Minnesota Volleyball Earns Home 1st and 2nd Round NCAA Tournament Matches

The Minnesota Golden Gophers Volleyball team earned the right to host 1st and 2nd round NCAA Tournament matches at Maturi Pavillion this weekend for the first time since 2022 when the NCAA pairings were announced Sunday evening. The Gophers are the #4 seed in the Pittsburgh Region and are the #13 overall seed. Minnesota will open with the MAAC Champion Fairfield Stags with the other match pitting the #5 seed Iowa State Cyclones against another local team, the Summit League Champion St. Thomas Tommies. The Tommies are making their first DI NCAA Tournament appearance in any sport since their final classification upgrade from D3 to DI was approved last summer.

Minnesota has now advanced to the NCAA Tournament in 11 straight seasons and 26 of the last 27. The Gophers enter the NCAA tournament with a 22-9 (12-8 Big Ten) overall record. They placed in a tie for sixth in the Big Ten with Penn State and UCLA behind only Nebraska (20-0), Wisconsin (17-3), Purdue (15-5), USC (15-5) and Indiana (14-6). All eight of those teams made the NCAA field of 64 along with Michigan who finished a game back of the Gophers, Bruins and Nittany Lions.

Minnesota faced 15 teams this season that qualified for the NCAA Tournament. Minnesota went 9-8 in those matches with wins over Indiana, Penn State, Purdue, Cal Poly, Loyola Chicago, Marquette, St. Thomas, South Florida and South Dakota State and losses to Texas A&M, Michigan, Nebraska, USC, UCLA, Purdue, and Wisconsin twice.

Fairfield earned the MAAC auto bid as the conference tournament champion. The Stags went 25-5 overall this season and 17-1 in the MAAC. Their five losses this season came to West Virginia, Villanova, UConn, Bryant and Quinnipiac.

Iowa State earned the #5 seed and an at-large berth. They went 22-7 overall with a 12-6 Big 12 record. They went 2-0 against Big Ten opponents defeating both Iowa and Illinois.

St. Thomas earned the Summit League automatic bid with a win in the conference tournament as the #3 seed. They went 21-9 overall on the season and 11-5 in Summit League play. Besides a 3-1 loss to the Gophers at The Pav in September, the Tommies won their only other Power 5 match defeating Northwestern 3-0.

Friday’s matches will start at 4:30 with the Cyclones and Tommies facing one another. The Gophers and Stags will follow at 7 PM or 30 minutes after the conclusion of the first match. The two winners will face off at 7 PM Saturday to advance to the Sweet 16. There they likely will face #1 seed Pittsburgh who will need to get past UMBC and either Xavier or Michigan in the Round of 32.