In college volleyball it’s not easy for an outsider to earn a spot at the biggest event of the year at the NCAA Tournament Final Four.
Many college sports have teams that usually seem to be there at the finish — UConn women’s basketball, Clemson football, Texas baseball. But in college volleyball it’s especially hard for a team to move up to the top tier.
And only 10 programs have won a national championship in the sport: Stanford (eight times), Penn State (seven), Nebraska (five), UCLA (four), Hawaii (three), Long Beach State (three), USC (three), Pacific (two), Texas (two) and Washington (one).
This year there were more programs that seemed to be able to pull an upset. Earlier this season, unranked Rice beat No. 3 Texas for the first time in program history, breaking a string of 36 consecutive losses to the Longhorns and getting its first-ever win against a top-10 team.
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Baylor, ranked No. 1, had never had the top ranking before this season. The Bears are in the Sweet 16 for just the second time.
Pittsburgh beat Penn State for its first win against the Nittany Lions since 1987.
Cincinnati has advanced to the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 round for the first time in program history. Louisville — coached by former Nebraska player and assistant coach Dani Busboom Kelly — is in the Sweet 16 for the first time in 14 years. The unranked Cardinals upset Western Kentucky in the second round.
Last weekend, unseeded Utah beat two of the Final Four teams from last season: Illinois in the first round, and BYU in the second.
“Some of these teams now are kind of emerging out of the shadows a little bit,†said Nebraska coach John Cook.
Still, just three of the top 16 seeds failed to advance: Pittsburgh (No. 6), BYU (14) and Western Kentucky (15). Nine of the Sweet 16 teams are repeats from last year.
Nebraska (27-4) avoided the major upset this season, but did lose against No. 20 Purdue on the road.
This weekend’s Sweet 16 and Elite Eight matches are another test to see how much parity there really is. It’s one thing to pull off an upset in the regular season, but it’s another to be good enough to win four consecutive matches in the NCAA Tournament to reach the Final Four.
It would be progress for a new team just to crash the Elite Eight. That would include Baylor, which has never made it to the Elite Eight. Baylor plays Purdue in the Sweet 16.
Then it would really be something if a new team — or even a team that hasn’t recently been there — made the Final Four.
In the past 19 years, just 22 programs have reached the Final Four. During Nebraska’s current streak of making it to the Final Four in four consecutive years, just eight other programs have joined the Huskers at the Final Four in that time.
Penn State won four consecutive championships from 2007-10.
The surprise teams — like unranked Michigan making the Final Four in 2012 — don’t happen very often.
Even Big Ten champion Wisconsin — Nebraska’s potential opponent in the Elite Eight — hasn’t made the Final Four since 2013. The Badgers have come up just short, losing in the Elite Eight twice in the past three years.
Now there’s one more weekend to see if this parity results in a new team at the Final Four. Or four of the usual suspects.
“I think there is more parity,†said Kevin Hambly, the coach of defending national champion Stanford in an interview on ESPN. “I think there is more balance across the regions of the country, which is really exciting. … Now so many schools are invested and have great coaches and great facilities and players are excited to go to places all across the country.â€