MVC team favored to win national championship tonight

[Da Coach]

Wichita State did the MVC proud by advancing to the Final Four last year, and the Sweet 16 this season.
But there is one MVC team that is actually the favorite to win an NCAA National Championship today.
The Loyola men's volleyball team (28-1) is hosting the NCAA Men's Volleyball national tournament finals at the newly remodeled Gentile Arena. They were the #1 seed going into the tournament. They struggled to beat Penn State in 5 games in the semifinal round last night to advance to the championship match in front of a crowd of 4,435. Penn State is one of the best men's volleyball programs in the country (they have been to the finals 16 years in a row).
The championship match will be Loyola vs. Stanford, and it will be televised live tonight at 8:00 PM on ESPNU.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/college/ct-loyola-volleyball-spt-0502-20140502,0,5330218.story

More stories-

http://www.ncaa.com/sports/volleyball-men/nc

Bracket

http://www.ncaa.com/interactive-bracket/volleyball-men/nc

[tornado]

wow - who'd a thunk that when Loyola jpoined the MVC they would be "competing for championships" and "playing for the championship experience" long before the rest of the Valley teams who have been here for decades!

[bradleyfan124]

Go Loyola! Anytime a Missouri Valley team can win anything on a National scale it should be played up

[Da Coach]

Incidentally, one other Illinois school has won the NCAA Volleyball championship in the past. Lewis University has been a national volleyball powerhouse for a long time. They won the 2003 National Championship, the only Division II school to ever do it. However, they later gave the title back when it was found that some of their players had eligibility issues.

http://www.cstv.com/sports/m-volley/stories/102004aab.html

[tornado]

Loyola WINS the National Championship in Men's Volleyball -

http://espn.go.com/chicago/college-sports/story/_/id/10879772/top-seeded-loyola-chicago-wins-ncaa-men-volleyball-title

wow - only FIVE of the past 45 VB National Championships have been won by schools east of the Rockies....the California schools have dominated!

Of those five - one was vacated as noted above by Da Coach - the other three were Big Ten schools (Ohio State & Penn State x 2)

[bradleyfan124]

Congratulations to Loyola! The Missouri Valley office should play this up big

[Da Coach]

Congratulations to Loyola! The Missouri Valley office should play this up big

You would think so, but here is the league site, and there is not even a single word about it-

http://www.mvc-sports.com/

Too bad. But it is because the MVC does not actually sponsor men's volleyball. Loyola is the only MVC school that competes in men's volleyball (all 10 schools compete in women's volleyball- so much for fairness and equality), but they compete in a different conference, the MIVA (Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association).

http://www.mivavolleyball.com/landing/index

2 of the MIVA schools (Loyola and Lewis) made it to the 6-team NCAA national tournament, along with Erskin, Stanford, BYU, and Penn State.

[tornado]

Fast forward to May 2015...

Loyola (Chicago) wins 2nd consecutive NCAA Division I NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP in Men's Volleyball...
Amazing - a sport that's been dominated for decades by west coast schools...

http://www.loyolaramblers.com/sports/m-volley/recaps/051015aaa.html

[tornado]

After winning TWO CONSECUTIVE National Championships with Loyola's Men's Volleyball,
their Men's VB coach Shane Davis is leaving and will take the Women's VB head coaching spot at Northwestern.

http://www.insidenu.com/2015/12/28/10680210/northwestern-volleyball-head-coach-shane-davis