Keegan Cook’s Gophers volleyball team will watch the NCAA tournament selection show anxiously Sunday, but for a different reason this year.
Gophers volleyball team, hoping for home matches, awaits NCAA tournament reveal
Ranked 15th, the Gophers will make the field, but the numbers say they are a bubble team to host the first two rounds at Maturi Pavilion.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
December 1, 2024 at 12:32AM
Will Maturi Pavilion get to host the Gophers and the first two rounds of the NCAAs for the first time since 2022?
There’s no doubt the No. 15 Gophers (20-10, 13-7 Big Ten) will find out at 5 p.m. Sunday (ESPN) that they’re in the field of 64. They’ve won three straight, including Friday’s four-set win over Ohio State at home, which was fueled by standout junior Julia Hanson’s 23 kills.
The Gophers will receive their 10th consecutive NCAA tourney berth and 24th in the past 25 years, but they are a bubble team as a host.
The NCAA tournament’s top 16 seeds open with home matches in the first and second rounds Thursday through Saturday. Cook’s team was ranked as high as 14th in the American Volleyball Coaches Association poll in early November before suffering three consecutive losses, including against Oregon and Washington at home.
The latest metrics say the Gophers were No. 28 in the RPI rankings as of Nov. 24 and No. 16 in the NCAA tournament selection committee’s in-season ranking on Oct. 20.
The Gophers’ three-match win streak to finish the Big Ten season included home victories over Ohio State and Iowa and a road win at Illinois, which is hoping to get an NCAA bid.
Last season, Cook’s first with the Gophers, the team won 10 of the final 14 matches in the regular season to extend the program’s postseason streak. That 16-12 team went on the road to defeat Utah State in the opening round in Omaha, but the Gophers were swept by Creighton in the second round.
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