Stars and hype on the rise as the NCAA volleyball tournament reaches the Final Four

In the booming world of NCAA volleyball, it's Final Four time.

The championship tournament semifinals are Thursday, with Texas A&M facing Pittsburgh and Wisconsin against Kentucky and the winners advancing to Sunday's championship match. The Aggies and Badgers knocked off No. 1 seeds Nebraska and Texas over the weekend, adding even more buzz to an event that has become one of the most palpable markers of the sport's explosive growth.

Last year, the championship game had 1.3 million viewers to its live broadcast. It has set a new attendance record each year since 2019 (with the exception of the 2020 pandemic year) and reached over 287,000 in overall attendance.

''What I have really seen in probably the last 4-5 years with the volleyball championship is it's becoming more of an event,'' said Kristin Fasbender, the director of championships and alliances for the NCAA. ''Fans are buying their tickets early regardless of who is going to be there. And that, to me, is when you start to really see the excitement and growth of a championship.''

This year, the national championship will air live on ABC for the third year in a row, with regionals and semifinals shown across ABC, ESPN and ESPN2.

''It's just a really fun and exciting time to be part of the sport,'' said Cari Spears, a freshman standout for the Longhorns.

Spears is the daughter of former WNBA player Aiysha Spears (nee Smith) and former NFL player Marcus Spears. That has made her part of a growing number of daughters of former professional athletes playing volleyball at the collegiate level and beyond. There's Penn State's Alexa Ewing, daughter of former NBA player Patrick Ewing, Stanford's Sidney Duncan, daughter of former NBA player Tim Duncan, and Penn State's Ava and Caroline Jurevicius, daughters of former NFL player Joe Jurevicius.

''My parents never put any pressure on me to play sports or pick a certain sport or anything like that,'' Spears said. ''But they did always say if you do play a sport, they want us to try and do it to become really good at it, not just to do it.''

She said one of the most fun parts of starting her collegiate volleyball career this year has been seeing how much her dad has gotten into it: ''He was in a full burnt orange outfit at our last game,'' she said with a laugh.

As more stars continue to develop in NCAA volleyball — from famous families or not — the NCAA is looking forward to further growth.

''We continue to watch these buildings get fuller and more people coming to watch these amazing student athletes play,'' said Fasbender. ''And that's really exciting to me.''

___