The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) is a college athletics association for small colleges and universities in North America. For the 2021–22 season, it has 252 member institutions, of which two are in British Columbia, one in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the rest in the conterminous United States. The NAIA, whose headquarters is in Kansas City, Missouri, sponsors 27 national championships. The CBS Sports Network, formerly called CSTV, serves as the national media outlet for the NAIA. In 2014, ESPNU began carrying the NAIA Football National Championship.
The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Men's Basketball National Championship has been held annually since 1937. The tournament was established by James Naismith to crown a national champion for smaller colleges and universities. Through the 2019–20 season, the NAIA Tournament featured 32 teams, and the entire tournament was contested at one location in one week, rather than multiple locations over a series of weekends. Beginning with the 2021 edition, the tournament expanded to 48 teams, starting with play at 16 regional sites, with only the winners at these sites playing at the final venue. The 2022 tournament expanded again to 64 teams. From 1992 to 2020, the NAIA sponsored a Division II championship. The Division I tournament is played in Kansas City, Missouri, while in 2020, the Division II tournament was to be held for the last time at the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; however, the tournaments were called off due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The NAIA returned to a one-division setup in 2021.
Houston Baptist University (HBU) is a private Baptist university in Sharpstown, Houston, Texas. The university was founded in 1960. Its Cultural Arts Center houses three museums: the Dunham Bible Museum, the Museum of American Architecture and Decorative Arts, and the Museum of Southern History.
Park University is a private university in Parkville, Missouri. It was founded in 1875. In the fall of 2017, Park had an enrollment of 11,457 students.
The 1992 National Invitation Tournament was the 1992 edition of the annual NCAA college basketball competition.
The NAIA Women's Volleyball National Championship is the annual tournament to determine the national champions of NAIA women's collegiate indoor volleyball in the United States and Canada. It has been held annually since 1980.
The Northern Illinois Huskies are the athletic teams that represent Northern Illinois University (NIU). The Huskies are a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I and the Mid-American Conference (MAC). The athletic program is made up of seven men's sports and 10 women's sports. The football team competes in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS).
The Charleston Cougars are the varsity intercollegiate athletic teams representing the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina. The Cougars compete in NCAA Division I and are currently members of the Colonial Athletic Association. The university sponsors 20 varsity sports teams including men and women's basketball, cross country, golf, soccer and tennis; women's-only dance team, equestrian, beach volleyball, softball, track and field and volleyball; men's-only baseball; and co-ed sailing and cheerleading. The university's most successful sports are co-ed sailing, which has won 14 national championships since 1986, women's volleyball, which has qualified for the NCAA Tournament seven times since 2002 and men's baseball, which has qualified for the NCAA Tournament seven times since 2004.
The 2008 National Invitation Tournament was a single-elimination tournament of 32 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I teams that did not participate in the 2008 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament. The 71st annual tournament began on March 18 on campus sites and ended on April 3 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Each regular season conference champion that did not receive a bid to the NCAA Tournament received an automatic bid to this tournament. The remaining slots were filled by the NIT Selection Committee. The first, second, and third rounds were played on the higher seeded team's home court, with the semi-finals and finals played at Madison Square Garden.
The Lindenwood Lions and Lady Lions are the intercollegiate athletic teams of Lindenwood University, located in St. Charles, Missouri. The school is primarily a member of the NCAA Division II Great Lakes Valley Conference, although women's ice hockey and gymnastics and men's volleyball compete in NCAA Division I. On February 23, 2022, Lindenwood announced it would transition to NCAA Division I and join the Ohio Valley Conference effective July 1, 2022.
The UNC Asheville Bulldogs are the athletic teams that represent the University of North Carolina at Asheville (UNCA). They participate in Division I of the NCAA and are a member of the Big South Conference. UNCA fields varsity teams in 12 sports, 6 for men and 6 for women.
The NCAA Division III Men's Volleyball Tournament 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 NCAA Division I Women's Volleyball Tournament is an annual event that leads to the championship in women's volleyball from teams in Division I contested by the NCAA each winter since 1981. Wisconsin won the most recent tournament, defeating Nebraska 3–2 at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio.
The NCAA Division III Women's Volleyball Tournament is the annual event that decides the championships in women's volleyball from teams in Division III contested by the NCAA each winter since 1981 except in 2020, when all D-III championship events were canceled due to COVID-19.
The Texas–Rio Grande Valley Vaqueros is a collegiate athletic program that represents the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV). The Vaqueros inherited the NCAA Division I status of the Texas–Pan American Broncs and compete in the Western Athletic Conference.
The NCAA Beach Volleyball Championship is an NCAA-sanctioned tournament to determine the national champions of collegiate women's beach volleyball. It is a National Collegiate Championship featuring teams from Division I, Division II and Division III, and is the 90th, and newest, NCAA championship event. It was the first new NCAA championship to be created since the NCAA Division III Men's Volleyball Championship in 2012, and the first for women since the NCAA Bowling Championship in 2004.
Nada Meawad is an Egyptian indoor and beach volleyball player, a member of the Egypt women's national volleyball team. She made her international debut when she was 15 years old on the 2013 FIVB Volleyball Girls' U18 World Championship in Thailand. She started playing in El Shams Club at the age of five years old. Nada Meawad and her teammate Doaa Elghobashy were the first ever African team to take part in the FIVB beach volleyball Olympic Games in 2016. She is a Five-time AVCA First Team All-American and Three-time NAIA Player of the Year 2018, 2020 and 2021 while playing college volleyball at Park University.
The Embry–Riddle Eagles are the athletic teams that represent Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University, located in Daytona Beach, in Division II intercollegiate sports of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA); primarily competing in the Sunshine State Conference since the 2015–16 academic year as a provisional member. Embry–Riddle men's and women's track and field teams compete in the Peach Belt Conference as associate members. Prior to joining the SSC, the Eagles previously competed in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) as founding members of the Sun Conference from 1990–91 to 2014–15.
The Missouri Baptist Spartans are the athletic teams for Missouri Baptist University, located in St. Louis, Missouri. The Spartans primarily compete in the American Midwest Conference (AMC) of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). Missouri Baptist currently sponsors 27 sports: 12 men's, 13 women's, and 2 co-ed.
The NAIA Men's Volleyball Championship is an annual tournament hosted by the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics to determine the national champion of collegiate men's volleyball among its members in the United States.
