Volleyball Score Tie-Breaking Rules

Volleyball, in both its beach and indoor forms, is an intensely competitive game that is just as fun to watch as it is to play. Whether you're a participant or a spectator, you need to know the scoring rules in order to have a worthwhile experience. Scoring rules affect team strategy, game pace and overall tension. Furthermore, since ties often occur as points in individual sets (volleyball lingo for games or rounds) and among overall set counts, knowledge of proper tie-breaking rules is essential.

  1. Set Ties

    • According to the FIVB (the international volleyball federation), each volleyball set is played to 25. In the case of a 24-24 tie, however, the winning team must win by two. Game play continues until a team produces a two-point lead. The NCAA, USA Volleyball and National Federation rules have an identical "two points to win a set" policy.

    Match Ties

    • In FIVB play, a match is won by the team that wins three sets out of five. Should a 2-2 set tie occur, a fifth tie-breaking set is played. Rather than play to 25, the tie-breaking set ends at 15. Like regular sets, a two point lead at 15 or above is necessary to win. Ties at 14 during the tie-breaker set extends the game to at least 16 points.

      In NCAA, USA and National Federation volleyball rules, games are either decided by the first team to win three sets out of five or in some cases (such as by state association ruling in National Federation matches) two out of three sets. Like FIVB play, a deciding tie-breaking set out of 15 points is played if there's a 2-2 set tie (in best out of five matches) or a 1-1 set tie (in best out of three matches).

    Beach Volleyball

    • FIVB beach volleyball rules state that a team wins a volleyball set if they are the first to reach 21 points with at least a two-point advantage. Therefore, if there's a score tie at 20, the game continues until a team reaches 22. As for set ties, FIVB beach volleyball rules state that a beach volleyball team needs to win two sets to win the match (best out of three sets overall). If each team wins one game, a third game is played to 15 points. The winner must reach 15 with a lead of two or more. USA Beach Volleyball follows the same rules.

    Tournament Ties

    • During round robin and other non one-loss elimination tournaments, two teams may have the same overall win-loss record. Should this occur in an NCAA tournament, the two teams will play a single playoff set to determine which team advances in the tournament. The USA Volleyball rules stipulate the same procedures. Tie-breaking playoff sets are played to 25 points, with the "win by two" rule in effect.

    Regular Season Ties

    • If tournament position and participation is decided by a regular season and two potentially qualifying teams tie, different volleyball organizations have specific ways of deciding which team enters the tournament or playoffs and how tournament seeding breaks down. One common tie-breaking approach is the one adopted by the USA Volleyball. If two teams both qualify for the playoffs, but have an identical regular season record, the two teams' head-to-head record during the regular season is considered to determine tournament seeding. If the head-to-head record is also identical, the point spread of wins is then considered. According to USA rules, if two or more teams are tied, tied team(s) will play one-set, 25 point tie-breaking matches against any teams with which they are tied to decide which team advances to the playoffs.