NCAA volleyball: Conference awards; notes, nuggets galore as tourney begins Thursday

The NCAA Divsion I women’s volleyball tournament begins Thursday with 16 matches, including all four of the regional No. 2 seeds — Kentucky, Oregon, Texas and Louisville — and No. 1 Wisconsin.

The other No. 1 seeds — Nebraska, Stanford and Pittsburgh – – open play Friday.

Since there are 32 first-round matches, Friday will be loaded, with not only the 16 first-round matches, but eight between the Thursday winners.

Every first-round match can be seen on ESPN+. The matches at Texas will also be shown — if you get it — on the Longhorn Network for the last time, because that entitiy goes away after this school year when Texas joins the SEC.

We”ll have a match-by-match first-round breakdown later Wednesday.

Conference award winners

The ACC, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC announced their respective…