Previews, TV info, things to know for Saturday’s NCAA volleyball regional finals
Wisconsin’s Temi Thomas-Ailara winds up against Penn State/Wisconsion photo
Just eight teams remain, with spots in the NCAA Division I Women’s Volleyball Championship national semifinals on the line.
There are four NCAA Tournament regional finals Saturday, all finishing on ESPNU.
But only the first will start on ESPNU.
That’s because ESPN allotted just two hours per match.
As if.
So the second, third and fourth matches will start elsewhere.
They’ll have to. So have a second TV/viewing device ready to go.
Since the matches will likely — providing they don’t end in improbable sweeps — endure for much longer than two hours, ESPN told us the likely start-viewing outlets will be ESPN News and/or ESPN+.
Exactly where will be determined as the day unfolds, and ESPN said it will alert viewers on screen where to go as one match is in progress on ESPNU and the other begins.
That being said, here is the Saturday schedule, all times Eastern:
4 p.m. — No. 5 Louisville (27-4) vs. No. 4 Pittsburgh (28-4)
6 p.m. — No. 9 Arkansas (28-5) vs. No. 1 Nebraska (31-1)
8 p.m. — No. 6 Oregon (29-5 vs No. 3. Wisconsin (29-3)
10 p.m. — No. 7 Texas (25-4) vs. No. 2 Stanford vs. (29-3)
Historically
Four of the eight programs have won NCAA titles, including defending champion Texas of the Big 12, which has won three times.
The Pac-12’s Stanford, the all-time leader with nine titles, won most recently in 2016, 2018 and 2019.
Nebraska of the Big Ten, which has five crowns, last won in 2017.
The Big Ten’s Wisconsin won its title in 2021.
Neither the ACC’s Louisville nor Kentucky, who played each other in last year’s national semifinals before Louisville lost to Texas, the SEC’s Arkansas, nor the Pac-12’s Oregon have ever won it all.
Previously
In the ACC this season, Louisville swept Pitt in Louisville on October 13 but then Pitt pulled off a 19-25, 24-26, 26-24, 25-21, 17-15 reverse sweep at home on November 18.
Top-seeded Nebraska, which is 20-0 at home this season, is 3-0 all-time against Arkansas, but they haven’t played since 2016. Click here to read our October feature about Arkansas and the small-but-spirited team that has captured the fascination of the college volleyball world.
Wisconsin and Oregon last played in 2015 when the homestanding Badgers won a first-round NCAA match in four.
Stanford went to Texas earlier this year and swept the Longhorns 25-23, 25-20, 25-15. These two programs have staged some epic battles over the year. Stanford leads the all-time series 24-10.
Click here for our Friday recap of the round of 16 and a fantastic photo of Jillian Gillen of Arkansas taken by Matt Smith.
The stars are out
Four conference players of the year remain in the tournament, Wisconsin’s Sarah Franklin in the Big Ten, Stanford’s Kendall Kipp in the Pac-12, Madisen Skinner of Texas in the Big 12 and Louisville’s Anna DeBeer in the ACC, who shared the honor with Florida State’s Audrey Koenig.
There are many others, of course, who received post-season honors in their respective conferences and will also likely appear on the VolleyballMag.com All-American team that will be announced Friday, December 22.
More good TV news
From VolleyballMag.com’s Larry Hamel:
The Nielsen ratings for Thursday gave more good news for college volleyball. A best-case scenario saw an 89.1% year-over-year growth in eyeballs watching the regional semifinals of the NCAA Tournament.
As reported by the Sports Media Watch site, here are the total-average viewerships for the five NCAA Round of 16 matches that aired throughout the day and night Thursday on ESPN2:
Wisconsin-Penn State (7 p.m. Eastern start time) 297,000; Texas-Tennessee (9:09 p.m.) 289,000; Nebraska-Georgia Tech (2:37 p.m.) 279,000; Louisville-Creighton (noon) 185,000; Pitt-Washington State (3:35 p.m.) 125,000.
Not all of the matches aired in their entirety. The three regional semifinals that were telecast on ESPNU did not make the cutoff (100,000) on Sports Media Watch’s chart of the day’s sports shows. The three matches with the highest audiences were clustered at eighth, ninth and 10th on the day among live sports events.
Rewinding to the round of 16 matches on Thursday, December 8, 2022, a total-average viewership of 157,000 for Penn State-Wisconsin, aired on ESPNU (starting at 6:32 p.m. Eastern), and was the highest reported on the daily Showbuzz Top 150 cable chart. A late-night match on ESPNU between Nebraska and Oregon logged 121,000 viewers. The only match listed on ESPN2 had an audience of 120,000.
The numbers recorded Thursday demonstrated substantial growth, continuing a trend that has played out all during the 2023 season.
The top viewership on Thursday was 89.1% higher than the day’s high in 2022 and the lowest total on ESPN was 5,000 higher than the only regional semifinal aired on that channel last year.
Some caveats exist:
1) More round of 16 matches were aired in 2023 on ESPN2 than had been the case in 2022 and about half were in prime time; and 2) ESPN2 is available in far more TV households than ESPNU, a third-tier channel on many cable systems. ESPN2 presently reaches 70.2 million TV homes, while in December of 2022, ESPNU’s “reach” was 39.5 million households.
So year-over-year comparisons are not 100% apples-to-apples.
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