It’s the biggest day of women’s college volleyball all year: eight matches between the 16 teams still vying for the national championship. Regional semifinal day is a smorgasbord of talent stretching across the country.
It starts Thursday at noon ET, and by early Friday morning we’ll know which programs are one step away from the national semifinals in Tampa, Florida.
With the conference realignments next season, including the demise of the Pac-12, volleyball like every other sport will look notably different. But for one more NCAA tournament, we have volleyball’s two traditional “power” conferences — the Pac-12 and the Big Ten — with four teams from each still alive. Two rising powers, the ACC and SEC, have three teams each. The Big 12 and the Big East have one each.
Six of the teams remaining have won the NCAA title, led by nine-time champion Stanford. Three of the regional semifinal matches will pit conference foes: Kentucky vs. Arkansas, Wisconsin vs. Penn State, and Stanford vs. Arizona State.
Matches will be held at regional sites hosted by…
