Six teams will travel to State College, Pennsylvania, this weekend to compete in the NCAA men’s volleyball championship. The event coincides with Penn State’s graduation, which will make travel and lodging arrangements difficult, and ​the Nittany Lions' men’s volleyball team won’t be participating; ending a streak that extends back to 1998. But those factors don’t change the stakes for the teams competing. Regardless of attendance, a national championship trophy will still be on the line.


Tuesday night, the bottom four seeds will face off in the tournament’s two play-in matches. No. 5 seed and Conference Carolinas champ Erskine will face No. 4 seed and at-large bid recipient Long Beach State. Led by freshman T.J. DeFalco, Long Beach held the No. 1 spot in the AVCA poll between February 8 and March 13, and despite a loss to UCLA in the MPSF tournament semifinals, the 49ers will be a major threat and a contender for the national title. DeFalco ranks seventh in kills per set nationally with 4.26 (second only to BYU’s Ben Patch in the MPSF) and is a top contender for Freshman of the Year.

Across the net, Erskine hopes to earn the first NCAA tournament victory for a Conference Carolinas team. The effort will rely heavily on the performance of senior outside hitter Mike Michelau and junior outside Roberto Perez Vargas, the leaders of the Flying Fleet offense with 459 and 354 kills, respectively.

The evening’s second play-in features MIVA champion Ohio State and EIVA champ George Mason. Ohio State took out the reigning national runner-up Lewis in a five-set thriller of a conference final to earn its first trip to the national postseason since 2011, the year the Buckeyes won the title. The 2016 squad is led by outside hitters Nicolas Szerszen, the MIVA Player of the Year and MIVA tournament MVP, and Miles Johnson, with Christy Blough running the offense.

George Mason won the EIVA final over Saint Francis after the Red Flash toppled perpetual East Coast powerhouse Penn State. Jay Hosack, George Mason’s first year head coach, earned EIVA Coach of the Year and lead the Patriots on a nine-match win streak to end the regular season. When Ohio State and George Mason played on January 15, Ohio State won in straight sets; however, since then, each team has evolved significantly. Expect both teams to come out with guns blazing on Tuesday.

MPSF finalists Brigham Young and UCLA earned byes into Thursday’s national semifinals. BYU, which claimed the conference title with a 3-1 victory over the Bruins, received the tournament’s top seed and will take on the winner of Long Beach State versus Erskine. Barring a huge upset in that play-in match, this will likely be an all-MPSF battle between the Cougars and the 49ers. In the regular season, the teams split matches, with BYU winning the first 3-1, and Long Beach taking the second 3-0. The Cougars enter the tournament with better recent results and the momentum of the conference championship, but history shows us that Long Beach has the firepower to hang with BYU.

At the beginning of every season since head coach John Speraw took the helm in 2012, people have waited for UCLA to reclaim national dominance, but each season has gone by without an NCAA tournament bid. With this year’s at-large berth, the Bruins return to the national postseason for the first time since 2006 when they won the national title match over Penn State.The 2016 Bruin squad is young and talented, with sophomores Jake Arnitz and JT Hatch leading the team in kills and freshman setter/opposite Micah Ma’a serving as both a skilled quarterback and offensive threat. 

UCLA, the No. 2 tournament seed, will take on the winner of George Mason versus Ohio State in the semifinals. The Bruins faced both these teams in January during preseason competition, defeating George Mason 3-0 and Ohio State 3-1. In fact, since February 21, the Bruins have only lost to BYU. Ohio State will likely be the Bruins’ semifinal opponents, and Ohio State, a team which has gotten significantly stronger since the start of the season, will look to make a statement against the West Coast squad. But it may not matter who wins the semifinal—assuming BYU gets past Long Beach State, both Ohio State and UCLA face an uphill battle against a very physical BYU squad. 

What are your NCAA Men's Volleyball Championship predictions?