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Volleyball-2017 NCAA selection show Sunday, Nov. 26th, 7:00 PM MT (and other tournament notes)

AztecBuff

AztecBuff

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So, the volleyball team, a VERY safe bet to be selected to this year's NCAA tournament (with, among other things, a 24 RPI), gets to hear this evening where they'll be travelling for the 1st 2 rounds of the NCAA tournament and WHO they'll be facing.

The NCAA Volleyball Division I 2017 Tournament selection show is scheduled to start at 7:00 PM, MT later today, and is to be televised on ESPNU. For those whose TV subscriptions includes ESPNU, I assume (???) the telecast will also be streamable through a link at http://www.espn.com/watch/schedule/ and/ or http://www.espn.com/watch/schedule/?type=upcoming . (Note- The Selection Show appears to be classified under "College Studio" rather than Volleyball on their streaming listings.)

Assume Buff volleyball Twitter (https://NOPE/CUBuffsVB) and/ or Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/cubuffsvb/) may have reaction shots/ videos and interviews after/ while they are selected. And, I assume there MAY also be something popping up on the Buff TV Youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/buffvision/videos) at some point.

A few rambling and random notes of things I can think of related to the selection process, selection show, possible Buff opponents and the tournament itself (hope at least some of this is accurate) -
  • One thing to remember for volleyball brackets is that, unlike (men's?) basketball, only the top 16 teams of the 64 team tournament get seeded, and those 16 seeds each get the option to host the 1st and 2nd round matches. After that, distance from the seeded teams becomes a main determinant on where the non-seeded teams travel. (I believe there's a 400 mile rule where, if a non-seeded team is within a 400 mile drive of a seeded team or teams, they will go to one of those closer sub-regional(s) if possible, assuming it's not going against any other rules and guidelines the committee uses.)
  • One major qualification to this travel rule is that, I believe, team's will NOT be sent to sub-regionals which contain another team from their conference. (With the bracketology noted below having 5 Pac teams seeded, that same bracketology then shows the other 4 (non-seeded) Pac teams projected into the tournament having to travel to midwestern/ south-central region teams, even though significantly over 400 miles.)
  • In addition, I believe the committee does look somewhat at the quality of the non-seeded teams, trying to make sure that, at minimum, the seeded teams will get perceived easier matches (AKA "cupcakes") in the 1st round, usually weaker auto-qualifying conference winners from the weaker conferences. (Because they're located in an area (Northeast) with a lot of smaller, weaker conferences, many in the Volleytalk community make fun of Penn State's opening weekend opponents, with even their 2nd round opponents often being the easiest by far. Having been the "dynasty" team lately (although they haven't won now since 2014, so are in a "cold" streak), they don't need the help.)
  • For anyone interested, there's a GREAT poster (one of many) on the Volleytalk forum by the name trojansc (from now on I'll abbreviate to tsc) who has been doing the women's volleyball bracketology there for awhile (both in years (five) and during this season). Much of what I'll mention below will just be based on tsc's great work, with this year's bracketology thread started and maintained by him / her being at http://volleytalk.proboards.com/thread/70953/finalized-2017-bracketology-11-26?page=1 , with the FINAL bracketology predictions now edited into the original post of that thread.
  • Of course, the Buffs are solidly in the tournament. In both of the last 2 bracketology estimates, tsc has the Buffs going to the state of Nebraska for the opening 2 matches, and playing old Big 12 foe Missouri in the 1st round in both projections. In his final bracketology (finished late last night), he's projecting/ guesstimating the Buffs will be going to Lincoln, with the Buff-Mizzou winner likely facing off against the Cornhuskers, who he has as the #4 overall seed. In his last prior bracket before that (I believe it was dated 11/24), he had the Buffs facing Mizzou in Omaha, with the winner likely facing off against (then his estimated #13 seed, now #11) host Creighton.
  • Should add that, although trojansc has an impressive record in picking the at-large teams (he/ she has only gotten 2 wrong in his final bracketology posts in the prior 5 years) and pick of which teams ended up seeded (tsc has missed 6 of those in 5 years, with only 2 of those being in the last 3 years), I'd assume guessing/ estimating WHERE non-seeded teams end up the 1st weekend must be hard to do. So, the above point's projected Buff opponent(s)/ travel destination(s) shouldn't be taken too seriously (or "as gospel"), but it will be interesting to see IF one of the projections end up being accurate.
  • Note that, if it's like last year, the NCAA may pre-announce the top 4 overall seeds a little before the telecast (~6:30 PM MT) via Twitter (https://NOPE/ncaavolleyball?lang=en). (Trojansc's projected top 4 seeds are (in order from 1-4), Penn State, Stanford, Florida and Nebraska (with Kentucky and Minnesota next in line as the 5th and 6th seeds).)
  • I believe last season, volleyball changed its tournament structure to give its top seeds a BIG advantage. Namely, IF they keep winning, the top 4 seeds (or I'm guessing highest surviving seed in a region if any of the top 4 lose in the opening weekend) get HOME matches all the way until the Final 4. (Prior to last season, the sweet 16 and Elite 8 matches were, like the Final 4, at pre-determined spots.)
  • Based on the dates in the general schedule above, and if it's like prior years, the 1st round matches are either this coming Thursday or Friday. The 2nd round matches for the Thursday 1st round winners will be on Friday, and the Friday 1st round match winners play their 2nd rounds on Saturday.
  • Also as noted in the links above, the Final 4 is in Kansas City, MO this year, with the Final 4 matches on December 14th, followed by the championship match on December 16th.
Go Buffs!
 
Volleyball community generally in an uproar over Kentucky being one of the top 4 seeds. They did end up with a very good RPI (being in a region and conference that makes a good RPI easier to obtain), but are generally thought to be inferior to, especially, Nebraska and Texas. In general, some of the bubble teams from major conferences with lower RPI's may also be getting nervous (Maryland is mentioned in Volleytalk), as this MIGHT be a hint the committee is going to strongly go with RPI over other more qualitative measurements in determining its at-large teams.

Show scheduled to start soon, if the current basketball game finishes on time.

 
What do you know- the bball game DID finish on time. Show up in a couple minutes.
 
Order of the Top 4 seeds now revealed-
Penn State
Florida
Stanford
Kentucky

(Volleytalk joking the only thing the committee wanted to do was avoiding having Stanford and PSU play before the finals.)

Remaining seeds in order
(edited by pasting actual tweet with seeds)-
 
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Buffs NOT going to either Nebraska or Creighton.

Not bad- Buffs going to Baylor! Playing James Madison in round 1.

 
DPmrvIHVQAAgx-B.jpg:large
 
Two SEC teams do not deserve #1 seeds. B1G and Pac 12 are the two best conferences in the country.

If CU gets out of Waco they head for Lincoln. I will try to go to Lincoln. Waco is a 16 hour drive. Too far for me.
 
James Madison's record/ schedule - https://www.jmusports.com/schedule.aspx?path=wvball (Looks like they had a nice run to win the Colonial America tournament (held at their gym) to get the conference's auto- bid after finishing 3rd at 11-5 during the conference regular season.)

In the last published official RPI, they were 51st, so a solid 1st round challenge. (https://www.jmusports.com/schedule.aspx?path=wvball).

And, assuming its accurate, a website that does live RPI updates have the Buffs currently at #24, and James Madison up to #48 - http://ncaastats.figstats.net/volleyball-rpi.cgi . (Baylor is at #12 RPI.)
 
My Toreros kind of got shafted, ranked 9 in the latest polls and not even seeded. But they did avoid getting sacrificed to the Fuskers or Penn St this year, which has happened in the past.
 
Based on a Big 12 tweet and the full bracket link below, looks like the Buffs may be playing James Madison on Friday at 3:30 PM MT. (As I noted earlier, all 1st and 2nd rounds at each sub-regional are either Thursday-Friday or Friday-Saturday).

Full bracket (all times listed are Eastern)-
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DPms6iIW0AA4UXS.jpg:large

(Looks like CSU may have one of if not the toughest draws of any unseeded team not playing a seed in the 1st round, although they did beat the (lately hot) Wolverines in the pre-season at Ft. Collins.)
 
Article on the Buffs making the tournament. (Note- As i write this, the below says the Buff match starts at 4:30 MT, which would be 5:30 CT. Don't know if that's likely unless the above Big 12 tweet (and the NCAA bracket) about Baylor starting its match at 7:00 CT has changed.)


Direct link - http://www.cubuffs.com/news/2017/11/26/volleyball-earns-trip-to-ncaa-tournament.aspx

"
BOULDER — For the 19th time in Colorado volleyball history, the Buffaloes have advanced to the NCAA Tournament, as announced on Sunday night by the NCAA.

The Buffs will travel to Waco, Texas to face James Madison (23-5) in the first round on Friday, Dec. 1 at 4:30 p.m. MT. Baylor, which earned a No. 12 seed with a 23-6 record, will host Miami (Ohio) in the other first round match-up. The Redhawks earned a 23-8 record during the regular season.

The winners of Friday night's matches will meet on Saturday for the right to advance to the NCAA Regional competition in Lincoln, Neb. Dec. 8-9. The Nebraska Cornhuskers earned a No. 5 seed in the tournament, which earned them the right to host the first two weekends of the tournament.

"We are looking forward to playing another match after Thanksgiving, so we are excited about that," head coach Jesse Mahoney said. "We've known for a while that we were going to be in the tournament, but we weren't sure where we were going to go. It's a new season and we are happy to still be playing. We are doing a lot of really good things; we finished the second half of the Pac-12 conference with a 7-3 record and had some big wins. Offensively I think we are peaking and defensively we are getting better."
...
"
 
The article I linked to in my last post above now has changed the Buff's 1st round match starting time to 3:30 PM MT Friday.

Hope there's a good (and ideally free) video stream available!
 
buffgal said:
Two SEC teams do not deserve #1 seeds. B1G and Pac 12 are the two best conferences in the country.

If CU gets out of Waco they head for Lincoln. I will try to go to Lincoln. Waco is a 16 hour drive. Too far for me.
Click to expand...
On that note, Kentucky had to come back down 2 sets to none to win in the 5th 15-12 against Western Kentucky.
 
torerobuff said:
My Toreros kind of got shafted, ranked 9 in the latest polls and not even seeded. But they did avoid getting sacrificed to the Fuskers or Penn St this year, which has happened in the past.
Click to expand...
Just lost to USC in 5 sets
 
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