INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. --- The first for ODAC men's volleyball continued on Monday morning with the announcement of the Division III Men's Volleyball Championship bracket via selection show on NCAA.com. Randolph-Macon College, winners of the first ODAC title in its newest sport, will carry the league's banner onto the national stage.
Championships in Division III feature a few changes in 2024-25 starting with a bracket increase for several sports. Men's Volleyball increased from 16 squads last season to 19 this year. There are 14 automatic qualifiers from conferences -- like RMC for the ODAC -- and five at-large entries from all other remaining schools.
The method in which at-large selections were determined also changed this season. New for all Division III team sports is the NCAA Power Index (NPI). All teams in a given sport -- 121 in D-III men's volleyball -- feature a NPI rating. Those NPI ratings are ranked sequentially and form a transparent method of selecting teams at-large to Division III brackets, replacing the former process of the sport championship committees selecting teams at-large based on predetermined selection criteria. Once the 14 automatic qualifiers are known, the next five best NPI-rated teams formed the list of at-large selected programs to fill out the bracket.
Randolph-Macon (22-9) opens its NCAA tourney at Stevens Institute of Technology in one of three five-team pods. The Yellow Jacket will take on Nichols College (19-14) in the lone first round matchup of this pod. The Bison won their third straight New England Volleyball Conference (NEVC). The winner takes on the host Ducks (25-4), winners of the Middle Atlantic Conference (MAC) automatic bid. The remaining two teams in this pod are Juniata College and Wentworth Institute of Technology. The Eagles (29-4) were runners-up in the Continental Volleyball Conference (CVC), while the Leopards (26-6) won their fourth consecutive Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) trophy.
The national semifinals and championship will be hosted in ODAC country with the City of Salem and the Continental Volleyball Conference (CVC) co-hosting with Roanoke College at the Cregger Center. Matches begin on Friday, April 25 and continue on Sunday, April 27 with a possible extension of the championship date to Monday, April 28 depending on which schools qualify for the final.