The results are in and the bracket is set for the 2006 NCAA volleyball tournament, which begins next weekend. The No. 10 Wisconsin volleyball team (16-4 Big Ten, 24-6 overall) was placed in the Austin, Texas bracket and received the opportunity to host the first and second rounds. The Badgers' third-place finish in the Big Ten conference—which features five American Volleyball Coaches Association top 25 teams—likely contributed to their high seed in the tournament.
""It's a pretty good bracket; we like it and we're glad we're hosting,"" UW head coach Pete Waite said Sunday. ""The team really cranks it up for the tournament and they're ready to make a great run.""
Wisconsin's first match in the tournament will come against Notre Dame (18-13) at 7 p.m. Friday in the UW Field House. The Fighting Irish lost several seniors to graduation from a team that finished No. 12 in the AVCA polls last year, but have nonetheless put together a solid season worthy of a tournament bid and a third place finish in the Big East. This is the second year in a row where the two teams will meet during the NCAA tournament, as the Fighting Irish fell to the Badgers 3-2 in the third round last year.
With a win against Notre Dame, Wisconsin would move on to face the winner of the other first round game to be played in the UW Field House Friday, UW-Milwaukee versus Iowa State. Both are familiar foes for the Badgers, as they swept UW-Milwaukee in the 2006 Panther Invitational earlier this year and met Iowa State in an exhibition match earlier this spring. Iowa State also happens to be led by head coach Christy Johnson, a former UW assistant coach.
""I kind of guessed a couple of those teams,"" Waite said of the competition for the first two rounds of the tournament. ""UW-Milwaukee I kind of predicted to come and I was thinking Iowa State would either come us or Minnesota and since Minnesota was on the road, it was just meant to be that Christy Johnson would come back here with her team and we'd see Iowa State.""
Should the Badgers come out of next weekend with a pair of wins, they would travel down to Austin, for the next level of play. Barring a major upset, Wisconsin would likely battle Texas for a bid to the Elite Eight. The Longhorns are yet another team that the Badgers are familiar with, as the two teams played in the first game of the season this year at the 2006 AVCA Showcase—a game that ended with a 3-0 Texas victory.
""The fact that we played Texas earlier this year—we have a read on them—we have some information on them,"" Waite said. ""We know that we didn't play that well against them and we feel that we have improved a lot since then. It was one of those things that was meant to be that we would see someone that we've seen already.""
Wisconsin will be looking to finally move beyond the Elite Eight and into the Final Four. It has come up short in the past two years, losing in the Elite Eight to eventual national champions Stanford in 2004 and Washington in 2005.
—uwbadgers.com contributed to this report
