NCAA Beach selection show advance, 5-1-16 - Articles

The NCAA committee might have thrown the beach-volleyball world a curveball when it announced the field Sunday night for the inaugural NCAA Beach Volleyball Championship, but there is no doubt that USC is the team to beat. The top-ranked Women of Troy (30-2) made yet another statement on Sunday, winning the inaugural Pac-12 Conference Beach Volleyball Championships, but then, surprisingly, were made the No. 2 seed in the inaugural NCAA Beach Championship that starts Thursday in Gulf Shores, Ala. That’s the same place where a year and a day ago USC completed an unbeaten season by sweeping Long Beach State to win the AVCA Collegiate Sand Volleyball Championships. The No. 1 seed went to Florida State, the Atlantic Coast Conference team that went 29-1 this season while winning the Coastal Collegiate Sports Association (CCSA) Conference. Here is the field for the double-elimination tournament that saw three teams come from the West, three from the East, and two given at-large bids: No. 1 Florida State plays No. 8 Stetson. No. 5 Hawaii plays No. 4 UCLA No. 3 Pepperdine plays No. 6 Arizona No. 2 USC plays No. 7 Georgia State Eight teams, double elimination, with play beginning Friday and concluding Sunday on the beach the locals fondly refer to as the Redneck Riviera. The NCAA selection, shown on NCAA.com, offered no explanation of the field. It later Tweeted the three teams from the West were USC, Pepperdine and UCLA and Hawaii and Arizona got the at-large bids. Third-ranked Florida State won the CCSA beating eighth-ranked Georgia...

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