UTEP volleyball is headed back to NCAA Tournament for second straight year
EL PASO, Texas -- The NCAA Division I Women's Volleyball Committee announced the 64-team field for the 2025 NCAA Division I Women's Volleyball Championship Sunday evening. Thirty-one conferences earned automatic qualifications, while the remaining 33 positions were filled with at-large selections to complete the bracket. Among those at-large selections is UTEP (25-4), earning the No. 6 seed and its second NCAA Tournament bid in program history.
UTEP is one of two Conference USA schools to punch their ticket to the Big Dance, joining tournament champion WKU.
The Miners will take on North Carolina in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in Madison, Wisconsin, with Wisconsin hosting the first two rounds as part of the Texas (UT) regional. The matchup is set for Thursday, December 4, at 3:30 p.m. MT / 4:30 p.m. CT.
This will mark the second all-time meeting between the Miners and the Tar Heels; the first came in 1983, when North Carolina swept UTEP on a neutral court at the Texas Centennial Open in Austin, Texas.
UTEP’s historic season continued to reach new heights as Head Coach Ben Wallis was named Conference USA Coach of the Year after guiding the Miners to their first-ever CUSA Regular-Season Championship. UTEP enters the postseason with a 25-4 overall record and an impressive 15-1 mark in conference play, securing a share of the league title and solidifying the program’s rise on the national stage. Under Wallis’ leadership, the Miners earned an RPI of 15—the best in program history—and, as of Nov. 29, sit at No. 16 heading into the NCAA Tournament.
Tournament Format
First- and second-round matches will be played December 4-6 at 16 campus sites. Teams winning both matches will continue to regional play December 11-14. Regionals for the NCAA Division I Women's Volleyball Championship will be held at four non-predetermined campus sites, which will be announced on December 6. At each site, four teams will compete in single[1]elimination regional semifinal competition.
The regional winners will advance to the national semifinals and championship final hosted by the University of Kansas and University of Missouri-Kansas City, in conjunction with the Kansas City Sports Commission, December 18 & 21 at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City. The national semifinal matches will broadcast on ESPN starting at 6:30 p.m. ET, and the championship match will broadcast on ABC at 3:30 p.m. ET.
All preliminary site match times can be found on the attached championship bracket or online at www.ncaa.com/volleyball.
