2025 NCAA Beach Volleyball Championship
| Teams | 16 |
|---|---|
| Format | Single-elimination |
| Finals site | Gulf Place Public Beach Gulf Shores, Alabama |
| Champions | TCU (1st title) |
| Runner-up | Loyola Marymount (1st title game) |
| Winning coach | Hector Gutierrez (1st title) |
| Television | ESPN networks |
The 2025 NCAA Beach Volleyball Championship (officially the 2025 National Collegiate Beach Volleyball Championship[1]) was an intercollegiate tournament to determine the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) women's beach volleyball national champion for the 2024–25 season. The ninth edition of the tournament was held from May 2 to 4, 2025, at Gulf Place Public Beach in Gulf Shores, Alabama. The 2025 championship features a single-elimination-only bracket for the second time, along with a 16-team field. Eight of the participating schools automatically qualified by winning their respective conference tournaments, while the other eight were given at-large bids by the NCAA Women's Beach Volleyball Committee. The tournament was broadcast on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, & ESPN+.
TCU won the first national championship in its program history, taking down Loyola Marymount in the final duel, 3-2. It was also the first NCAA beach volleyball championship won by a school outside Los Angeles.
Background
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) began sponsoring women's beach volleyball as a championship sport in 2016, and the sport has since experienced rapid growth at the collegiate level, with a 500 percent increase in women's collegiate beach volleyball programs in the United States from 2011 to 2020.[2][3] The NCAA Beach Volleyball Championship is the tournament held at the end of every regular season to determine the women's national collegiate champion across all NCAA divisions.[4] It has been held annually since the inaugural 2016 event,[a] and 2025 marked its ninth edition.[5] The 2025 tournament will be held in Gulf Shores, Alabama, the same venue that hosted all eight previous championships, and was co-hosted by Gulf Shores Orange Beach Sports & Events, the city of Gulf Shores, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham.[6][b]
Popularized on the beaches of California in the 1920s, beach volleyball is a sport played by two teams on a sand court. At the professional level, teams consist of a pair of players who compete in best-of-three-set matches, where the first two sets are played to 21 points and the third set, if necessary, is played to 15 points; each set must be won by a minimum two-point lead.[8] Conversely, NCAA beach volleyball is played using a flighted team-dual format.[9] In an NCAA dual, each team fields five individual pairs who are ranked from No. 1 to No. 5 by skill level, and each pair plays a flighted best-of-three-set match against their corresponding pair on the other team.[10] The first team to win three of the five pairs' matches wins the dual.[9]
The NCAA Beach Volleyball Championship had historically been an eight-team double-elimination tournament,[11] in which all participating teams were selected by the NCAA Women's Beach Volleyball Committee.[12] However, with the growing popularity of the collegiate sport, the NCAA agreed to double the field for the 2022 championship,[11][12] adding a 16-team opening knockout round that led into the established eight-team double-elimination bracket.[13] Along with the expanded field, the qualification process introduced eight automatic bids that teams earned by winning their respective conference tournaments.[14] Further changes were adopted for 2023, with the tournament becoming a single-elimination-only event,[13] and the field expanded to 17 teams to allow for nine automatic qualifiers.[15][16] However, this year the field has shrunk to 16 teams, removing the extra play-in game.
Format and venue
The 2025 NCAA Beach Volleyball Championship is a 16-team tournament that will be held from May 2 to 4, 2025. The 16-team single-elimination bracket will begin on Friday, May 2, with the winning teams advancing to the quarterfinals and semifinals on Saturday, May 3, until a national champion was determined on Sunday, May 4.[17]
The tournament was originally supposed to be in Huntington Beach, California but due to the wildfires in the Los Angeles area in January things got moved over to the Gulf Place Public Beach in Gulf Shores in Alabama which has been set up with five playing courts and five practice courts.[6] Over the years, the playing conditions at the Gulf Shores venue have been characterized by several factors; namely the compact sand that makes it easier for players to move and jump, the strong winds,[18][19] and the possibility of rain during that time of the year.
Participating teams
Of the 103 eligible NCAA teams, a total of 16 qualified for the tournament and were seeded from No. 1 to No. 16. Eight of the teams earned automatic bids by winning their respective conference tournaments. The remaining eight bids were allocated at large by the NCAA Women's Beach Volleyball Committee. The qualifying teams and seeding order were announced by the committee on April 27, 2025.[20]
Automatic bids
The following eight teams earned automatic bids by winning their conference tournaments.
| Team | Conference | Date qualified | Win–loss record | Appearance | Last bid |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| North Florida | ASUN | April 26, 2025 | 26-10 | 2nd | 2024 |
| Long Beach State | Big West | April 26, 2025 | 27-11 | 4th | 2024 |
| FAU | CUSA | April 26, 2025 | 21-14 | 3rd | 2023 |
| Stanford | MPSF | April 26, 2025 | 31-8 | 5th | 2024 |
| Chattanooga | Ohio Valley | April 26, 2025 | 26-5 | 2nd | 2024 |
| Boise State | Southland | April 25, 2025 | 23-11 | 1st | – |
| Georgia State | Sun Belt | April 26, 2025 | 22-16 | 5th | 2024 |
| Loyola Marymount | West Coast | April 25, 2025 | 35-6 | 5th | 2024 |
At-large bids
The following eight teams were allocated at-large bids by the NCAA selection committee.
| Team | Conference | Win–loss record[21] | Appearance | Last bid |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UCLA | MPSF | 30-6 | 9th | 2024 |
| TCU | Big 12 | 28-5 | 5th | 2024 |
| USC | MPSF | 26-10 | 9th | 2024 |
| Cal Poly | Big West | 29–7 | 5th | 2024 |
| Texas | CCSA | 27–9 | 1st | – |
| Florida State | CCSA | 25-12 | 9th | 2024 |
| California | MPSF | 27-9 | 4th | 2024 |
| LSU | CCSA | 24-12 | 8th | 2024 |
Preview
From its inception in 2016 to 2024, only two teams, both from Los Angeles, had won the NCAA Beach Volleyball Championship: the USC Trojans (six titles and four-time defending champion: 2016, 2017, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024) and the UCLA Bruins (two titles: 2018 and 2019).[21] Both teams are in the running for the title once again in 2025. UCLA entered the NCAA tournament seeded No. 1 and topping the American Volleyball Coaches Association's (AVCA) rankings.[22]
Bracket
The tournament bracket goes as follows:
| First round Friday, May 2 | Quarterfinals Saturday, May 3 | Semifinals Saturday, May 3 | Finals Sunday, May 4 | ||||||||||||||||
| 1 | UCLA | 3 | |||||||||||||||||
| 16 | Chattanooga | 0 | |||||||||||||||||
| 1 | UCLA | 3 | |||||||||||||||||
| 8 | Florida State | 0 | |||||||||||||||||
| 8 | Florida State | 3 | |||||||||||||||||
| 9 | Long Beach | 1 | |||||||||||||||||
| 1 | UCLA | 2 | |||||||||||||||||
| 4 | Loyola Marymount | 3 | |||||||||||||||||
| 5 | USC | 3 | |||||||||||||||||
| 12 | North Florida | 0 | |||||||||||||||||
| 5 | USC | 1 | |||||||||||||||||
| 4 | Loyola Marymount | 3 | |||||||||||||||||
| 4 | Loyola Marymount | 3 | |||||||||||||||||
| 13 | Florida Atlantic | 0 | |||||||||||||||||
| 4 | Loyola Marymount | 2 | |||||||||||||||||
| 2 | TCU | 3 | |||||||||||||||||
| 3 | Stanford | 3 | |||||||||||||||||
| 14 | Boise State | 0 | |||||||||||||||||
| 3 | Stanford | 1 | |||||||||||||||||
| 6 | Cal Poly | 3 | |||||||||||||||||
| 6 | Cal Poly | 3 | |||||||||||||||||
| 11 | LSU | 0 | |||||||||||||||||
| 6 | Cal Poly | 1 | |||||||||||||||||
| 2 | TCU | 3 | |||||||||||||||||
| 7 | Texas | 3 | |||||||||||||||||
| 10 | California | 2 | |||||||||||||||||
| 7 | Texas | 0 | |||||||||||||||||
| 2 | TCU | 3 | |||||||||||||||||
| 2 | TCU | 3 | |||||||||||||||||
| 15 | Georgia State | 0 | |||||||||||||||||
Notes
- ^ Except in 2020 when the championship was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[5]
- ^ Before the NCAA-sanctioned championship, the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) also hosted a national championship for collegiate beach volleyball at the same Gulf Shores venue from 2012 to 2015.[7]
References
- ^ NCAA 2024b, p. 3.
- ^ Wilson, Tim; Croft, Chris; Reed, Sabrina (2021). "Promoting Intercollegiate Beach Volleyball: The Rise of the NCAA's Fasting Growing Sport". Journal of Managerial Issues. 33 (3): 274–288. ISSN 1045-3695. Retrieved April 28, 2023 – via EBSCOhost.
- ^ "NCAA Championship 'Super Nationals' Features Current and Future Professionals". Fédération Internationale de Volleyball. May 7, 2021. Archived from the original on April 26, 2023. Retrieved April 26, 2023.
- ^ "2022–23 NCAA: Division I Manual". National Collegiate Athletic Association. 2022. pp. 267, 341, 344, 346. Archived from the original on April 28, 2023. Retrieved April 29, 2023.
- ^ a b "Beach Volleyball: Championship History". National Collegiate Athletic Association. Retrieved May 3, 2023.
- ^ a b "NCAA Beach Volleyball Championship: May 5–7, 2023". Gulf Shores and Orange Beach Tourism, City of Gulf Shores. August 22, 2018. Archived from the original on May 1, 2023. Retrieved May 1, 2023.
- ^ Sharp, John (April 30, 2023). "NCAA beach volleyball championships bring prestige to Gulf Shores, but when will Alabama join party?". AL.com. Archived from the original on May 6, 2023. Retrieved May 7, 2023.
- ^ Lokegaonkar, Jay (February 6, 2023). "Beach volleyball and how it's different from indoor volleyball: All the rules you need to know". International Olympic Committee. Archived from the original on April 28, 2023. Retrieved April 28, 2023.
- ^ a b Johnson, Greg (July 20, 2016). "Alike, but Different". National Collegiate Athletic Association. Archived from the original on April 28, 2023. Retrieved April 28, 2023.
- ^ NCAA 2023a, pp. 1, 3, 5–6.
- ^ a b Mewhirter, Travis (January 6, 2022). "Format still undetermined, but NCAA Beach Volleyball Championship doubles field to 16". Volleyball Magazine. Archived from the original on April 26, 2023. Retrieved April 16, 2023.
- ^ a b Johnson, Greg (November 10, 2021). "Expansion of beach volleyball, women's ice hockey brackets approved". National Collegiate Athletic Association. Archived from the original on April 28, 2023. Retrieved April 28, 2023.
- ^ a b "Beach volleyball championship format to change in 2023". National Collegiate Athletic Association. July 15, 2022. Archived from the original on April 27, 2023. Retrieved April 28, 2023.
- ^ Feinswog, Lee (April 19, 2022). "Postseason possibilities as NCAA beach volleyball teams eye bids to Gulf Shores". Volleyball Magazine. Archived from the original on April 28, 2023. Retrieved April 28, 2023.
- ^ Fasbender, Kristin W.; Cribbs, Julie (February 6, 2023). "Memorandum" (PDF). National Collegiate Athletic Association. p. 1. Archived (PDF) from the original on April 26, 2023. Retrieved May 1, 2023.
- ^ "Report of the NCAA Division I Competition Oversight Committee" (PDF). National Collegiate Athletic Association. November 9, 2022. p. 2. Archived (PDF) from the original on April 24, 2023. Retrieved May 1, 2023.
- ^ "2025 NC Beach Volleyball Official Bracket | NCAA.com". www.ncaa.com. Retrieved April 28, 2025.
- ^ Medina, Daniella (May 5, 2021). "How LSU beach volleyball will use NCAA Championship site sand, wind to its advantage". The Daily Advertiser. Archived from the original on May 9, 2023.
- ^ Schneider, Liz (May 3, 2013). "Uncontrollable elements at sand volleyball championships call for UCLA to keep focused". Daily Bruin. Archived from the original on May 9, 2023. Retrieved May 10, 2023.
- ^ "2025 National Collegiate Beach Volleyball Championship field announced | NCAA.com". www.ncaa.com. Retrieved April 28, 2025.
- ^ a b "2024 NC beach volleyball championship field announced".
- ^ "Check out the latest polls for NCAA & high school volleyball". www.avca.org/. Retrieved April 28, 2025.
- "NCAA Beach Volleyball Rules Modifications" (PDF). National Collegiate Athletic Association. 2023a. Archived (PDF) from the original on April 25, 2023. Retrieved April 26, 2023.
- "2023 National Collegiate Beach Volleyball Championship: Participant 2022–23 Manual" (PDF). National Collegiate Athletic Association. 2023b. Archived (PDF) from the original on April 28, 2023. Retrieved May 1, 2023.