By R.J. Anderson
For many years, NCAA-sponsored championships for men's volleyball have consisted of one tournament for all divisions with just four teams invited to participate. But thanks to an upswing of collegiate teams starting, new conferences forming, and the introduction of an NCAA Division III tournament, there is talk of even more expansion of the traditional championships.
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The most recent news came out of the 2011 NCAA Convention, where Division III delegates approved a proposal to create an NCAA Division III Men's Volleyball Championship, which will be held for the first time April 19-21, 2012. Currently, 57 Division III institutions sponsor the sport and based on those numbers, the inaugural format for the tournament will be an eight-team bracket with all games at a single site. A four-member Division III Men's Volleyball Committee will determine selection criteria and the Division III Championships Committee will establish automatic qualifier criteria for conferences.
The NCAA hopes to finalize a championship handbook and an operations and tournament manual this June. And last October, confident the proposal would pass, the Division III Management Council assigned men's volleyball a 19-week season with 23 dates of competition, which will become effective in 2012.
In anticipation of the pending NCAA championship, 12 Division III institutions from the Northeast have come together to form a new men's volleyball league, the United Volleyball Conference (UVC). Ten of the 12 teams began league play this season and the remaining two will be on board for the 2011-12 campaign.
"I know I speak for all UVC members when I say how proud we are to be a part of this new group that will play an integral role in the transition of Division III men's volleyball to an NCAA championship structure," Russell Rogers, Director of Athletics at Stevens Institute of Technology and Vice President of the new league, said in a statement. "The conference is going to provide an outstanding experience for its student-athletes and add excitement to student life on each of our campuses."
Meanwhile, in NCAA Division II, Conference Carolinas will include men's volleyball as a full conference sport beginning this season after adding Barton College as a sixth team. Conference Carolinas becomes the first league composed solely of Division II institutions to sponsor men's volleyball and the fourth men's volleyball league operating in NCAA Division I and II.
According to NCAA Championship guidelines, a conference is eligible for an automatic qualifier after playing two seasons with six teams. That means Conference Carolinas could apply for automatic qualifier status in April 2013, and if accepted would be able to automatically put a team in the 2014 NCAA Tournament.
Currently, the NCAA Men's Volleyball Championship consists of a Final Four made up of automatic qualifiers from each of the three major conferences--the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association, the Midwest Intercollegiate Volleyball Association, and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation--and one additional at-large bid. Coaches are hoping that with Conference Carolinas emergence, the NCAA will alter the current four-team format to one that includes six or even eight teams in the near future.
"This is great news for Conference Carolinas and for men's volleyball in general," Pfeiffer University Head Men's Coach Ben Guiliano said in a statement. "The addition of a sixth team adds legitimacy to our conference and allows us to apply for an NCAA automatic bid. At some point, a conference team may be playing Penn State or Stanford in the first round of the NCAA tournament. That is very, very exciting."
R.J. Anderson is the Online Editor at Athletic Management.