What Gopher volleyball's road to the Final Four could look like
The NCAA volleyball tournament is underway and the No. 2-seeded Minnesota Gophers start on the road to the Final Four Friday night when they host Southeastern Louisiana at 7 p.m.
Under head coach Hugh McCutchen, who is retiring after the season, the Gophers have are a combined 17-0 in the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament.
If the Gophers beat Southeastern Louisiana, they advance to play the winner of No. 7 Florida State and Northern Iowa at 7 p.m. Saturday. If they get through that match, they'll move onto the third round where No. 3 Ohio State or No. 6 USC will likely be waiting.
Minnesota has not faced Florida State or USC, but they split their two meetings with Ohio State during the regular season, most recently winning 3-1 on Nov. 25.
Win three matches and Minnesota would reach the NCAA quarterfinals, where there is a very good chance the No. 1 Texas Longhorns would be waiting. Texas beat Minnesota in four exciting sets in Austin, Texas back on Aug. 31.
Texas has been dominant. They're 23-1 and have dropped just 11 sets all season, one to the Gophers more than three months ago.
That right there is the road to the Final Four. If the top seeds take care of business, Minnesota will have to go through Southeastern Louisiana, Florida State, Ohio State or USC and then most likely Texas.
Minnesota has been to the Final Four six times: 2003, 2004, 2009, 2015, 2016, 2019.
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.