Arizona volleyball snubbed by NCAA selection committee, will play in NIVC

Coming into Sunday, it had been six long years since the Arizona Wildcats last heard their name called by the NCAA volleyball selection committee.

It will be at least seven.

The selection committee announced the NCAA Volleyball Tournament field on Sunday afternoon. Arizona was left out of the field yet again.

“It hurts,” said Arizona head coach Rita Stubbs. “You sit there and you watch and you wait and you wait, but like I said, this should make us hungry for everything going forward and understanding how important every match is.”

UA will play in the NIVC. The program has put in to host the first two rounds. It last played in the secondary tournament in the fall of 2021, losing to champion UNLV in the second round.

“We have too many young kids not to play in it,” Stubbs said.

There were reasons to believe the Wildcats would end their drought. A 20-win season and a .500 record in a league that was tied with the ACC for the second-most top 25 RPI teams in the country.

Arizona played nine matches against teams in the top 20 of the RPI and won two of those matches. Those marks were as good or better than several ACC and SEC teams that finished above them in RPI and made the field.

In the ACC, No. 25 Georgia Tech went 2-6 against top 25 teams. No. 28 Florida State was 1-6 against the top 25. NC State finished at No. 35 despite being 1-7 in those games and losing three to teams outside the top 100. They snuck in on the back of beating SMU the day before the field was announced.

In the SEC, Mizzou came in at No. 23 with a 1-6 record against the top 25. Like Arizona, the Tigers lost one game to a team outside the top 100. The Wildcats dropped one to No. 108 K-State while the Tigers lost to No. 138 Mississippi State.

Florida finished 24^th despite playing just five games against the top 25 teams. Like Arizona, they won two of their top 25 matchups. They just didn’t have to play as many.

Both No. 32 Oklahoma and No. 33 Tennessee went 1-6 against the top 25 teams. Oklahoma also dropped a match against a team outside the top 100 and won just 14 matches yet earned a No. 8 seed.

Arizona saw South Carolina (16 wins and 44 RPI), Washington (19 wins and 45 RPI), and Ole Miss (17 wins and 46 RPI) all make the tournament.

“When I saw South Carolina, that was the other team that made me go, ‘Yeah, not looking good,’” Stubbs said. “And so essentially, they rewarded the SEC for being tougher than the Big 12. That’s when we look at it that way. That’s what you see. Because we got our six teams in. Our seventh team did not get in, which would have been us.”

One prominent member of the online volleyball community took to X (Twitter) to point out other egregious cases, including South Dakota State.

Stubbs knew as it was unfolding that things didn’t look good.

“When they said UTEP and South Dakota State, I knew it,” she said.

Playing those strong teams in the Big 12 didn’t help Arizona as much as it needed. The Wildcats needed to overcome something that some of the teams above them didn’t. They played far too many bad teams, especially in nonconference.

“According to Dave (Rubio), it was like he was saying that if there’s anything, it’ll be the preseason teams that we played,” Stubbs said. “So…that’s probably it. I mean, to finish where we finished in the conference. Probably the loss to Colorado didn’t help and K-State.”

UA faced 17 teams ranked outside the top 100. Ten of its 11 nonconference opponents fell on that list. Of those 10 teams, six of them were outside the top 250. The four SEC teams each played between five and eight teams outside the top 100.

Arizona ended with the 71^st-ranked strength of schedule according to KPI. The Massey Ratings ranked it No. 63. In the end, that just wasn’t enough for the committee.

The NIVC is some consolation.

“It means that we get an opportunity to put ourselves in the position to be the 65th best team,” Stubbs said. “It’s like every match we play, walk in saying, ‘Hey, we were overlooked.’ I’m not going to question anyone’s decision-making at the end of the day, because, like I said, I don’t know the ins and outs of all of it the way many people do, but the key is to win as much as you can and play the right competition along the way. I thought that we did what we were supposed to do, and I’m just assuming we did it too late.”

Lead photo by Madison Farwell / Arizona Athletics