List of NCAA men's volleyball schools
This is a list of colleges and universities with NCAA-sanctioned men's indoor volleyball teams that compete for either the NCAA Men's National Collegiate Volleyball Championship or the NCAA Men's Division III Volleyball Championship.
Contents
Structure
The competition structure of men's volleyball is dramatically different from that of most sports sponsored by the NCAA. In most sports, teams are divided into three divisions:
- Division I, generally consisting of large universities that devote the most resources to athletics; these schools offer substantial numbers of athletic scholarships to attract team members (with a few voluntary exceptions, most notably the Ivy League).
- Division II, generally consisting of smaller institutions; these schools are also allowed to offer athletic scholarships, but in substantially smaller numbers.
- Division III, generally consisting of smaller schools and a few large institutions that prefer to focus on academics; schools in this group are not allowed to offer athletic scholarships
Before the 2011–12 school year (2012 championship), men's volleyball did not have an official divisional structure; even now, that structure is truncated. The National Collegiate Championship remains as the NCAA's top-level championship, but Division III members now have their own championship, officially known as the NCAA Men's Division III Volleyball Championship.
With the introduction of an official Division III championship, schools in that division are no longer eligible for the National Collegiate Championship. The last exception, Rutgers–Newark, had been a grandfathered scholarship program in men's volleyball and could compete for the National Collegiate Championship through the 2014 edition. After that season, Rutgers–Newark completed a transition to D-III men's volleyball.
This structure differs from that of the NCAA Women's Volleyball Championship, in which separate tournaments are conducted for all three divisions, mainly because there are far more NCAA member schools offering women's volleyball than the men's game. All schools that sponsor men's volleyball and are members of either Division I or II are allowed to offer financial aid for the sport that is equivalent to a maximum of 4.5 full scholarships.
Before the creation of the NCAA Division III championship in 2012, an unofficial men's volleyball championship tournament was conducted that was open only to Division III men's volleyball programs. For sponsorship reasons, it was known as the "Molten Division III Men's Invitational Volleyball Championship Tournament (Final Four)". Though it never occurred, a NCAA Division III school could, before 2012, qualify for the at-large bid to the National Collegiate Championship. Only NCAA Division III teams from the EIVA were able to earn an automatic bid.
Historically, there have been three general regions for men's volleyball: "West", "Mid-West", and "East". The three major conferences that currently represent these regions are the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF), Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (MIVA), and Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (EIVA). The East Region is also represented by Conference Carolinas, a Division II all-sports conference that is the only all-sports league in either Division I or II to sponsor men's volleyball. It received an automatic berth in the National Collegiate Championship for the first time in 2014, when the championship expanded from four teams to six.
In Division III, the conference alignment radically changed with the creation of that division's NCAA championship. Before the 2012 season, the majority of the Division III schools with men's volleyball programs were members of the North East Collegiate Volleyball Association (NECVA). Other Division III schools were members of other leagues, among them the New England Collegiate Conference,[1] and the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC). Teams from the ECAC were members of the NECVA. After the NCAA announced the creation of the D-III championship, the NECVA disbanded after the 2011 season. Two all-sports conferences whose men's volleyball programs had previously formed NECVA divisions—the CUNY Athletic Conference and Great Northeast Athletic Conference—began officially sponsoring the sport. Two other D-III all sports conferences, the North Eastern Athletic Conference and Skyline Conference, also started sponsoring men's volleyball. The volleyball-only United Volleyball Conference was founded in 2010 in advance of the establishment of the NCAA D-III championship; another volleyball-only circuit, the Continental Volleyball Conference (CVC), was formed the following year. In 2014, the CVC amicably split along regional lines, with the Eastern members retaining the conference name and the Midwestern members forming the new Midwest Collegiate Volleyball League.
Members of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), a separate athletics governing body whose members are primarily smaller institutions, regularly play matches against NCAA teams.
Because of the historic lack of an official divisional structure in men's volleyball, all three traditional major conferences have member schools that normally participate in NCAA Division II. The 13-member MPSF men's volleyball league, otherwise made up entirely of Division I schools, has three Division II members, California Baptist, Concordia–Irvine, and UC San Diego. The nine members of the MIVA consist of four full Division I members, four Division II schools, and Grand Canyon University, which began reclassifying from Division II to Division I in 2013. The EIVA now consists of seven Division I members and one Division II member with the arrival of D-II Charleston (WV) for the 2016 season. Through the 2014 season, the EIVA included Rutgers–Newark, the only remaining Division III school competing for the National Collegiate Championship, until that school completed its transition to Division III men's volleyball after that season.[2] The sizes of the conferences have fluctuated over the years as new men's volleyball programs arise and other programs are dropped from their schools. The creation of the men's Division III national championship led to several D-III schools leaving the EIVA.
Through 2013, each of the three major conferences (MPSF, MIVA and EIVA) received an automatic bid to the Final Four with one additional at-large bid. The remaining bid was an at-large bid that could be awarded to any team in Division I or II (which included Rutgers–Newark through the 2014 season). Beginning in 2014, the tournament expanded to six teams, with the top two seeds receiving byes into the Final Four and the remaining four teams playing for places in the Final Four. Conference Carolinas now receives an automatic berth in the tournament, and one extra at-large team also receives an invitation. Generally, the best teams not receiving an automatic bid (usually from one of the three major conferences) receive the at-large bids.
Members
All affiliations are current for the upcoming 2017 men's volleyball season.
Division I
Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association
- University of Charleston (NCAA Division II)
- George Mason University
- Harvard University
- New Jersey Institute of Technology
- Pennsylvania State University
- Princeton University
- Sacred Heart University
- Saint Francis University of Pennsylvania
Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association
- Ball State University
- Grand Canyon University (began transition from NCAA Division II in July 2013)
- Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW)
- Lewis University (NCAA Division II)
- Lindenwood University (NCAA Division II)
- Loyola University Chicago
- McKendree University (NCAA Division II)
- Ohio State University
- Quincy University (NCAA Division II)
Mountain Pacific Sports Federation
- Brigham Young University
- California Baptist University (NCAA Division II)
- California State University, Northridge
- University of Hawai'i at Mānoa
- California State University, Long Beach (Long Beach State)
- Pepperdine University
- Stanford University
- University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine)
- University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego; NCAA Division II)
- University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara)
- University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
- University of Southern California (USC)
Division II (Competes with Division I)
- Barton College (NC)
- Belmont Abbey College (NC)
- Emmanuel College (GA) (started transition from NAIA to NCAA Division II in 2014)
- Erskine College (SC)
- King University (TN)
- Lees-McRae College (NC)
- Limestone College (SC)
- Lincoln Memorial University (TN) (begins play in the 2017 season)
- Mount Olive College (NC)
- North Greenville University (SC)
- Pfeiffer University (NC)
- Pfeiffer started a transition from Division II to Division III in 2015. The school will leave Conference Carolinas and become a provisional D-III member in 2017 and full D-III member in 2019.
Independents
- Alderson Broaddus University (WV)
- Coker College (SC)
- Concordia University (California) (Concordia–Irvine; transitioning from NAIA to NCAA Division II)
- Holy Names University (CA) (currently transitioning from the NAIA to Division II)
- University of Puerto Rico, Bayamon
- University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez
- University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras
- University of Puerto Rico, Cayey
Division III
City University of New York Athletic Conference
- Baruch College
- Brooklyn College
- City College of New York (CCNY)
- Hunter College
- John Jay College
- Lehman College
- Medgar Evers College
- York College
Continental Volleyball Conference
- Cairn University
- Eastern Mennonite University
- Juniata College
- Marymount University
- Rutgers University–Newark
- Stevenson University
- Thiel College
Great Northeast Athletic Conference
- Albertus Magnus College
- Emerson College
- Emmanuel College (MA)
- Johnson & Wales University
- Lasell College
- Mount Ida College
- Rivier College
- Wentworth Institute of Technology
Hudson Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Conference
Midwest Collegiate Volleyball League
Six of the founding members of this conference had previously formed the West Division of the Continental Volleyball Conference. After the 2014 season, the CVC amicably split along divisional lines, with the Midwestern teams forming the MCVL while adding two new members that were launching men's volleyball programs in 2015. Six more schools, all of which launched new varsity programs, joined for the 2016 season.
- Adrian College
- Benedictine University
- Carthage College
- Dominican University (IL)
- Fontbonne University
- Greenville College
- Lakeland College
- Loras College
- Marian University (WI)
- Mount St. Joseph University
- Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE)
- North Central College
- Olivet College
- Wittenberg University
New England Collegiate Conference
- Daniel Webster College
- Elms College
- Endicott College
- Lesley University
- Newbury College
- Regis College
- Southern Vermont College
North Eastern Athletic Conference
- D'Youville College
- Keuka College
- Hilbert College
- Lancaster Bible College
- Medaille College
- Penn State Altoona
- State University of New York Institute of Technology at Utica/Rome
- Wells College
- Wilson College (PA)
- College of Mount St. Vincent
- Kean University
- New Jersey City University
- Ramapo College
- Sarah Lawrence College
- The Sage Colleges
- SUNY Purchase
United Volleyball Conference
- Bard College
- Elmira College
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
- Nazareth College
- State University of New York at New Paltz (New Paltz)
- New York University (NYU)
- Penn State Erie, The Behrend College (Penn State Behrend)
- Stevens Institute of Technology
- Vassar College
Independents
- Illinois Institute of Technology
- Rust College
- Springfield College
- University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz)
See also
- NCAA Men's National Collegiate Volleyball Championship
- NCAA Men's Division III Volleyball Championship
- NCAA Women's Volleyball Championship