Baton Rouge — With the season set to begin the final weekend of February, LSU Beach Volleyball Head Coach Russell Brock announced the tournament match-by-match schedule for the Tigers in their upcoming season.
LSU will open its season in New Orleans at the Tulane Invitational. The Tigers will face Tulane, University of North Alabama, Nicholls State and the University of New Orleans February 25-26.
The following weekend the Tigers will be at home at the LSU Beach Volleyball Stadium for the Tiger Beach Challenge March 4-5. LSU will face the UAB, Tusculum, University of North Alabama, Southeastern Louisiana and South Carolina.
Throughout the middle of March, the Tigers will be on the road two weekends in a row, traveling to Fort Worth, Texas and Gulf Shores, Alabama. LSU will face Southern Mississippi, Texas A&M-Kingsville and TCU at the Horned Frog Challenge in Fort Worth, March 10-11. The Tigers will face Georgia State, Mercer, Florida State and UCLA at the March to May tournament in Gulf Shores, March 17-18.
At the end of March, the Tigers will be back at in Baton Rouge for the LSU Beach Invitational. LSU will take the sand to host the University of New Orleans, Texas A&M Corpus Christi, Southern Mississippi, Washington and Florida State University March 25-26.
Heading into the beginning of April, the Tigers hit the road to Manhattan Beach, California and Tallahassee, Florida. LSU will face Loyola Marymount, Florida Atlantic, Southern Mississippi and FSU in the East Meets West Challenge in Manhattan Beach, March 31 – April 1. The Tigers will take the sand against Florida Atlantic University, Loyola Marymount University, Southern Mississippi and Florida State University at the Unconquered Invitational in Tallahassee, April 7-8.
The Tigers host Nicholls State, the University of North Florida, Houston Christian University and the University of Stanford at the LSU Beach Volleyball Stadium to conclude the regular season April 14-15 at the Battle on the Bayou.
After a week off LSU will travel to Huntsville, Alabama for the CCSA Tournament April 27-29.
The NCAA Championship tournament will feature the nation’s top 16 teams in Gulf Shores May 5-7. For the second consecutive year, the NCAA Championship will operate under a new formula. This year the format will be a 16-team, single elimination format, placing it in line with most NCAA Championship formats.
Last May, the Beach Volleyball Championship was played with a 16-team field for the first time. Eight single-elimination, first-round duels were played on the first day of the four-day event. The remaining eight teams then played the traditional double-elimination format over the final three days of the event.
Also, in 2023, the NCAA Women’s Beach Volleyball Committee will select teams on a national basis rather than be required to select a certain number of teams from each geographic region.
With the bracket expansion and the addition of automatic qualifiers, the committee determined that a national selection process should be implemented.