All hail, of all conferences, the SEC.
The league has five of the remaining teams in the NCAA Tournament round of 16.
That’s because both Florida and Texas A&M scored upsets Saturday to join Kentucky, Missouri and first-year member Texas in the third round later this week.
Five teams also remain from the Big Ten — which you would have expected — in Nebraska, Penn State, Wisconsin, Purdue and Oregon.
There are three teams from the ACC in Pittsburgh, Louisville (barely) and Stanford.
The Big East has two in Creighton and Marquette, and the Atlantic 10 has Dayton.
Here’s the schedule (all times Eastern):
Thursday
At Pittsburgh (with all the second matches starting 30 minutes after the first ends)
1 p.m. — Missouri vs. Kentucky, Oregon vs. Pitt
At Louisville
7 p.m. — Florida vs. Stanford, Purdue vs. Louisville
Friday
At Penn State
1 p.m. — Texas vs. Creighton, Marquette vs. Penn State
At Nebraska
7 p.m. — Texas A&M vs. Wisconsin, Dayton vs. Nebraska
See the updated bracket at NCAA.com.
Saturday’s recaps follow.
And so does a victory worth $150,000 on the beach in Doha as TKN — Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss — won the Volleyball World Pro Beach Tour Finals, beating fellow Americans Terese Cannon and Meghan Kraft.
It’s all in this edition of Volleyball Today:
NCAA Tournament Saturday
Louisville (27-5) came about as close as a No. 1 seed could come to not being around for its own third- and fourth-round party. The Cardinals beat Northern Iowa 26-28, 25-22, 23-25, 25-13, 22-20.
“The NCAA Tournament: survive and advance,” Louisville coach Dani Busboom Kelly said. “You need to play great, and you need to have some luck, and I thought luck was on our side a little bit there in game five, but the crowd was super into it, and you could feel it the whole way.”
Louisville noted that the 22-20 outcome was the highest fifth-set scored in school history. The outside hitters, Anna DeBeer — who had six of her kills in the fifth set including the winner — and Charite Luper, had 19 kills each and Cara Cresse had a career-high 14 blocks, three solo. Northern Iowa, champion of the Missouri Valley Conference, ended its season 26-8 as the Panthers hit .118 and had 14 fewer kills than Louisville. It was only the third five-set match the Panthers played all season.
Read the Louisville account here and the Northern Iowa recap here.
Kennedy Martin had a career-high 33 kills as Florida (23-7), the sixth seed in the Louisville regional, came away with a 25-22, 21-25, 25-17, 24-26, 15-13 victory at third-seeded Kansas (25-5) of the Big 12. Martin hit .310 after having 11 errors in 71 swings. Four of her errors were in the fifth set, but it was her third kill of the set that ended the match. Martin, averaging 5.58 kills per set and hitting .364 for the season, had 31 or more kills for the fifth time this season.
Read the Florida recap here and the Kansas recap here.
Texas A&M (21-7), the sixth seed in the Nebraska regional, pulled off a 25-19, 22-25, 25-15, 25-22 upset at third-seeded Arizona State (30-3) in what might have been the most unlikely outcome of the first two rounds. The Sun Devils had won 18 in a row and A&M hadn’t beaten a ranked since upsetting Texas in five on October 23. Logan Lednicky had 27 kills, hit .500, and had 11 digs and six blocks.
Read the A&M recap here and the Arizona State account here.
Penn State (31-2) beat visiting North Carolina (23-8) of the ACC in four as Jess Mruzik had 21 kills, two assists, nine digs and four blocks, one solo in the 25-21, 25-18, 20-25, 25-15 victory. Read the Penn State recap here and the UNC recap here.
Pittsburgh (31-1) survived a tough first set and then ousted Oklahoma (15-11) of the SEC 28-26, 25-21, 25-19 for its 16th win in a row. Worth noting was OU’s Kari Geissberger, who had 12 kills with no errors in 21 attacks and eight blocks. Her teammates had 19 kills and 21 errors.
Read the Pittsburgh account here and the OU wrap-up here.
Nebraska (31-2) made short work of Miami (22-11) of the ACC, which finished 6-8 away from home this season. Five Huskers had six or more kills in the 25-19, 25-14, 25-18 victory and setter Bergen Reilly had four with no errors in seven tries, 33 assists, six digs and a block. Read the Nebraska story here and the Miami recap here.
Stanford (27-4) hit .535 and demolished visiting Loyola Marymount (25-6) of the West Coast Conference 25-17, 25-17, 25-16. Elia Rubin had 15 kills in 26 errorless swings to hit .577 and had an assist, an ace, 10 digs and three blocks, one solo. Read the Stanford account here and the LMU story here.
NIVC
There were three matches Saturday as Northern Colorado defeated Georgia Southern in five, St. John’s swept N.C. A&T and Arizona did the same to Pacific. St. John’s plays Virginia on Sunday for a spot in the quarterfinals.
The quarterfinals begin Monday with Bowling Green vs. DePaul and continue Tuesday with Northern Colorado vs. Arkansas State and Wyoming vs. Arizona. UConn awaits the Virginia-St. John’s winner.
Click here for the NIVC Tournament Central page.
Kloth-Nuss top Cannon-Kraft for World title
It was an all-USA women’s gold-medal match Saturday as Olympians Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss beat fellow Americans Megan Kraft and Terese Cannon 21-19, 21-17. Kloth and Nuss not only defended their title, but the former LSU pair split $150,000. Cannon and Kraft, who won NCAA titles at USC, split $80K. Third place went to one of their former USC teammates, Tina Graudina, and Latvian partner Anastasija Samoilova.Read the Volleyball World women’ story here.
The men’s title was won by Norwegians Anders Mol and Christian Sorum. Read the VW men’s account here.
