Volleyball Draws Marquette in NCAA First Round
December 01, 2013 | Women's Volleyball
Dec. 1, 2013
The NCAA Division I Women's Volleyball Committee announced today the 64-team field for the 2013 NCAA Division I Women's Volleyball Championship and the University of Louisville will face Marquette in the first round of the tournament Friday at 5:30 ET in Champaign, Ill. The winner will advance to play the winner of the No. 13 seed Illinois versus Morehead State match.
"This puts us in a familiar spot," said U of L head coach Anne Kordes. "We played Marquette three times last year and we have a lot of respect for the team and their coaching staff. It is a tough first round matchup but it helps that we have played in Champaign so it is a familiar area. The whole point of playing a tough schedule and winning the conference is to get a good matchup in the tournament. We are fired up and ready to go."
Thirty-two conferences were awarded automatic qualification, and the remaining 32 slots were filled with at-large selections to complete the bracket. Louisville earned the automatic qualifier after sweeping The American Athletic Conference.
The match with Marquette will be a rematch of the 2012 BIG EAST Conference Tournament Championship with the Cards prevailing 25-19, 25-23, 26-24. U of L also beat the Golden Eagles 3-0 at home and 3-1 in Milwaukee during the regular season. This year, Marquette is currently ranked No. 24. U of L has a 24-8 series edge on the Golden Eagles.
The top 16 teams were seeded nationally and placed within four regions. The teams tabbed as the top four seeds were No. 1 University of Texas at Austin; No. 2 Pennsylvania State University; No. 3 University of Washington; and No. 4 University of Missouri, Columbia.
Per the established bracketing principles the top 16 seeds were provided the opportunity to host. In addition, first- and second-round conference matchups were avoided and team pairings were determined by geographical proximity.
The Pacific-12 Conference led all conferences with nine teams. The Big Ten Conference and Southeastern Conference were next with eight teams in the tournament. Two teams, Penn State and Stanford have earned bids to all 32 championships. Four teams are making their initial appearances in the tournament: Alabama State University, Duquesne University, Hampton University and Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis.
In the 32-year history of the championship, 10 schools have been crowned champion, seven of which are in this year's bracket, including defending champion, Texas. Past winners making the field are Stanford (1992, 94, 96, 97, 2001, 04), University of Hawaii, Manoa (1982, 83, 87), University of Nebraska, Lincoln (1995, 2000, and 06), University of Southern California (1981, 2002, 03), Penn State (1999, 2007, 08, 09 and 10), Texas (1988, 2012) and Washington (2005).
First- and second-round matches will be played at 16 campus sites. Teams winning both matches will move on to regional play December 13 and 14. The pre-determined regional sites are Lexington, Kentucky; Los Angeles, California; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Champaign, Illinois. All regional semifinal games will be shown on ESPN3. Regional final games will air on ESPNU. The regional winners will advance to the semifinals and final hosted by Washington and at KeyArena in Seattle, Washington, on December 19 and 21. Both national semifinal games as well as the championship game will be broadcast by ESPN2.
