The SIAC Is Going Dancing in 2024
The NCAA approved the SIAC getting an automatic qualification to the 2024 Men's Volleyball National Tournament while expanding the field to (at least) 8 teams. Also, KPI is coming!
On August 9th, the NCAA Division I Competition Oversight Committee (COC) officially expanded the 2024 Men’s Volleyball National Tournament to (at least) 8 teams1 by granting the SIAC an automatic qualification.
This now means that 6 conferences will be guarantied a birth to the next national tournament hosted in Long Beach, CA. The conferences are:
Big West
Conference Carolinas
EIVA
MIVA
MPSF
SIAC
The good news is that the committee added a team to the tournament instead of simply replacing one of the at-large bids. The better news is that the tournament has a reasonable (and even) number of teams at 8. The best news is that there is still a chance the tournament gets expanded to 12 teams.
The committee is waiting for an official budget impact study of expanding the tournament before they make a decision. I will definitely keep an eye out for any news about an even larger tournament. Fingers crossed that we will get 4 more at-large bids! Is this what hope feels like?
One More Year
The NEC also applied for an automatic qualification but their request was denied. In spite of the growth and competitive play we saw in the inaugural season of the NEC, the committee still wants them to play the required 2 seasons before awarding an automatic qualification.
While this is disappointing (the NEC was so much fun to watch last season), I can’t imagine the Competition Oversight Committee would have a good reason to keep an automatic qualification from the NEC after 2024. More on that below.
Keep up the great work, NEC! You will be in the tournament in no time at all.
A Quick Look at the SIAC
The newest conference to the be added to the dance will have an uphill battle, but don’t count them out. The top range of the SIAC is not that far off of the Conference Carolinas and the NEC.
The NEC is in an interesting position and had a very good argument for being getting an automatic qualification. Their top VBelo team has a higher rating than the highest team in the SIAC. The NEC’s lowest rated team is higher than the lowest rated team in 4 other conferences! Like I said earlier, it is just a matter of time before they make their splash in the national tournament.
Back over to the SIAC, it will be interesting to see when they will get their first tournament victory. Since the opening round matches are now obsolete, the SIAC will likely face a very strong team out of the Big West or MPSF. The format of the new tournament has not been set yet but the SIAC will very likely be the underdogs in May.
Welcome KPI
Buried at the bottom of the minutes from the COC was a shift in what the Men’s Volleyball selection committee uses for selecting the at-large bids and seeding the national tournament.
KPI will be added to the selection criteria, which is a huge win for RPI-haters. Even though it is only 1 letter difference, the impact of this could be huge. I will have a deep dive into this later, but this is a great step forward in using better analytics. Well, done NCAA Division I Competition Oversight Committee!
The most recent iteration of the tournament had 7 teams.
As usual, you bring some knowledge to a very difficult situation but exciting time in Men's Volleyball