NCAA TOURNAMENT BRACKET (PDF)
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – On Sunday night, The No. 18 Fighting Illini volleyball team earned a berth into the 2015 NCAA Tournament and will be making their 23rd appearance in program history when they travel to Louisville, Ky., to face Southern Illinois in the first round of the tournament.
The Illini (19-12, 10-10 B1G) will meet the Salukis (23-9, 14-4 Missouri Valley Conference), who are making their first-ever appearance in the NCAA Tournament, at 4 p.m. CT in Cardinal Arena on Friday (Dec. 4).
Belmont (17-14, 11-5 Ohio Valley Conference), which won the OVC Tournament and earned the league's automatic bid, will take on No. 15 overall seed Louisville (24-6, 18-2 Atlantic Coast Conference), who earned a share of the conference title, in the other first round matchup at 6 p.m. CT.
The winners of the two matches will play at 6 p.m. CT on Saturday (Dec. 5). The four teams will be playing for a chance to advance to the Des Moines, Iowa Regional in Wells Fargo Arena on Dec. 11-12.
Illinois holds a 18-12 advantage in the all-time record with SIU, including a 3-0 win over the Salukis in the two teams' most recent meeting a season ago in the 2014 Illini Classic.
"I don't feel like we have come close [to our peak performance]," said head coach Kevin Hambly. "I think we've played some matches that were really good, but we haven't had that consistent level that we need to play, that's been a real frustration of ours. Otherwise if we did, I think we'd be hosting again. We did this to ourselves by not playing consistently and I'm hoping we find it. We have one more week to work and I think now we have something to play for. It was hard when you know you're not playing for a Big Ten title or you're probably not going to get a seed. It's hard to stay motivated because you're just playing and we felt like we were in already. I'm hoping this helps to motivate a little bit and it helps sharpen the knife, so we can go out and attack these guys."
The Illini are making their seventh postseason appearance in the last 10 seasons and is 36-21 all-time in postseason play.
The Big Ten led all conferences with nine teams earning bids to this season's tournament, followed by the Pac-12 with seven and the Big 12 Conference with five. Joining the Illini from the Big Ten are No. 2 Minnesota, No. 4 Nebraska, No. 6 Wisconsin, No. 7 Penn State, No. 12 Ohio State, Purdue, Michigan and Michigan State. Six teams are making their first appearance in the NCAA Tournament, including UI's first round opponent Southern Illinois as well as Harvard, Howard, UNC-Wilmington, SMU and Texas A&M-CC.
The top 16 teams earned national seeds with Southern California earning the No. 1 overall seed, with the Gophers, Texas and the Huskers rounding out the top four seeds.
Ticket information for the first and second rounds in Louisville will be posted as soon as it becomes available.
For more Fighting Illini volleyball news, stay tuned to FIGHTINGILLINI.com and follow the team on Twitter @IlliniVBall or like Fighting Illini Volleyball on Facebook.
