The NECVA Championship Tournament was the culminating event of the season for the North East Collegiate Volleyball Association , an NCAA Division III conference that only sponsored men's volleyball . The tournament was held annually in April, and its location was selected by the NECVA Executive Board from a pool of hosting bids. By the time of its final edition in 2011, the tournament featured 16 of the conference's 43 member schools—the top two in each of five divisions (CUNYAC, GNAC, Metro, New England, and Western), plus six at-large selections. The NECVA champion tournament received one of four automatic bids to the Molten Division III Final Four later in April.
5-463: The NECVA chose to disband at the end of the 2011 season after the NCAA announced it would begin sponsoring an official Division III men's championship in 2012. As Metro 1995-97; NECVA 1998 to 2011 ∗ Denotes program discontinued ∗Note: Lehman College won the championship; title was later vacated; NCAA Division III men%27s volleyball tournament The NCAA Division III men's volleyball tournament
10-560: A Division III championship was first floated by several figures in the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association in the late 1980s, but was long dormant because of NCAA participation rules—50 schools must sponsor a sport before a national championship tournament can be officially sanctioned. The main impetus for growth in Division III volleyball had been an unofficial D-III championship tournament known as
15-635: Is a championship event officially sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the main governing body for U.S. college sports . Open only to schools in Division III of the NCAA, a group of schools that are not allowed to award athletic scholarships , the championship was established in 2012. The tournament would be followed as the newest NCAA championship event by a single all-divisions championship in women's beach volleyball which began in 2016. The idea of
20-608: The Molten Invitational , started in 1997. In 2010, the required number of programs was reached, leading to the creation of the D-III championship. The Division III championship began in 2012 with nine teams and has steadily expanded with the growth of D-III men's volleyball. The most recent expansion came for the 2019 season, with the field going from 12 to 14 teams. This differs from the top-level NCAA Men's National Collegiate Volleyball Championship , which involved four teams through
25-545: The 2013 tournament and expanded to six teams for 2014 and seven for 2018. Like the National Collegiate Championship, the Division III championship is a knockout tournament, with best-of-5-set matches. The current tournament format features six first-round matches, with the winners joining the top two seeds in the quarterfinals. The tournament was not held in 2020 due to COVID-19 , and with a significant number of schools opting out of competition in 2021 due to
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