-0 squads with Loyola Chicago, Ohio State and Lewis, but as for now the highest ranked takes this automatic bid.
MPSF: #2 UCLA (12-1, 2-0)
- Not only are the Bruins the highest ranked team in the MPSF with the best overall record, but they have the lone 2-0 start in league action thus far. Of course, they’d make it anyway as an at-large but they slide in as an automatic bid this go around.
LIVING AT-LARGE:
#3 Hawaii (8-1, 0-0 Big West)
- Hawaii is the highest ranked team not to be an at-large pick, so they’re an easy choice for this first slot once again after they didn’t have any matches last week.
#4 UC Irvine (10-2, 0-0 Big West)
- Coming in behind Hawaii is another Big West team, giving the league three in the opening bracketology. The Anteaters overall resume keeps them in the big dance for the second straight week as they also did not play last week.
SEEDING THE BRACKET:
- (1) LBSU
- (2) UCLA
- (3) Hawaii
- (4) UC Irvine
- (5) Loyola Chicago
- (6) Charleston
- (7) King
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