Indianapolis, Indiana — The NCAA Beach Volleyball Committee announced today the 17-team field for the 2023 National Collegiate Beach Volleyball Championship and the No.12 ranked FIU Panthers were selected as the 13^th seed for this year's tournament. FIU will play No. 4 ranked, and 4^th seed Florida State University in the opening round on Friday, May 5 at 12 p.m. ET. The Panthers will be making their second appearance in the NCAA Championship and first since 2018. 

The field was selected from the 93 NCAA institutions sponsoring the sport of beach volleyball. Nine teams were selected as automatic qualifiers, along with eight teams selected at-large from all across the country. All 17 teams were then seeded.

Conferences receiving automatic qualification included ASUN Conference, Big West Conference, Coastal Collegiate Association Beach Volleyball, Conference USA, Ohio Valley Conference, PAC-12 Conference, Southland Conference, Sun Belt Conference and the West Coast Conference.

The opening round of the championship will be held Wednesday, May 3 with the 16 and 17 seeds vying for a matchup with the top seed. The remaining 16 seeds will face off in a single elimination bracket May 5-7. The first round will take place on May 5, the quarterfinals and semifinals on May 6 and the championship dual on May 7.

The championship will take place in Gulf Shores, Ala., hosted by the City of Gulf Shores, University of Alabama at Birmingham and Gulf Shores | Orange Beach Sports and Events.

The event will be televised live by ESPN networks, with ESPNU providing live coverage on Friday, May 5 starting at 10 a.m. ET. Live coverage will continue Saturday, May 6 on ESPN2, starting at 10 a.m. ET and the championship dual on Sunday, May 7 at 12 p.m. ET on ESPN. The seeds in order are as follows. Automatic qualifiers noted in parentheses:

1. UCLA (PAC-12)
2. TCU (CCSA)
3. Southern California
4. Florida State
5. LSU
6. LMU (CA) (WCC)
7. Grand Canyon
8. California
9. Long Beach State (Big West)
10. Stanford
11. Hawaii
12. Florida Atlantic (Conference USA)
13. FIU
14. Georgia St. (Sun Belt)
15. Stetson (ASUN)
16. UT Martin (OVC)
17. A&M-Corpus Christi (Southland)

Additionally, live streaming coverage of every court starting with Friday's duals will be available on ESPN+. For championship site dual times and more information about the championship, log on to ncaa.com/beachvolleyball.
 
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