National Invitational Volleyball Championship (NIVC)
2019 NIVC Bracket
Bowling Green
Bowling Green, Ohio - The Bowling Green State University volleyball team on Sunday night (Dec. 1) accepted an invitation to compete in the 2019 National Invitational Volleyball Championship (NIVC). The Falcons will host the first two rounds, facing Purdue Fort-Wayne at Thursday, Dec. 5 at 7:00 p.m at the Stroh Center. Bowling Green will also serve as the host of the Miami (Ohio) versus Texas Christian match on Dec. 5 with a 4:30 p.m. start. The winners of the two matches will play Friday, December 6 at 7:00 p.m.
This will mark the fifth time in program history that the Falcons will partake in the postseason tournament. The Falcons were runner-ups in 1992, finished third in 1993, and made a first round appearance in 2017 and in 2018. Play for this year's tournament will begin on Thursday, December 1. A full schedule can be found below.
On the year, the Falcons are 19-12 and 11-5 within the MAC. The Orange and Brown advanced as far as the MAC Championship during the tournament, being the team's first appearance since 2012.
As for Purdue Fort-Wayne, they enter having an 18-14 record on the season while having lost both regular season matches against MAC opponents, falling to Western Michigan and Eastern Michigan. In their last match, the Mastodons fell to Denver in the Summit League Semifinals.
Central Michigan
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. – The Central Michigan volleyball team is heading to the postseason.
The Chippewas, winners of 21 games during the regular season and the Co-MAC West Division Champions have accepted a bid to the 2019 National Invitational Volleyball Championship (NIVC), which was announced Sunday.
The NIVC tournament is a single-elimination event with all games played at sites of host schools. Eight teams host Rounds 1 & 2 in four team pods; with single matches in Rounds 3-5. The first round will kick off Thursday, Dec. 5, with the event culminating on Tuesday, Dec. 17 with the championship.
CMU will open the tournament on Thursday (8 p.m. ET) as they travel to South Dakota to square off with the Coyotes (27-2), who will serve as the host school for the four-team pool. UNLV (19-10) and Kansas City (17-11) will play first on Thursday at 5:30 p.m.
Miami
OXFORD, Ohio – The four-time defending Mid-American Conference champion Miami University volleyball team will participate in the postseason for the fourth straight season as the National Volleyball Invitational Championship extended a bid to the RedHawks Sunday evening. It will be the second straight year they have participated in the NIVC.
Miami has been assigned to a regional in Bowling Green, Ohio where the team just played in the MAC Tournament a little over a week ago. For the first round, the RedHawks will take on TCU at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday inside the Stroh Center. Bowling Green will take on Purdue Fort Wayne in the second match of the evening. The winners will meet in the second round on Friday at 7 p.m.
The Horned Frogs earned an at large bid with a 9-17 record and a 4-12 mark in the Big 12. They have played several top ranked teams multiple times in conference play. In their last match on Saturday they fell to Baylor, the number one team in the nation, in straight sets.
The NIVC originally existed from 1989-95 to help grow the sport among the college ranks. Miami participated in both the 1991 and 1994 editions, reaching the Final Four in 1991. The NIVC resumed in 2017 as a 32-team single elimination event as the growth of the game in recent years, warranted a secondary tournament for those who did not qualify for the NCAA Tournament.
Last season in the NIVC, Miami defeated Northern Kentucky in the first round, 3-0, before falling in straight sets to Valparaiso in the second round. It was the first postseason victory for the RedHawks since 1998.
