Hawaii gets the top seed in the NCAA Men’s Volleyball Tournament despite its shocking loss

CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL@STARADVERTISER.COM

Hawaii setter Jakob Thelle, middle blocker Patrick Gasman and outside hitter Colton Cowell will still get a shot at an NCAA championship even though it failed to reach the final of the Big West Tournament. UC Santa Barbara’s Ryan Wilcox, below right, will join them there after being named the conference’s tourney MVP.

Hawaii’s “blip” on Friday wasn’t enough to knock the Rainbow Warriors off the top line of the NCAA men’s volleyball tournament bracket.

Two days after absorbing their first loss of the season in the Big West tournament semifinals, Hawaii was awarded the No. 1 seed in the NCAA championship tournament as an at-large selection.

The Rainbow Warriors (15-1) are slated to depart for Columbus, Ohio, early next week and will continue their season in the national semifinals on May 6 against the winner of an opening-round match between UC Santa Barbara (15-4) and Pepperdine (13-6) at Ohio State’s Covelli Center.

“It made sense, but any time you leave those kinds of decisions up to other people you’ve taken it our of your hands,” UH coach Charlie Wade said after the bracket was revealed Sunday morning. “We’d always much rather be in control of our destiny, so there was some relief for sure.”

UH was granted one of two at-large berths, with the other going to Pepperdine of the MPSF. The Waves eliminated UCLA in the MPSF semifinals before falling to BYU (19-3), which will also advance directly to the semifinals as the No. 2 seed.

The NCAA tournament opens on May 3 with a play-in match between Penn State (21-3) and Belmont Abbey (15-7). The winner advances to face Lewis (20-2) on May 4 in another opening-round match, with BYU awaiting the survivor in the semifinals.

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UH’s semifinal match is scheduled for 11 a.m. Hawaii time on May 6. The semifinal matches will be shown online at NCAA.com. The national championship will be decided on May 8. The final is scheduled for 2 p.m. and will be shown on ESPNU.

“We met (Saturday). The team had another meeting again (Sunday) morning just doubling down on getting another opportunity to show everybody what level this team can play at,” Wade said.

“I know there was real disappointment after Friday — not just for us, but for the fans. There’s so much people wanting to see this team succeed and we really want to give them something to cheer about. So we’re thrilled we get another opportunity to get out and compete.”

Playing a schedule limited to other Big West members this season, UH went undefeated in the regular season for the first time in program history and spent most of the season at No. 1 in the NVA/AVCA DI-II Coaches Top 15 poll and the Off the Block media poll.

The Warriors were upset by No. 14 UC San Diego in five sets in the semifinals of the Big West tournament on Friday, denying them a shot at one of the five automatic bids into the NCAA tournament.

After the loss to the Tritons, who finished the season at 5-13, “I actually did not expect to get the No. 1 seed,” UH senior opposite Rado Parapunov said. “But we had a great regular season and I think the situation in terms of selecting shouldn’t fall on one game, it should fall on the whole season.”

Lenny Kaplan, athletic director at New Jersey Institute of Technology, chairs the tournament committee — which includes UH athletic director David Matlin — and said despite “the little blip at the end of the year, we did feel that wasn’t enough to take (UH) out of the (No. 1) spot.”

With few interconference matchups during the season, “the issue this year was there was very little comparable data,” Kaplan said. Some of the usual data points, such as the Rating Percentage Index, weren’t all that applicable due to the limited scheduling.

Despite the challenges, “We are very happy with the way it came out. We think it’s going to be an extremely competitive tournament,” Kaplan said.

For Parapunov and fellow seniors Patrick Gasman, Colton Cowell and Jackson Van Eekeren, next week’s trip will be their second to Columbus for a national tournament. They were freshmen on the 2017 team that defeated Penn State in five sets to advance to the semifinals before being swept by eventual national champion Ohio State.

“I’m thankful for the opportunity we have to go Ohio,” Parapunov said after the Warriors watched the selection show in a gathering at the SimpliFi Arena on Sunday morning. “That was where my first national championship was my freshman year and that’s where it’s going to end, so I’m excited to see what will happen.”

The Warriors went 3-0 against UC Santa Barbara this season, sweeping a series on March 11-13 in Isla Vista, Calif. UCSB has lost just one match since and enters the NCAA tournament on a 10-match winning streak after claiming the Big West tournament title with a four-set win over UC San Diego on Saturday at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.

UH last faced Pepperdine on the final day of the 2019 Outrigger Hotels and Resorts Invitational and swept the Waves. The teams were scheduled to meet last year in Malibu, but the match was wiped out with 2020’s midseason cancellation.

Along with seeing UCSB in conference play, Wade said he’s watched Pepperdine “a handful of times” this season.

“I think Pepperdine and Santa Barbara are pretty similar in that they are exceptional ball-control teams,” Wade said. “You’re going to be in the fight of your life every time you play one of those kinds of teams because they don’t make very many errors and they’ve got good players and play at a very high level.”