NCAA volleyball tournament preview: Which teams have a tough road to Louisville?

The other three major conferences -- the Big Ten, the Big 12 and SEC -- all have had national champions. So did the former Pac-12. The closest the ACC has come is making the championship match.

The last breakthrough for the ACC could happen with this tournament, and not just because of the strength of No. 1 seed Pitt (29-1) and Louisville (25-5). Two new members of the ACC are No. 2 seeds and also in the hunt for the title: nine-time NCAA champion Stanford and SMU, the only team to defeat Pitt this season.

Nine teams from the ACC, Big Ten and SEC are in the field, with six from the Big 12. In all, 12 schools have combined to win the previous 41 NCAA women's volleyball championships, led by Stanford. Penn State and Nebraska, the other two No. 1 seeds this year, have seven and five titles, respectively.

Pitt's fortunes have soared in the past decade. The Panthers were in an eight-year NCAA tournament drought when Dan Fisher took over as coach in 2013. The Panthers now are in their ninth consecutive NCAA tournament and have advanced to the final four the past three years in a row.

Those appearances ended in the national semifinals. Pitt -- and the ACC -- want to take the last steps to winning it all. But the Big Ten's two powerhouses, Nebraska and Penn State, hope to add to that league's trophy collection. And don't count out two-time defending champion Texas, despite an 18-6 record and No. 3 seed.

The first and second rounds, which will be streamed on ESPN+, are played Thursday through Saturday on campus sites. The regionals are also on campus sites Dec. 12-15. The national semifinals are Dec. 19 and the championship match Dec. 22, both at Louisville's KFC Yum Center.

ESPN's volleyball experts break down the bracket heading into the early rounds.