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PROVO — BYU’s third-straight NCAA men’s volleyball tournament continues next week.
The Cougars opponent? TBD.
BYU will play the winner of Mountain Pacific Sports Federation rival UCLA (24-7) and EIVA champion Harvard (13-13) in a national semifinal May 3 at Pauley Pavilion in Los Angeles.
The championship match is scheduled for Saturday, May 5 in Los Angeles.
The Cougars (22-6) clinched an automatic bid to the tournament via its 3-1 win over then-No. 2 UCLA in Saturday night’s MPSF tournament championship match in Provo. The Cougars will play in their third-straight NCAA Tournament, a program record.
The Cougars held the second-best RPI in the country, strengthening its case for one of two byes handed out by the three-person selection committee. Long Beach State was rated first in the RPI, followed by BYU, UCLA, UC Irvine and Hawaii.
Top-ranked Long Beach State (26-1) will be the tournament’s No. 1 overall seed, clinching an automatic bid by virtue of its win over Hawaii in the Big West Tournament title match Saturday night.
MPSF Tournament Championship
The other autobids were MIVA champion Ohio State (23-5), Conference Carolinas champion King (23-5) and Harvard.
Ohio State has won the past two national championships, each time by sweeping BYU 3-0 in the championship match. But the two-time defending champion Buckeyes will host King in the tournament’s play-in match Thursday, April 26. The winner will join the other five teams in Los Angeles.
The winner will play UC Irvine (20-8), which earned one of two at-large bids by virtue of its RPI score. The winner of that first-round match will face top-seeded Long Beach in the semifinals.
NCAA men's volleyball tournament seeding
Seed | Team | Record |
---|---|---|
No. 1 | Long Beach State | 26-1 |
No. 2 | BYU | 22-6 |
No. 3 | UCLA | 24-7 |
No. 4 | UC Irvine | 21-9 |
No. 5 | Harvard | 13-13 |
No. 6 | Ohio State | 23-5 |
No. 7 | King | 23-5 |