HONOLULU – Despite suffering its only loss of the season in the Big West Tournament semifinals last Friday, the University of Hawai'i men's volleyball team received an at-large selection to the NCAA National Collegiate Championship and the tournament's No. 1 overall seed.
The Rainbow Warriors (15-1) earned a bye into the semifinals where they will face the winner of the UC Santa Barbara-Pepperdine opening round match on Thursday, May 6. Mountain Pacific Sports Federation champion BYU is the No. 2 seed and received the other bye into the semifinals. This year's tournament will be held at the Covelli Center in Columbus, Ohio.
UH will be making its seventh all-time appearance in the championship tournament and second as the No. 1 seed. The Warriors were the top-seed in the 2019 tournament where they finished runner-up to host Long Beach State.
Seven teams make up the 2021 field, which begins Monday, May 3 with a play-in match between Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association champion Penn State and Conference Carolinas champion Belmont Abbey. Two opening round matches are scheduled for Tuesday, May 4. Big West champion UC Santa Barbara and MPSF runner-up Pepperdine will meet in one opening round match while Midwestern Interscholastic Volleyball Association champion Lewis will face the Penn State/Belmont Abbey winner in the other match.
Hawai'i has an all-time record of 5-6 in the NCAA Tournament. UH advanced to the championship match three times in its history and will be seeking its first national title. Hawai'i and Pepperdine met in the 2002 title match, which UH won but later forfeited the title due to ineligible player. The Warriors and UCSB have never met in the NCAA Tournament.
The Warriors saw their perfect season come to an end by the hands of UC San Diego in a five-set nail biter at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center, which snapped a 16-match win streak and halted UH's chance defending its Big West title. UCSB defeated UCSD in four sets in the championship match.
The semifinal matches will be streamed live on NCAA.com and the championship match will be televised live on ESPNU
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