The joy and cheer in the Pittman Room at the Casanova Center was obvious Sunday night when the No. 11-seeded Oregon volleyball team saw where it would be playing. Players smiled broadly and the few fans who showed up slapped high fives. The optimism and confidence of the players told the story: They are excited and ready.
With Oregon’s third-straight selection to the NCAA volleyball tournament, the Ducks are starting to become regulars on the national scene. Once billed as the “worst program in the Pacific-10 Conference” by newspapers and television analysts alike, it has now gone more than one year and two months in the top 25. Head coach Jim Moore commented on the change in perception, saying it has been an amazing ride.
“This is great. Two years ago, it was ‘Are we in, are we not in?’ and we didn’t even get to watch the selection show, which was OK for us because I’m sure it would have been gut-wrenching,” he said.
Now that Oregon is beyond the Pac-10 season, and looking toward the upcoming weeks of playoffs, here’s a few of the top stories from this year’s tournament.
Penn State is the ultimate No. 1 seed
The Nittany Lions didn’t just win every match they played this year – they won every set, as well. Penn State is 32-0 overall, and 20-0 in the Big Ten Conference, and the team also extended its NCAA record winning streak to 58 games. It’s the first time in the history of the NCAA – at any level – that a volleyball team has finished the regular season undefeated without dropping a single set.
The defending national champions open up at home in University Park, Pa., against Long Island (19-11).
The Pac-10: ‘Conference of the NCAA Tournament’
The Pac-10 continued its success by sending another six teams to this year’s tournament. Those teams (seeded No. 2 Stanford, No. 5 Washington, No. 8 Cal, Oregon, No.14 UCLA and USC) have a combined record of 133-41 (.764 winning percentage). Year in and year out the conference shows why it’s the center of the volleyball world. The conference is so tough that teams usually don’t come out of the regular season undefeated, but that meat-grinder schedule is what produces battle-hardened teams come tournament time.
Site distribution
Eleven of the 16 top seeds are hosting in the first two rounds. However, No. 7 Hawaii, Oregon, No. 12 Utah, No. 13 St. Louis and No. 16 Tulane are not, and will travel.
Oregon’s case is especially newsworthy, as five of the six Pac-10 teams who made the field of 64 get to play in their home gyms. Stanford stays in Palo Alto, Washington in Seattle, Cal in Berkeley, and UCLA hosts in Pauley Pavilion. Unseeded USC also got the luck of the draw by getting to host in Los Angeles.
“I don’t think that we’re disappointed about where we are going,” Moore said. “I think we are disappointed that we didn’t get to host. Hosting changes a program. I thought there was a 90-percent chance that we were going to host.”
Moore’s initial disappointment disappeared quickly after the coach in him realized his team’s road to the Final Four will not be as difficult as last year’s.
“I’m real excited in terms of our draw,” Moore said. “We don’t have to play anyone in the Pac-10, and that makes things OK.”
The players are also taking it well. Junior Sonja Newcombe said hosting hadn’t even crossed her mind, she was just curious to see where they would be sent.
“I’m really excited. Obviously we would have liked to host, but I think we have a good set up for the tournament,” Newcombe said. “Personally, I didn’t even expect to host, just because of our loss to Arizona. But the team is fine, we’re ready to go.”
BEN SCHORZMAN
[email protected]