NCAA Men's Volleyball Championship - Competition Structure

Competition Structure

The following section needs to be updated to include the new divisional structure in NCAA men's volleyball that began with the 2012 season.

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

Men's volleyball, however, does not have an official divisional structure—all teams, regardless of their divisional affiliation, are eligible to compete for the NCAA championship. This is different from 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.

Although the NCAA only sponsors a single men's volleyball championship, open to all schools that sponsor the sport at varsity level (as opposed to club level), a parallel men's volleyball championship tournament is conducted that is open only to men's volleyball programs that are members of NCAA Division III. For sponsorship reasons, it is currently named the "Molten Division III Men's Invitational Volleyball Championship Tournament (Final Four)". Though it has never occurred, a NCAA Division III school may qualify for the at-large bid to the "NCAA National Collegiate Men's Volleyball Championship Tournament". Only NCAA Division III teams from the EIVA may earn an automatic bid.

There are 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 other conferences include Conference Carolinas, New England Collegiate Conference, the North East Collegiate Volleyball Association (NECVA), and the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC). Teams from the ECAC are members of the NECVA. 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 lack of an official divisional structure in men's volleyball, the three major conferences have member schools that normally participate in all three NCAA divisions. The MPSF men's volleyball league, otherwise made up entirely of Division I schools, has one Division II member, UC San Diego. Only four of the 7 members of the MIVA are Division I schools; the remaining seven members include three Division II schools. The 11 members of EIVA include eight in Division I and three in Division III. 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.

Currently, each of the three major conferences ((MPSF), (MIVA) and (EIVA)) receive an automatic bid to the Final Four with one additional at-large bid. The remaining bid is an at-large bid that may be awarded to any team in Division I, II, or III. Generally, the best team not receiving an automatic bid (usually from one of the three major conferences) receives the at-large bid.