VBelo Scouting Report: April 25, 2022
Bracket time
If you are reading this, then I have zero doubts that you already know who's in and who's out for the 2022 NCAA Men's Volleyball National Championship. In an unsurprising move, the committee selected Long Beach and UCLA to receive to the two at large spots.
In the lead up to the tournament matches, the VBelo Scouting Report will have more in depth analysis of the teams, matches, and how different outcomes can affect the odds, but let's start with the big picture. The way the tournament is structured highly favors the top 2 seeds. The are placed straight into the semifinals while the 5 other teams have to battle it out. In fact, since the tournament expanded to 7 teams in 2018, the only winners have been 1 and 2 seeds.1 This means Long Beach and Ball State have to be thrilled to be only two wins away from a trophy.
Obviously, the play-in match makes it significantly harder for those teams to win it all. Their path to ultimate victory involves 4 straight wins. Ohio State, in 2018, is the only play-in match participant to make it to the semifinals. Princeton and North Greenville must be excited to be in the tournament, but having to play extra matches never increases your chances of being crowned the champion.
Let's start with the full view of round-by-round projections for each school.
Tournament Projections
As per usual, the tournament is run through a VBelo simulation 50,000 times. The percentages below reflect how many times each team reached that round or won the championship in those simulations. Take a look.
These (potentially surprising) top line numbers are indicative of the parity men's volleyball has seen this year. No team has even a 30% chance of winning the tournament. Looking at the final column, really any of the top 4 seeds have a reasonable path to adding a banner to their rafters.
Stay tuned for more looks at this chart and “what-if” simulations. (You know, the fun stuff!)
Tweet of the Day
You have to go back to 2016 for the last time a seed lower than 2 won the tournament: Ohio State, 3 seed.