NCAA VB Tournament Breakdown — TUESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 NCAA Volleyball Tournament Breakdown: Louisville’s Path to the Championship, ACC Teams, Possible Upsets and Dark Horses

As Daryl mentioned yesterday, Louisville volleyball is back in the NCAA Tournament. This time, the 2-seeded Cardinals will only be at home for the first two rounds as opposed to last year when Louisville never left the 502 the entire postseason.

Louisville is one of seven ACC teams in this year’s tournament, two shy of last year’s ACC showing. This tournament features 1-seed Pitt, 2-seed Louisville, 2-seed Stanford, 2-seed SMU, 5-seed Miami, Georgia Tech, and North Carolina. 

Three teams from Kentucky are dancing: 1-seed Kentucky, 2-seed Louisville, and Western Kentucky. All three programs have been strong volleyball programs for well over a decade. The Cards and Hilltoppers could meet in the second round, but Kentucky is on the opposite side of the bracket.

Nebraska Regional

Photo courtesy of NCAA

This is a tough regional. Texas A&M can easily run with anybody and might have been deserving of a 2-seed over Louisville. Outside of a loss to TCU, the Aggies’ other three losses came to 1- and 2-seeds in the tournament. Miami could be a 5-seed that gets out of opening weekend. The Canes have one of the best outside hitters in the country and their only questionable loss was to Cal.

While I like Western Kentucky as an unseeded team, I don’t think they can beat Louisville, who swept them in late September. There aren’t any unseeded teams I think can make much noise on this.

Nebraska has looked like the best team in the country all season. I still think they are. I think they go this whole regional and won’t drop more than two sets at most.

Texas Regional

Photo courtesy of NCAA

This is another tough regional. While I am not sold on Indiana as the 4-seed, I think 2-seed Stanford and 3-seed Wisconsin are both very good. I don’t think Penn State is worthy of a seed, but they are matched up with a South Florida team who wasn’t able to beat a tournament team all season.

North Carolina could be an unseeded team to make a little noise early on. The Tar Heels, like the rest of the ACC, fell victim to the power of Pitt, Louisville, Stanford, and Miami, but they did take down SMU. Three of the Tar Heels’ losses were in a four-game stretch.

Outside of dropping two to Kentucky, the Longhorns’ only other loss came to Texas A&M. They have had some calls in other matches including against Louisville, Stanford, and Tennessee. I think the Longhorns sneak out of this regional but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Wisconsin or Stanford work some magic.

Pittsburgh Regional

Photo courtesy of Pitt Athletics

Pittsburgh seems to have the easiest region. Outside of SMU, I don’t see much threat from anyone else. Both Purdue and Minnesota have storied programs but have had consistency issues the last couple years.

Florida as an unseeded team could be a sneaky dark horse, provided they can get past SMU. The Gators’ record doesn’t look good but they have a handful of ranked wins including taking down Pitt. They also took Kentucky to five sets, one of just a couple SEC teams to do so.

With home court advantage and having Olivia Babcock, I think Pitt gets out of this regional.

Kentucky Regional

Photo courtesy of NCAA

Kentucky doesn’t have a cakewalk but I also don’t think they have an overly difficult region either. Arizona State hasn’t impressed me to be a 2-seed, especially with them getting destroyed by Pitt and Texas. The Big 12 is down some in volleyball with a few solid teams such as BYU and Colorado, but the Sun Devils didn’t face much challenge in conference play. Creighton is dangerous as a 3-seed. They have not lost since mid-September and all of their losses are to seeded teams. They took Nebraska to the wire and got big wins against Kansas and San Diego, but they play in a weak Big East conference. USC and Tennessee are seeded teams that could make some noise.

I don’t think any unseeded teams will have much luck in this region other than maybe Georgia Tech upsetting 8-seed UCLA, but there could be some battles and upsets when seeded teams face each other. I think either Tennessee or Creighton has a good shot at taking down Arizona State.

Kentucky has had an excellent season highlighted by wins over Texas, Texas A&M, Louisville, and SMU. Outside of Nebraska, they have looked nearly unstoppable and last lost in early September. The only team I could see maybe challenging them is Creighton but this is a region that Kentucky should come out on top.

Having all 1-seeds advancing this year isn’t too surprising. While there continues to be more parity year after year, there has been a noticeable difference between the top four or five teams vs the rest of the ranked teams vs everyone else. I think we see Nebraska take down Kentucky to complete the undefeated season.

Photo by Jared

I think Louisville cruises through the first two rounds, sneaks by Texas A&M barely, and then falls to the Huskers in the Elite Eight.

We plan to have in-person coverage of the opening two rounds at L&N Arena this weekend.

Happy Tuesday and Go Cards!

Jared