There was a time when baseball fans hollered, “Break up the Yankees.” At the time, it was an understatement to say that the Bronx Bombers were dominant.
If these anti-Yankee folks were women’s volleyball fans today they would say, “Break up the Penn State and Stanford programs.”
The first NCAA championships were held in 1981. In the 33 championships, including this season, Penn State and Stanford are the only two teams to appear in every NCAA tournament. That type of dominance makes the New York Yankees look as inept as the Chicago Cubs.
Over the past 33 seasons, Stanford has won 6 NCAA national championships and was runner-up on 8 occasions. As well, they had three undefeated conference seasons.
Since 1981, the overall winning percentage for the Cardinal fell below 65% twice. Their conference winning percentage dropped below that mark only once.
Penn State has been equally as impressive. They won 5 national championships and were runner-up on 3 occasions. They won the national championship four consecutive years (2007 – 2010) and were undefeated in two of those seasons.
As well, they were undefeated in conference play 14 times. Only once did the Penn State overall season winning percentage drop below 65%.
Sunday evening Texas was announced as the number one seed for the 2013 NCAA tournament. They are the outright favorite to defend their title.
Penn State was seeded second and Stanford was seeded seventh. If they both win their first three matches they will face off in the quarterfinals.
Here’s to an exciting NCAA tournament!