Minnesota Volleyball: Gophers #8 National Seed in NCAA Tournament

The Minnesota Gophers were given the national #8 overall seed and the #2 seed in the Texas region when the NCAA Tournament bracket was announced Sunday night. Minnesota will host the first and second rounds of the tournament at The Pav and will open with SE Louisiana in a first round match at 7 PM Friday night. The other match at The Pav will be #7 seed Florida State and Northern Iowa with the two winners advancing to play one another in the second round at 7 PM Saturday.

The Gophers big weekend on the road helped them a ton when the NCAA Tournament bracket was announced. The Gophers had the #13 RPI in the nation headed into the weekend but went into Ohio State and Nebraska and knocked off both top-ten teams on the road in dominant fashion.

If the Gophers advance through the first two rounds they will advance to Austin for the NCAA Regional. If all the top seeded teams advance Minnesota would see a familiar foe in Ohio State the #3 seed in the region in the round of 16 before a potential matchup against the overall #1 seed in Texas Longhorns. The Gophers split with the Buckeyes this season with each team winning on the road, and the Gophers lost a 3-1 match to Texas in Austin back in August.

SE Louisiana advanced to the NCAA Tournament as the champions of the Southland conference. They completed their regular season with a 25-7 record. They played nobody of note in the non-conference schedule with their toughest opponent most likely a St. John’s team that went 10-8 in the Big East and did not make the NCAA Tournament.

The Gophers and Ohio State are two of six Big Ten teams in the field of 64 with defending NCAA Champion Wisconsin receiving the #2 overall seed and Penn State the #4 seed in that region setting up another potential Big Ten round of 16 matchup.

Nebraska was given the #2 seed in the Louisville region and Purdue the #8 seed setting up a match against the #3 national seed in the Cardinals in the second round. The full bracket is below.

We will have a full preview of the Gophers quadrant later this week.