by Vinnie Lopes | Off the Block editor
Vinnie Lopes is the editor of Off the Block, a website that focuses
on Division I-II NCAA men’s volleyball, and has covered college men’s
volleyball since 2007. For top five matches to follow every Friday and
Saturday during the regular season, go to Off the Block at
offtheblockblog.com.
Later today will be the start of the men’s volleyball Final Four and the anticipation continues to grow.
The four-team NCAA Tournament will be played at USC with
the No. 1 seed UC Irvine playing the No. 4 seed Penn State in the opening
semifinals at 6 p.m. (PST) Thursday. In addition, the host school and No. 2
seed USC will play the No. 3 seed Lewis in the second semifinals match at 8
p.m. (PST) Thursday.
The winners of these two matches will play in the
national championship on Saturday. Check out the top five story lines to follow
during the NCAA Tournament.
1. Lewis' rise from the NCAA death bed
It took coach Dan Friend and Lewis eight years to
overcame massive NCAA sanctions -- that had been never seen before in college
volleyball and the men's volleyball equivalent of the NCAA death penalty -- and
return to the Final Four. The Flyers in the summer of 2004 received a
scholarship reduction, a two-year postseason ban and had to vacate their 2003
NCAA championship for using ineligible players. The NCAA rule violations also
resulted in the program's founding coach Dave Deuser leaving the university and
Friend being named the new head coach. Friend in his eight years at Lewis has
kept the program free of any significant NCAA violations and has continued to
grow the program. All that effort culminated Saturday as Lewis rallied from a
one-game deficit to defeat the defending NCAA champions Ohio State in five
games in the MIVA Tournament championship to clinch a spot in the Final Four.
Lewis reaching the Final Four was one of the last demons left from the program
to exorcise from the Deuser era, but the final one may be winning the NCAA
championship to replace its vacated one in 2003.
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| Galen Center |
2. USC on its home court
For the third consecutive year, a team in the NCAA
Tournament will play host to the four-team tournament as USC received the
at-large bid. However, the Trojans should beware that a home court advantage
has not always resulted in a national championship. A host school playing in
the NCAA Tournament has won the championship 11 times, but it has only happened
three times in the last years -- UCLA in 1993 and 1996 and Stanford in 2010. In
addition, Penn State last year when it hosted the NCAA Tournament was upset by
Ohio State in the semifinals. This will also be the first time that the Trojans
have hosted the Final Four since volleyball became an NCAA sport in 1970. The
Trojans, though, have won a national title in Los Angeles before. USC in 1949
won the inaugural U.S. Volleyball Association Collegiate National Championship,
which was held in Los Angeles.
3. The good and bad of UC Irvine's serving
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| UCI Head Coach John Speraw |
Coach John Speraw said before the MPSF Tournament
semifinals that the Anteaters' would rely on their jump serving and go as far
as they can effectively serve. The coach wasn't joking. UC Irvine in its upset
victory against No. 1 USC in the MPSF Tournament semifinals had eight aces but
also committed a season-high 26 service errors in the five-game victory. The
Anteaters lead the MPSF and are second in the nation with a 1.64 aces per game
average. The team also has two players in the nation's top-15 for aces per game
average. Outside attacker Carson Clark is fourth in the nation with a 0.51 aces
per game average and is one of three players to have more than 50 aces this
season, while outside attacker Jeremy Dejno is 11th in the nation with a 0.38
aces per game average.
4. Penn State's final chance to prove itself
For a program that prides itself on its willingness to
travel anywhere and beat the top teams in the nation, the Nittany Lions'
regular season was somewhat of a letdown. Penn State on the West Coast was 0-4
in road matches against MPSF teams, including a three-game loss to USC at the
Galen Center. In addition, the Nittany Lions in each of these matches had less
than a .300 attack percentage. Penn State enters the Final Four leading the
EIVA and is fifth in the nation with a .322 attack percentage. The Nittany
Lions received the No. 4 seed, but have a history of performing well as the
lower seed in the NCAA Tournament. The last time Penn State was the lower seed
in the semifinals it upset Cal State Northridge to reach the 2010 NCAA
championship match.
5. No semifinal television exposure
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