Long Beach State received the No. 1 seed for the NCAA men’s volleyball tournament on Sunday, while two-time defending national champion UCLA was seeded third and Pepperdine was seeded fifth.
Long Beach (27-3) and UCLA (20-6) stumbled in their respective conference tournaments last week, but both teams were obvious choices for the two at-large berths in the nine-team NCAA field. Long Beach, the Big West Conference regular-season champion, has been ranked No. 1 in the nation for most of the season. UCLA was the MPSF regular-season champion and has been a top-three team all season.
Long Beach, UCLA and Pepperdine will all open the nine-team tournament in quarterfinal matches on Thursday, May 8, at Ohio State’s Covelli Center. The semifinals will be played on Saturday, May 10 and the championship match is Monday, May 12 (4 p.m. PT, ESPN2).
UCLA (20-6) will face sixth-seeded Belmont Abbey (17-8), the Conference Carolinas champion, in the first quarterfinal at 8 a.m. PT. Second-seeded Hawaii (26-5), which defeated Long Beach in four sets in the Big West Tournament final on Saturday night in Honolulu, will face the winner of a May 2 play-in match between EIVA Tournament champion Penn State (14-15) and NEC Tournament champion Daeman (15-12) in a 10:30 a.m. PT quarterfinal.
Long Beach (27-3) faces eighth-seeded Fort Valley State (16-9), the SIAC champion, in the 2 p.m. PT quarterfinal. Fifth-seeded Pepperdine (20-9), which upset UCLA and USC to win the MPSF Tournament, will face fourth-seeded Loyola-Chicago (25-3), the MIVA champion, in the final quarterfinal at approximately 4:30 p.m. PT.
Should Long Beach advance, it will meet the winner of the Pepperdine-Loyola match in a 2 p.m. PT semifinal on May 10. UCLA would likely face Hawaii in a 5 p.m. PT semifinal.
Long Beach, which won its sixth Big West regular-season title in the past seven seasons, is in the NCAA tournament for the 15th time in program history and the eighth time in the last nine seasons. The three-time national champs (1991, 2018, 2019) lost in the national title match in 2022 and 2024 and reached the semifinals in 2023.
UCLA, which defeated Long Beach in four sets in the 2024 final at LBSU’s Walter Pyramid, is chasing its 22nd national title.
Pepperdine has won five national titles (1978, 1985, 1986, 1992 and 2005), the second-most behind UCLA.
Hawaii, which won its 2021 national title the last time the event was in Columbus, Ohio, also won the 2022 title when the tournament was played at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion. The Rainbow Warriors played in four straight title matches from 2019-23 (there was no tournament in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic).
NCAA TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE
(All times PT)
Play-In match, Friday, May 2
Daemen vs. Penn State, 4 p.m.
Quarterfinals (at Ohio State), Thursday, May 8
No. 3 seed UCLA (20-6) vs. No. 6 seed Belmont Abbey (17-8), 8 a.m.
No. 2 seed Hawaii (26-5) vs. No. 7 seed Penn State (14-15)/Daemen (15-12), 10:30 a.m.
No. 1 seed Long Beach State (27-3) vs. No. 8 seed Fort Valley State (16-9), 2 p.m.
No. 4 seed Loyola-Chicago (25-3) vs. No. 5 seed Pepperdine (20-9), 4:30 p.m.
Semifinals (at Ohio State), Saturday, May 10
LBSU-Fort Valley winner vs. Pepperdine-Loyola winner, 2 p.m.
UCLA-Belmont Abbey winner vs. Hawaii-Penn State-Daemen winner, 5 p.m.
Championship match (at Ohio State), Monday, May 12
Semifinal winners, 4 p.m. (ESPN2)
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