After 16 Campus Regionals, 9 Super Regionals, and now the Collegiate National Championship, the 2024 collegiate season has been completed! Just two years ago, there hadn’t been a single collegiate event—and a year from now, we’ll already be halfway through our fifth season. All the collegiate pickleball growth is due to the players and teams that show up to each tournament, bring their A-game, and continue to expand out their collegiate pickleball club at their school. 

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By the numbers, here’s how far we’ve come:

The 2025 season events have been announced, you can read more on the upcoming season here! We will be adding more campus regionals and more dual matches into the calendar to foster localized competition. Our big change in 2025 will be moving the National Championship to be at the end of the spring semester instead of the fall. This means our next Nationals will be April 11th-13th, 2025!

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Nationals Numbers 

Going into the 2025 season, our defending champions will be the Utah Tech Trailblazers from St. George, Utah! After coming close to winning the first two National Championships, they finally clinched it with their stellar performance at the 2024 Nationals. They are the only champions to not drop a single game in the semifinals and finals, beating UNC 3-0 in the semis and UVA 3-0 in the finals. Those wins were significant too, as those were the two schools that had stopped Utah Tech from becoming the champion in 2022 (UNC) and 2023 (UVA). 

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This tournament proved once again that you cannot underestimate the power of the fans in collegiate matchups. UNC and UVA brought the most players to the 2024 Nationals, and everyone in the building knew it with the cheering that occurred between each point. Those cheers powered UNC to a nailbiter win over Utah Valley in the quarterfinals, and UVA over Clemson in the semifinals. 

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With the 2025 Nationals only five months away, there were 24 bids given out at the 2024 Nationals to speed up the process. Here are the recipients of those bids based on their finish in the tournament:

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• Champion Utah Tech
• Runner-Up UVA
• Semifinals UNC
• Semifinals Clemson
• Quarterfinals FAU
• Quarterfinals Utah Valley
• Quarterfinals Indiana
• Quarterfinals NC State
• Round of 16 Texas A&M
• Round of 16 Miami (FL)
• Round of 16 Drury
• Round of 16 TCU
• Round of 16 Virginia Tech
• Round of 16 Purdue
• Round of 16 UT Austin
• Round of 16 USC
• Round of 32 Bowl Winner UT Arlington
• Round of 32 Bowl Winner FSU
• Round of 32 Bowl Winner Baylor
• Round of 32 Bowl Winner Samford
• Round of 32 Bowl Winner Mississippi State
• Round of 32 Bowl Winner UF
• Round of 32 Bowl Winner GCU
• Round of 32 Bowl Winner Michigan

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All in all, Nationals was a huge success this year! 500 players and 64 teams competing in the single elimination format made it truly electric. Fans and players were hanging onto every point, especially in our FAU vs. Clemson and UNC vs. Utah Valley Dreambreakers in the quarterfinals.

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With the 3rd season of collegiate pickleball behind us, it has become clear that they are three collegiate pickleball “blue bloods”. Schools that have been competitively dominant year after year, are very well organized, and are models for other schools to follow in both on-court and off-court success. These three schools are of course UNC, UVA, and Utah Tech. Here are some stats to show how dominant these blue bloods have been compared to the rest of the field:

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Blue Bloods

The blue blood teams have only lost to themselves at Nationals, with the exception of TCU beating UVA in group play in 2022. Since each of those schools have been to two finals, it means there are no schools that have been to a single finals, either two or zero for each school. Will these blue blood schools maintain their dominance in the 2025 season, or can any challengers (Utah Valley, FAU, Clemson, Indiana, NC State) make it to the finals?

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To see the action from the tournament yourself, check out the recording of the semifinals and finals here on the PPA YouTube channel.

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A special thanks goes to our DUPR Collegiate Pickleball partners: JOOLA, HEAD, GAMMA, Rally Republic, Osaka, No Apologies Nutrition, Erne, Pickleball Superstore, and Total Pickleball. Another thanks goes to the UPA World Championship in Dallas, TX for hosting us in this amazing tournament!

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If you haven't already, check out our CNC recaps on Instagram and follow us to stay updated!