NCAA Ladies
December 9, 2023
Simply eight groups stay, with spots within the NCAA Division I Ladies’s Volleyball Championship nationwide semifinals on the road.
There are 4 NCAA Match regional finals Saturday, all ending on ESPNU.
However solely the primary will begin on ESPNU.
That’s as a result of ESPN allotted simply two hours per match.
As if.
So the second, third and fourth matches will begin elsewhere.
They’ll should. So have a second TV/viewing system able to go.
For the reason that matches will possible — offering they don’t finish in inconceivable sweeps — endure for for much longer than two hours, ESPN informed us the possible start-viewing retailers will probably be ESPN Information and/or ESPN+.
Precisely the place will probably be decided because the day unfolds, and ESPN mentioned it would alert viewers on display screen the place to go as one match is in progress on ESPNU and the opposite begins.
That being mentioned, right here is the Saturday schedule, all instances Jap:
4 p.m. — No. 5 Louisville (27-4) vs. No. 4 Pittsburgh (28-4)
6 p.m. — No. 9 Arkansas (28-5) vs. No. 1 Nebraska (31-1)
8 p.m. — No. 6 Oregon (29-5 vs No. 3. Wisconsin (29-3)
10 p.m. — No. 7 Texas (25-4) vs. No. 2 Stanford vs. (29-3)
Traditionally
4 of the eight applications have received NCAA titles, together with defending champion Texas of the Massive 12, which has received 3 times.
The Pac-12’s Stanford, the all-time chief with 9 titles, received most lately in 2016, 2018 and 2019.
Nebraska of the Massive Ten, which has 5 crowns, final received in 2017.
The Massive Ten’s Wisconsin received its title in 2021.
Neither the ACC’s Louisville nor Kentucky, who performed one another in final 12 months’s nationwide semifinals earlier than Louisville misplaced to Texas, the SEC’s Arkansas, nor the Pac-12’s Oregon have ever received all of it.
Beforehand
Within the ACC this season, Louisville swept Pitt in Louisville on October 13 however then Pitt pulled off a 19-25, 24-26, 26-24, 25-21, 17-15 reverse sweep at house on November 18.
High-seeded Nebraska, which is 20-0 at house this season, is 3-0 all-time in opposition to Arkansas, however they haven’t performed since 2016. Click on right here to learn our October characteristic about Arkansas and the small-but-spirited crew that has captured the fascination of the school volleyball world.
Wisconsin and Oregon final performed in 2015 when the homestanding Badgers received a first-round NCAA match in 4.
Stanford went to Texas earlier this 12 months and swept the Longhorns 25-23, 25-20, 25-15. These two applications have staged some epic battles over the 12 months. Stanford leads the all-time sequence 24-10.
Click on right here for our Friday recap of the spherical of 16 and a unbelievable photograph of Jillian Gillen of Arkansas taken by Matt Smith.
The celebs are out
4 convention gamers of the 12 months stay within the event, Wisconsin’s Sarah Franklin within the Massive Ten, Stanford’s Kendall Kipp within the Pac-12, Madisen Skinner of Texas within the Massive 12 and Louisville’s Anna DeBeer within the ACC, who shared the honour with Florida State’s Audrey Koenig.
There are a lot of others, in fact, who obtained post-season honors of their respective conferences and also will possible seem on the VolleyballMag.com All-American crew that will probably be introduced Friday, December 22.
Extra good TV information
From VolleyballMag.com’s Larry Hamel:
The Nielsen rankings for Thursday gave extra excellent news for faculty volleyball. A best-case state of affairs noticed an 89.1% year-over-year progress in eyeballs watching the regional semifinals of the NCAA Match.
As reported by the Sports activities Media Watch web site, listed below are the total-average viewerships for the 5 NCAA Spherical of 16 matches that aired all through the day and evening Thursday on ESPN2:
Wisconsin-Penn State (7 p.m. Jap begin time) 297,000; Texas-Tennessee (9:09 p.m.) 289,000; Nebraska-Georgia Tech (2:37 p.m.) 279,000; Louisville-Creighton (midday) 185,000; Pitt-Washington State (3:35 p.m.) 125,000.
Not all the matches aired of their entirety. The three regional semifinals that had been telecast on ESPNU didn’t make the cutoff (100,000) on Sports activities Media Watch’s chart of the day’s sports activities reveals. The three matches with the very best audiences had been clustered at eighth, ninth and tenth on the day amongst stay sports activities occasions.
Rewinding to the spherical of 16 matches on Thursday, December 8, 2022, a total-average viewership of 157,000 for Penn State-Wisconsin, aired on ESPNU (beginning at 6:32 p.m. Jap), and was the very best reported on the each day Showbuzz High 150 cable chart. A late-night match on ESPNU between Nebraska and Oregon logged 121,000 viewers. The one match listed on ESPN2 had an viewers of 120,000.
The numbers recorded Thursday demonstrated substantial progress, persevering with a pattern that has performed out all in the course of the 2023 season.
The highest viewership on Thursday was 89.1% increased than the day’s excessive in 2022 and the bottom whole on ESPN was 5,000 increased than the one regional semifinal aired on that channel final 12 months.
Some caveats exist:
1) Extra spherical of 16 matches had been aired in 2023 on ESPN2 than had been the case in 2022 and about half had been in prime time; and a pair of) ESPN2 is accessible in much more TV households than ESPNU, a third-tier channel on many cable methods. ESPN2 presently reaches 70.2 million TV properties, whereas in December of 2022, ESPNU’s “attain” was 39.5 million households.
So year-over-year comparisons usually are not 100% apples-to-apples.