Sports by Miller

Dear Readers~     The 2025 NCAA Division 1 Indoor Volleyball national championships are underway. Last time the first-round game was covered so this time the second-round game will have its turn. For the second-round game I chose #3 Texas A&M hosting #6 TCU in College Station, Texas at the Reed Arena. The game took place on December 6th at 7pm Central Time. A few teams from this quadrant of the bracket include Kansas, Miami, Louisville, and of course, the top team in the nation, Nebraska (some refer to this as the "Nebraska Quadrant"). I did cover a previous match up back in September between TCU and A&M if you remember that game but I did cover A&M a little more recently when they were the first team to beat Texas (who is in a different quadrant for the tournament) but this will only be the second time I've covered TCU this season.      Let's take a look at how the teams did in the first round that brough them here. TCU beat SFA (Stephen F Austin) 3...

Dear Readers~     Welcome to the first blog covering the 2025 Division 1 NCAA Women's Indoor Volleyball National Championships. The bracket includes a total of 64 teams to see who can make it to Kansas City and become the 2025 National Champions. For the first round I will be covering an unranked Cal Poly (California Polytechnic, based in San Luis Obispo, California) as they played #5 BYU (Brigham Young University, based in Provo, Utah) at USC's (University of Southern California) Galen Center in Los Angeles, California on December 4th at 5pm Pacific Time. BYU is ranked #5 in their quadrant of the bracket while Cal Poly is unranked. A few teams from their quadrant you've probably heard of (some I've covered earlier in the season) include UCLA, Princeton, Creighton, Tennessee, host USC, and #2 in the nation, Kentucky (some refer to this quadrant of the bracket the "Kentucky quadrant"). This will be the first time I've covered both of these teams this season...

Dear Readers~     Last week, I covered the final regular season game for the 2025 NCAA Division 1 Women's Indoor Volleyball season. This game had Pittsburg hosting Louisville. Today I'll cover the Selection Show to see who is in the bracket for this year's national championship. 31 teams automatically qualified and a few others got chosen to join them. Just like with the NCAA beach game in the spring, some teams become conference champions and automatically make it to the national championships while others are chosen in the NCAA Selection Show. There are a total of 31 teams who win their conference and are automatically in the championships while that leaves 33 spots available for the other Division 1 teams. The bracket is made up of 64 teams divided into four quadrants of the bracket. This means in order to be the national champions, you have to win a total of 7 games once you play in your first game.     Let's start with the 31 teams who won the automatic bid by w...

Dear Readers~     This week's game of the 2025 NCAA Women's Indoor Volleyball season has #4 Pittsburg hosting #7 Louisville in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. This is the second time I've covered Pittsburg but the first time I've covered Louisville, so if you'd like to hear more about either of them during the national championships, let me know. Today's game took place at Pittsburg's Petersen Events Center on November 26th at 7pm Eastern Time. Going into this game, Louisville sits at 24-4 after coming off of 10 straight wins and only losing 6 of the 36 sets they've played in those 10 games. The last time Louisville lost a game was when they last played Pittsburg on October 19th in Louisville, losing 2-3. As for Pittsburg, they are sitting at a record of 24-4 as well after coming off of a 3-game winning streak by taking down teams like Berkeley, Syracuse, and Boston College. Their last loss was to Stanford on November 14th in Stanford as they lost 2-3. With Pit...

Dear Readers~ This week's game of the 2025 NCAA Women's Indoor Volleyball season brings us to Bloomington, Indiana as #17 Indiana hosts #1 Nebraska at the Wilkinson Hall there in Bloomington on Saturday, November 22nd. This game was the Big 10 Championship game, and the winner would automatically move on to the national championship bracket and make it in the tournament that would take place at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Missouri for the finals. Going into the game, Nebraska is 27-0 after defeating Iowa a few days prior at home in Lincoln and remains the only undefeated team in the nation after Texas lost to Texas A&M in College Station on Halloween Night. As for Indiana, their record is 22-5 after defeating Rutgers 3-0 a few days prior at home in Bloomington.     For those who haven't seen my coverage of some of the earlier games in the season, NCAA indoor games are played anywhere from 3 to 5 sets. If you win 3 sets, you've won the game but if you lose 3 ...