After winning the Big Ten outright for an unprecedented fourth consecutive year, the Penn State women's volleyball team earned the No. 3 overall seed in the 64-team NCAA Tournament and will host Long Island in the first round at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Rec Hall.
Should they win, the Nittany Lions will play Cornell or Hofstra in the second round at 7 p.m. Saturday, also at Rec Hall.
The Lions are the top seed in the Seattle regional. If the rankings hold, they will meet No. 6 Washington in the Elite Eight.
Nebraska is No. 1 overall and top seed in the Gainesville regional. No. 2 Stanford is the top seed in the Austin regional, and No. 4 UCLA is the top seed in the Honolulu regional.
Penn State has been a top regional seed before, most recently last year after an undefeated Big Ten season. But despite their recent regular-season success, the Lions have not made a regional final since 2003. They lost to Tennessee in the Round of 16 at home last year and UCLA in the same round in 2004.
"The pattern in our postseason losses has been that we haven't really controlled things on our side of the net," senior Cassy Salyer said. "Errors, missed serves -- those are things that we're struggling with right now which is why this week of practice is so important."
Penn State (29-2, 18-2 Big Ten) won the conference by one match over Minnesota (23-7, 17-3) who they defeated in five games on Oct. 28 in Minneapolis. The Gophers are the No. 8 seed and one of seven Big Ten teams in the tournament.
Third-place Wisconsin is seeded No. 10, Ohio State is No. 11 and Purdue is No. 14. Michigan and Michigan State also received bids, but are unranked.
"Hopefully we'll have a lot of teams from the Big Ten conference competing in the NCAAs," Penn State head coach Russ Rose said before the bracket was revealed.
"There's an appearance some other conferences are just really good at the top and their top three of four teams are great, and the Big Ten's not any good because we win. I don't think they understand how good Ohio State, Wisconsin and Minnesota were when we played them, especially at their places."
Penn State last made the Final Four in 1999, when it defeated Pacific and then Stanford to win its first National Championship.
"The way you can end a season is very much in your own control," Salyer said. "It's not always who's on the other side of the net. If we're going to go and advance and do better than we have in the past then that has to be the main focus."
