Creighton And Marquette Volleyball Will Be Dancing In December
NEW YORK – Selection Sunday resulted with the BIG EAST having two volleyball teams heading into the month of December still playing. Along with BIG EAST Regular Season and Tournament Champion Creighton, tournament semifinalist Marquette heard their names announced during the ESPNU NCAA Selection Show broadcast on Sunday night.
Creighton (26-6, 18-0 BIG EAST) earned an automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament with Saturday's 3-0 win over Xavier, the team's school-record 20th win in a row. The Bluejays will meet Northern Iowa, a 24-9 squad that earned an at-large bid out of the Missouri Valley Conference. Creighton swept UNI in Los Angeles on September 2.
Creighton and Northern Iowa will play on Thursday, Dec. 1 at 5 p.m. ET, in Lawrence, Kan.. The winner of the Creighton/UNI match-up will meet the winner of the Kansas vs. Samford matchup on Friday.
Creighton will be making its sixth NCAA Tournament appearance in school history, all in the last seven years. With its fifth straight bid, the Bluejays become the school's first women's squad in any sport to reach five consecutive NCAA Tournaments.
Marquette (23-8) will travel to Madison, Wis, where No. 3 national seed Wisconsin is the host, to face Washington State (21-11) in the first round on Thursday, Dec. 1, at 5 p.m. Central time. The winner will take on the winner of the Badgers (25-4) and Howard (26-5) at 7 p.m. on Friday.
It is Marquette’s sixth consecutive NCAA berth.
The top 16 teams were seeded nationally and placed within four regions. Nebraska, the defending national champion, earned the top seed followed by No. 2 Minnesota, No. 3 Wisconsin and No. 4 Texas.
Per the established bracketing principles the top 16 seeds were provided the opportunity to host. Additionally, team pairings were determined by geographic proximity, with the exception that teams from the same conference were not paired during the first- and second-rounds.
The Big Ten and Pac-12 led all leagues with eight teams selected from their conferences to compete in the championship tournament. The Big 12 Conference was third with six programs advancing to the tournament. Penn State and Stanford are the only two teams that have earned berths to all 36 championship tournaments. Three programs are making their first appearances in the tournament: North Dakota, Boise State and Texas Rio Grande Valley.
During the previous 35 years of the championship 10 schools have won a national title, eight of which earned a place in this year’s bracket.
Previous winners competing in the field are: UCLA (1984, 1990, 91, 2011), University of Hawaii, Manoa (1982, 83, 87), Nebraska (1995, 2000, 06, 15), USC (1981, 2002, 03), Stanford (1992, 94, 96, 97, 2001, 04), Penn State (1999, 2007, 08, 09, 10, 13, 14), Texas (1988, 2012) and Washington (2005).
First- and second-round matches will be played December 1-3 at 16 campus sites. Teams winning both matches will move on to regional play December 9 and 10. Regionals for the NCAA Division I Women's Volleyball Championship will be held at four non-predetermined campus sites, which will be announced after play concludes, on December 3. At each site, four teams will compete in single-elimination regional semifinal competition. All regional semifinal matches will be shown on ESPN3. Regional final matches will air on ESPNU.
The regional winners will advance to the national semifinals and championship final co-hosted by the Ohio State University and the Greater Columbus Sports Commission at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio on December 15 and 17. Both national semifinal matches as well as the championship match will be broadcast by ESPN2. All regional and championship site match times can be found on the attached championship bracket or online at
www.ncaa.com/wvb.
For more information about the championship, log on to
www.ncaa.com/volleyball.