11/4: Take a knee before Championship Week

Once again, no Central, Midwest or top 25 teams play today. In fact if you’re looking for a D-III volleyball match tonight, you’ll have to watch the Commonwealth Conference play-in between Lycoming and E’town. Edit: It looks like Caltech plays tonight too. There may be others.

Championship Week picks up tomorrow, of course, and doesn’t stop until Sunday afternoon. Here is what we have to look forward to. Tuesday: NCAA stats report, AVCA poll, matches Wednesday: Matches Thursday: Final public regional rankings, matches Friday-Sunday: More matches Sunday evening: My predicted field of 64 Monday morning: The online selection show, which I will probably miss again this year because of my day job getting in the way.

This week I’ll also be prepping my 2013 Regional Guides and improving the links on the Conference Tourneys page. If you have never seen one of my Regional Guides, check out this one and this one from 2011. The vagaries of the Internet swallowed the 2012 Regional and National guides into some cruel abyss. The links to those Guides are no longer on the right rail because of it. I wish I knew what happened.

Anyway, I create a Regional Guide for any regional in which a Central or Midwest Region team plays. The 2013 versions will be similar to the ones from 2011 but improved slightly.

Some pages that should help you enjoy the sheer volume of matches during Championship Week. Conference Tourneys (yes, again) All D-III Teams, ConferencesStandings, MatchupsStandout Stats

I’ll also have nightly posts like I do every other night of the season.

-Ricky Nelson