Jacob Myers | NCAA.com | December 10, 2018

NCAA volleyball tournament: How conference championships predict the national champion

Can Nebraska defend its women's volleyball title?

Of the four teams remaining in the NCAA volleyball tournament, only two won their respective conferences and earned an automatic bid.

The last time all four national semifinals were conference champions was in 2000. But, more often than not, conference champions advance to the national semifinals over non-conference champions.

We looked at every NCAA volleyball tournament from 2000 through 2017 to determine whether or not conference champions — historically — make the national semifinals, national championship match and win the national championship more than the teams that didn’t win their conferences.

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Since the NCAA volleyball tournament awarding 16 total national seeds in 2000, conference champions have made it to the national semifinals 45 times compared to 27 times for at-large teams. And, with Nebraska last season, conference champions have won 13 of the past 18 national championships.

Conference champions are likely to get a better draw being a higher seed than most at-large bids. Still, only five teams in the past 18 tournaments having won the national title as non-conference champs seems like a significant difference.

To clarify, when we say a team was a conference champion, we are talking about the team that received an automatic bid from its conference. Some conference championships were split; however, we are not including the co-champion that received an at-large bid as a conference champion.

MORE: Regional preview, scores, schedule for NCAA volleyball tournament

Here are a few other big picture numbers we noticed and some recent trends:

The NCAA women’s volleyball tournament is on fire

Of the past 18 national runners-up, 11 of them won their conference tournaments.
Starting with 2000, nine championship matches have been played between conference champions.
It’s likely at least one conference champion will be in the national championship match because only three times has it been played between two non-champs.
Of the 27 non-champs to make the semifinals, 18 of those teams were from a conference that had its champion in the national semifinals that same year.
Eight times since the 2000 tournament, there have been two conference champions and two non-champs in the national semifinals. Only twice has there been just one conference champion. Never has there been all non-conference champs in the semifinals.
Three of the past four national champions did not win their conferences.

Year	Seed	Team	Result	Conference champ
2000	1	Nebraska	Champion	Yes
	3	Southern California	Semifinalist	Yes
	5	Hawaii	Semifinalist	Yes
	7	Wisconsin	Runner-up	Yes

2001	1	Long Beach State	Runner-up	Yes
	2	Nebraska	Semifinalist	Yes
	3	Stanford	Champion	Yes
	5	Arizona	Semifinalist	No

2002	1	Southern California	Champion	Yes
	2	Stanford	Runner-up	No
	5	Florida	Semifinalist	Yes
	6	Hawaii	Semifinalist	Yes

2003	1	Southern California	Champion	Yes
	2	Hawaii	Semifinalist	Yes
	3	Florida	Runner-up	Yes
	13	Minnesota	Semifinalist	No

2004	4	Minnesota	Runner-up	No
	7	Washington	Semifinalist	No
	8	Southern California	Semifinalist	Yes
	11	Stanford	Champion	No

2005	1	Nebraska	Runner-up	Yes
	3	Washington	Champion	Yes
	15	Tennessee	Semifinalist	No
	--	Santa Clara	Semifinalist	Yes

2006	1	Nebraska	Champion	Yes
	2	Stanford	Runner-up	Yes
	4	UCLA	Semifinalist	No
	6	Washington	Semifinalist	No

2007	1	Stanford	Runner-up	Yes
	3	Penn State	Champion	Yes
	5	Southern California	Semifinalist	No
	10	California	Semifinalist	No

2008	1	Penn State	Champion	Yes
	2	Stanford	Runner-up	Yes
	3	Texas	Semifinalist	No
	4	Nebraska	Semifinalist	Yes

2009	1	Penn State	Champion	Yes
	2	Texas	Runner-up	Yes
	11	Minnesota	Semifinalist	No
	12	Hawaii	Semifinalist	Yes

2010	4	Penn State	Champion	Yes
	6	Southern California	Semifinalist	Yes
	7	California	Runner-up	No
	9	Texas	Semifinalist	No

2011	3	Illinois	Runner-up	No
	7	Southern California	Semifinalist	Yes
	9	UCLA	Champion	No
	12	Florida State	Semifinalist	Yes

2012	1	Penn State	Semifinalist	Yes
	3	Texas	Champion	Yes
	5	Oregon	Runner-up	No
	--	Michigan	Semifinalist	No

2013	1	Texas	Semifinalist	Yes
	2	Penn State	Champion	Yes
	3	Washington	Semifinalist	Yes
	12	Wisconsin	Runner-up	No

2014	1	Stanford	Semifinalist	Yes
	2	Texas	Semifinalist	Yes
	5	Penn State	Champion	No
	--	BYU	Runner-up	Yes

2015	2	Minnesota	Semifinalist	Yes
	3	Texas	Runner-up	Yes
	4	Nebraska	Champion	No
	9	Kansas	Semifinalist	No

2016	1	Nebraska	Semifinalist	Yes
	2	Minnesota	Semifinalist	No
	4	Texas	Runner-up	No
	6	Stanford	Champion	No

2017	1	Penn State	Semifinalist	No
	2	Florida	Runner-up	Yes
	3	Stanford	Semifinalist	Yes
	5	Nebraska	Champion	Yes