Louisville volleyball will play Penn State for the first NCAA championship in program history Sunday at the KFC Yum! Center.
The Cardinals vanquished the No. 1 overall Pitt Panthers in four sets Thursday night, losing senior captain and AVCA All-American Anna DeBeer (ankle) along the way. The Nittany Lions gritted out a five-set win over the Nebraska Cornhuskers hours later. Louisville's Dani Busboom Kelly and PSU's Katie Schumacher-Cawley have made history, guaranteeing the first NCAA Division I title for a woman head coach regardless of who wins Sunday.
Eighty percent of brackets in ESPN's inaugural challenge picked one of the Final Four teams to win this year's title. But only 4.8% picked the hometown Cards.
Here are The Courier Journal staff's picks for Sunday's championship match, which is scheduled for 3 p.m. and will be broadcast on ABC:
Anna DeBeer does her best Willis Reed imitation, and the partisan U of L crowd helps take care of the rest as the Cards capture their first national title, 3-2.
Penn State will win this match, 3-2. After their national semifinal win against Nebraska, the Nittany Lions moved to 5-0 in five-setters this season. They have repeatedly proven that they are the grittiest team in the nation and win when it matters the most.
Anna DeBeer may not be able to play, but as teammate Phekran Kong said Friday, the senior captain's "always going to speak life into people." It feels predetermined that the Cards should win their first national title in their hometown. But the Nittany Lions won't go down without a fight. Louisville, 3-2.
Before the tournament started, I had Pitt defeating Nebraska in the final. I have a soft spot in my heart for both teams and expect a five-set thriller Sunday. Louisville and Penn State will need more than 15 points in the tiebreaker, but the Nittany Lions prevail, 3-2.
The national championship match for the 2024 NCAA volleyball tournament will take place on Sunday, Dec. 22 at 3 p.m. ET in Louisville, Kentucky, at the KFC Yum! Center.
This is the third time the NCAA volleyball championship match has been in the commonwealth. The last time was 12 years ago at the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, where Texas won its second NCAA title.
The first time the national championship was played in Kentucky was in 1983, when Hawaii swept UCLA at Memorial Coliseum in Lexington.
Reach college sports enterprise reporter Payton Titus at [email protected], and follow her on X @petitus25.