The official bracket for the NCAA DI Women’s Volleyball Tournament will be announced on Sunday, Nov. 26, at 5 p.m. on ESPNU, and LSU will be one of many teams hoping for its name to be called.
Last season, the Tigers were selected to play in the tournament for the first time since 2017. After most people assumed the accomplishments would stop there, LSU responded with its first tournament win since 2014.
That was last season, though. Now, as a completely different team, the Tigers are met with the same question: do they have what it takes to make the tournament?
Before we get into it, there are a few things you need to know about qualifying for the NCAA women’s volleyball tournament.
Like most tournaments, participants will consist of automatic qualifiers and at-large selections. Thirty-two teams automatically qualify for the tournament; every team that secures a conference title is set for postseason competition.
Based on the fact that more than half of the SEC is ahead of LSU at this point in the conference race, it’s safe to assume that the Tigers won’t be receiving an automatic qualification. This leaves LSU’s destiny up to the selection committee.
The committee follows a list of criteria to determine which teams will play in the tournament, ultimately selecting 32 to give an at-large bid. Before a team can be considered for a bid, it must have a record of at least .500.
The entirety of the selection criteria is listed in Section 2-4 of the NCAA 2023-24 Pre-Championship Manual for Division I Women’s Volleyball. The following are most looked at in the decision-making process, in no particular order:
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Won-lost record
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Strength of schedule
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Student-athlete eligibility/availability for NCAA championships
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Rating Percentage Index
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Head-to-head competition
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Results versus common opponents
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Significant wins and losses
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Key Performance Indicator
With the committee’s criteria in mind, has LSU shown it deserves back-to-back selections? Here’s what we think:
Chloe Richmond | @chlorichmond
Last season, LSU was among seven out of 13 SEC teams to make the tournament after picking up a handful of ranked wins and hard-fought losses. The 2022 season showed a lot of promise for Tonya Johnson’s team, but every year is different.
The biggest threat to LSU’s tournament hopes is its final record; LSU is 10-12 with a 5-7 record against SEC opponents. While there are still six games left in the season that could push LSU to a .500 record, the road ahead isn’t going to be the nicest to the Tigers.
LSU’s final six starts at Florida. Florida has been a rocky team ever since its unfortunate setter loss, but it still remains atop of the SEC and in the top 25.
The Gators have been upset at home by unranked teams this season, but considering LSU is 4-7 in away games and 0-5 against ranked teams, it’s not very likely that the Tigers pull this one off.
The next challenge is at South Carolina. The Gamecocks are 3-10 in the SEC and were swept just a couple of weeks ago by the Tigers. There’s some light there for LSU, but then things start to heat up some more.
After facing South Carolina, LSU will host Tennessee. LSU was swept earlier this season at Tennessee and only tallied 17 points or less in every set. I would expect a similar outcome from this meeting as well.
Following the Tennessee match, LSU will pay a visit to its Tiger foe, Auburn. Auburn is 11-3 at home and is in the top half of the SEC standings. With LSU’s ninth place position and its lack of away game production, the Orange and Blue Tigers will likely top the Purple and Gold.
The last two matches of LSU’s season are both up in the air: the Tigers will host Georgia and then end their season on the road at Mississippi State. Georgia is right above LSU at eighth place in the SEC with a 6-6 record, and Mississippi State is right below in 10th place with a 4-9 record.
Regardless of the outcome in LSU’s last two matches, the preceding four just mean more. If the four games end as expected, the Tigers would be at 11-15, so the final two wouldn’t change anything for LSU’s tournament chances.
The chance would be zero.
Sure, there are a lot of factors that go into deciding which teams make the tournament, but to even be put into consideration, LSU has to have won at least half of its games. The task at hand is definitely possible, but this Tiger team doesn’t seem like the one that can do it.
Jason Willis | @JasonWillis4
LSU opened this season hoping to build off a successful first season under Tonya Johnson, and it looked as if there was no reason they shouldn’t, with star additions in Jade Demps and Jurnee Robinson and the core of the roster returning.
Instead, LSU is 10-12 with a losing record in conference play. The Tigers are 0-5 against ranked teams, with four of those losses being sweeps. Most of its conference wins are against the worst teams in the conference (Alabama, South Carolina and Mississippi State) with the only outlier being a September win against Missouri, ranked toward the middle of the conference.
Simply put, LSU hasn’t taken that step into the elite teams of the SEC that was expected. It hasn’t really even stayed pat as one of the better middle-of-the-pack teams; it’s regressed.
The offense is more talented than it was last season, but everyone outside of freshman Robinson has been inconsistent. The more pressing problem, though, is that the defense has taken a huge step backwards with the loss of back-row stalwarts Ella Larkin and Jill Bohnet. LSU has allowed the highest hitting percentage in the SEC.
LSU has its work cut out for it to make the tournament. It’s not impossible, but it won’t be easy: the Tigers have three ranked teams left on the schedule in Florida, Tennessee and Auburn.
Winning those tough games would be enough to make a statement to the committee, but impressive wins have been hard to come by this year.
NCAA’s Michella Chester projected the NCAA tournament field earlier this month, and she predicted that eight SEC teams would make the tournament. Among those teams are Missouri (7-6 in conference play), Texas A&M (7-6) and Georgia (6-6), who are not far ahead of LSU (5-7) in the conference standings.
The gap is small enough that it isn’t out of the question for LSU to jump ahead of those teams with a strong finish (although losses to A&M and Georgia won’t help its case, and its RPI ranking lags far behind those three).
The main difference, though, is that those teams have come up with ranked wins, faced tough teams and come out on top. LSU hasn’t been able to do that.
They also all had winning records out-of-conference. LSU, on the other hand, stumbled out of the gate with a 5-5 record, although some of those losses don’t look as bad in retrospect with Creighton, Northern Iowa and SMU projected to make the tournament by Chester and Southeastern Louisiana the runaway favorite to win its conference.
So, while the potential remains for LSU to make a run at the end of its schedule and slip into the tournament, it seems unlikely; the Tigers just haven’t won the big games. At this point, LSU might not even reach the threshold of a .500 record required to be considered for the tournament.
