NCAA men's volleyball tournament

Before the 2011–12 school year (2012 championship), men's volleyball did not have an official divisional structure; even now, that structure is truncated. The National Collegiate Championship remains as the NCAA's top-level championship, but Division III members now have their own championship event.

With the introduction of an official Division III championship, schools in that division are no longer eligible for the National Collegiate Championship. The last exception was Rutgers–Newark, whose men's volleyball program had been a grandfathered scholarship program, and could compete for the National Collegiate Championship through 2014. Rutgers–Newark completed a transition to Division III men's volleyball at the end of that season, and joined the D-III Continental Volleyball Conference effective with the 2015 season.

There are three general regions for men's volleyball: "West", "Midwest", and "East". As of the current 2023 NCAA men's volleyball season, five "major conferences", defined here as leagues that include full members of Division I, represent these regions. The three "traditional" major conferences are the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF), Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (MIVA), and Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (EIVA). In the 2018 season, the ranks of "major" conferences expanded to include the Big West Conference, the first Division I all-sports conference ever to sponsor men's volleyball. The Northeast Conference (NEC) became the second D-I all-sports conference to sponsor men's volleyball in the 2023 season. As of that season, two Division II conferences sponsor men's volleyball at the National Collegiate level. Conference Carolinas (CC) was the first NCAA conference ever to sponsor men's volleyball as a scholarship sport, having launched its men's volleyball league in the 2012 season. The 2021 season was to have been the first for the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SIAC), with six men's volleyball members, but the conference chose not to compete in that season due to COVID-19 issues. CC has had an automatic berth in the National Collegiate championship since the 2014 season, and the Big West received an automatic berth upon the creation of its men's volleyball league. The SIAC will not be eligible for an automatic berth until the 2024 season, and the NEC until 2025 (assuming that at least six inaugural men's volleyball members of each league continue to play in their respective conferences). Members of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), a separate athletics governing body whose members are primarily smaller institutions, regularly play matches against NCAA teams.

Because of the historic lack of an official divisional structure in men's volleyball, four of the five major conferences have members that normally compete in Division II. Before the creation of the Division III national championship, the EIVA had several Division III members, but all of those schools now compete in D-III men's volleyball. The Big West became the first men's volleyball conference to consist entirely of D-I members in the 2021 season; this immediately followed UC San Diego, previously a Big West affiliate in men's volleyball (as well as women's water polo), starting its transition to Division I and fully joining the Big West. The NEC initially announced that it would launch its men's volleyball league in the 2023 season with five full D-I members and transitional D-I member Merrimack, but later announced that it would add Daemen and D'Youville, D-II members that had previously played as National Collegiate independents, as associate members effective with its first season in 2023.

Through the 2013 tournament, each of the three major conferences of that day (MPSF, MIVA and EIVA) received an automatic bid to the Final Four, with one additional at-large bid. The remaining bid was an at-large bid that could be awarded to any team in Division I or II (including Rutgers–Newark). Generally, the best team not receiving an automatic bid (usually from one of the three major conferences) received the at-large bid.

Beginning with the 2014 championship, the field expanded to six teams, with the two new teams being the champion of Conference Carolinas and one extra at-large entry. The new format featured two quarterfinal matches involving the four lowest-seeded teams in the field, with the winners joining the two top seeds in the semifinals. Originally, the quarterfinals were to be played at campus sites, with the Final Four at a separate predetermined site, but it was decided instead to have the entire championship tournament at one site.

With the Big West Conference adding men's volleyball for the 2018 season and qualifying for an automatic tournament berth, the championship now involves seven teams. The bottom two tournament seeds contest a "play-in" match; from that point, the tournament format is identical to the one used from 2014 to 2017.[1]

The Pennsylvania State University Nittany Lions men's volleyball team are honored in June 2008 at the White House for United States President George W. Bush for the side's winning the 2008 national championship.

The 2023 men's volleyball season featured 29 Division I schools, up from 26 in 2022, which had been the sport's highest D-I participation level since 1985. All three of the newest D-I programs were transitioning from D-II to D-I. Merrimack added a new team, and Lindenwood and Queens (NC), which already sponsored the sport, started transitions from D-II to D-I in July 2022. From 1986 to 2021, the number of Division I schools sponsoring men's volleyball fluctuated between 20 and 24 teams.[2] No traditional D-I conferences sponsored men's volleyball until the Big West Conference added the sport for the 2018 season. The Big West became the first NCAA men's volleyball league to consist entirely of D-I members when UC San Diego, which was one of the six charter members of Big West men's volleyball, began a transition to D-I upon joining the Big West full-time in July 2020. Of the other four major conferences, the only all-sports league is the Northeast Conference (NEC), which started men's volleyball play in the 2023 season with six full conference members and two D-II members as single-sport associates. The Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (EIVA) and Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (MIVA) are volleyball-specific conferences, while the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) is a multi-sport conference of schools whose primary conferences do not sponsor its ten sports. In addition to the 29 D-I schools, 31 Division II schools competed in D-I volleyball during the 2023 season:

• Charleston (WV) competes in the EIVA.
• Lewis, McKendree, and Quincy compete in the MIVA.
• Concordia–Irvine has been an MPSF men's volleyball member since the 2018 season.
• Daemen and D'Youville, which had previously competed as men's volleyball independents, became single-sport NEC members for the conference's first men's volleyball season in 2023.[3]
• Conference Carolinas, the first all-sports conference in either Division I or II to sponsor men's volleyball, currently has 8 competing teams.
• The Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference was to start men's volleyball competition in 2021 with 6 newly launched teams, making those schools the first historically black institutions to sponsor varsity men's volleyball.[4] The SIAC chose not to compete in 2021 due to COVID-19 concerns, delaying the launch of men's volleyball to the 2022 season. During the 2021–22 offseason, the SIAC men's volleyball roster lost one of its intended 6 members when Paine left the NCAA, but kept its membership at 6 with the addition of men's volleyball by incoming SIAC member Edward Waters.
• Eleven D-II schools compete as men's volleyball independents. Three of these are campuses of the University of Puerto Rico. Of the remaining independents, only Coker and Limestone had sponsored the sport before the 2016 season. The others are Alderson Broaddus (2016), Lincoln Memorial (2017), Tusculum (2020), American International, Maryville (MO) (both 2022), and Missouri S&T (2023).

Two schools, one each in Division I and Division II, launched National Collegiate men's volleyball programs for the 2023 season.

• Transitional D-I member Merrimack is one of eight inaugural members of the NEC men's volleyball league.[5]
• Missouri S&T, a full member of the D-II Great Lakes Valley Conference, is competing as an independent for the time being. In the 2021–22 school year, the GLVC had five men's volleyball schools; the launch of the S&T program maintained the conference's level of men's volleyball sponsorship after Lindenwood's July 2022 departure for the Ohio Valley Conference (which sponsors volleyball only for women).[6]

Two schools that played D-I men's volleyball in 2023 are not returning for 2024. Full NEC member St. Francis Brooklyn shut down its entire athletic program,[7] and Alderson Broaddus, a D-II member that played as a National Collegiate independent, closed entirely.[8]

Six additional schools, all either current Division II members or transitioning to D-II, are adding National Collegiate programs in the near future.

• Full D-II members Dominican (NY), Roberts Wesleyan,[9] and St. Thomas Aquinas (STAC)[10] added programs for the 2024 season. All are playing men's volleyball in the East Coast Conference, full-time home of Roberts Wesleyan and STAC, which started a men's volleyball league. American International, a full D-II member which had played as an independent in 2023, also joined ECC men's volleyball.[11] Another D-II member, Alliance, had announced it would add men's volleyball and play in the ECC,[12] but closed before the start of the 2023–24 school year.[13]
• Thomas More, an NAIA men's volleyball school which started a transition to D-II in 2022–23, fully aligned with the NCAA for the 2024 season.[14]
• Full D-II member Rockhurst will add men's volleyball in the 2025 season.[15]
• Menlo, also an NAIA men's volleyball school, is planning to start a transition from the NAIA to D-II in 2023–24 and intends to fully align with the NCAA for the 2025 season.[16]

Division II does not have a separate national championship, and neither Division I nor II has a sufficient number of teams to sponsor a national championship without the other.

†Vacated due to NCAA violations

Team titles

School # Years won UCLA 20 1970, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1987, 1989, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2006, 2023 Pepperdine 5 1978, 1985, 1986, 1992, 2005 USC 4 1977, 1980, 1988, 1990 UC Irvine 2007, 2009, 2012, 2013 Ohio State 3 2011, 2016, 2017 BYU 1999, 2001, 2004 Long Beach State 1991, 2018, 2019 Penn State 2 1994, 2008 Stanford 1997, 2010 Loyola Chicago 2014, 2015 Hawai'i 2002, 2021, 2022 San Diego State 1 1973 Lewis 0 2003

San Diego State Stanford Long Beach State USC UC Irvine Pepperdine UCLA National Championships by school (California): 20, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

Hawaii Penn State Loyola Ohio State BYU National Championships by school (other states): 3, 2, 1

Source: [20]

as of end of 2023 tournament

• school indicates schools belong to Division II, school indicates schools belong to Division III. (Men's championship is for both Division I and II.)
• school indicates a school that no longer exists, but whose athletic program still exists.
• school indicates a school that no longer sponsors men's volleyball.
• School indicates they have won at least one championship.
• Other bold indicates most in respective column.

31 teams have appeared in the NCAA tournament in at least one year starting with 1970, when the tournament shifted to its current bracket format. The results for all years are shown in this table below.[20]

The code in each cell represents how far the team made it in the respective tournament:

•  CH  National Champion
•  RU  National Runner-up
•  SF  Semifinals (1970-2018, 2022-; 3rd place represents  SF* , 1970-1995)

 FF  Final Four (2019, 2021)

•  QF  Quarterfinals (2014-2016, 2018, 2019, 2021)
•  R1  First round (2018, 2019, 2021)

 OP  Opening round (2017, 2022-; second opening round represents  OP*  2022-)

Historically, California-based universities have dominated the men's volleyball national championship; Loyola Chicago, Penn State, Ohio State, BYU, and Hawaii are the only non-California universities to have won the National Collegiate championship; Lewis also won the championship tournament, but had their victory vacated due to NCAA rules violations. Only seven non-California universities have participated in the National Collegiate championship match (Loyola, BYU, Penn State, Ohio State, IPFW, Hawaii, and Lewis), although other universities such as Princeton and Ball State have participated in the final four. Only five finals have involved two non-California schools: the 2003 final, when Lewis defeated BYU but had its win vacated; the 2015 final, in which Loyola defeated Lewis; the 2016 and 2017 finals, when Ohio State defeated BYU; and the 2021 final, when Hawaii defeated BYU.

Hawaii, UCLA, Southern California, Penn State, Stanford, and Long Beach State are the only schools in Division I to have won an NCAA national championship in both men and women's volleyball. In addition, Stanford (1996–97) and Penn State (2007–08) are the only universities whose men and women's volleyball programs won the national championship in the same academic year.

•  †  Expected announcer, subject to change.

• NCAA Division III men's volleyball tournament
• NAIA Men's Volleyball Championship
• NCAA Women's Volleyball Championship
• List of NCAA men's volleyball programs
• Pre-NCAA Intercollegiate Volleyball Champions