2014 regional rankings: Pointers rise to #1 in Midwest

The NCAA released the second of three public rankings today.

Central (Week 1 rank)1 (1). Nebraska Wesleyan 2 (2). Washington-St. Louis 3 (4). Augsburg 4 (3). St. Thomas 5 (5). Saint Benedict 6 (6). Coe

Midwest (Week 1 rank)1 (3). UW-Stevens Point 2 (1). Carthage 3 (4). Millikin 4 (2). Elmhurst 5 (5). UW-Whitewater 6 (6). UW Oshkosh 7 (7). Cornell (updated 10/30 @ 9:10 p.m.) Dropped out (?): (Maybe, perhaps, I don’t know, etc.) No. 7 Cornell.

Top three in other regions (Last week rank) Great Lakes: Hope (1); Calvin (3); Wittenberg (2). Mid-Atlantic: Christopher Newport (1); Eastern (2); Juniata (3). New England: Williams (1); Bowdoin (2); Roger Williams (3). New York: Clarkson (2); Richard Stockton (1); New Paltz St. (3). South: Emory (1); Washington and Lee (2); Hendrix (5). West: Cal Lutheran (1); La Verne (2); Pacific Lutheran (3).

Additional commentary, if any, will come later because Iway amway atway orkway.

Off the top, some Midwest Region teams must have folded their volleyball programs because the Midwest went from seven ranked teams (correct) to six (incorrect).

My predicted Central rankings this week were the same (yay!).

My Midwest order was: Carthage; UW-Stevens Point; Elmhurst; Millikin; Cornell; UW-Whitewater; Chicago.

I considered Millikin over Elmhurst and UWSP over Carthage. The CCIW pair’s results against Wheaton probably tipped the balance. UWSP over Carthage makes sense due to head-to-head, but I thought the RAC would make a wash of Carthage’s loss to Loras and wins over UWO and Wartburg. Guess not.

Sorry, Cornell. I don’t care what the NCAA says, I like your resume.

Anyone else have thoughts on this week’s rankings?

Update (10/30/14 @ 6:15 p.m.): I hope we get to see the PDF’s next week (or later this week). The Week 2 and Week 3 PDF’s are the ones that incorporate the other criteria like records against ranked teams. If we were not going to get PDF’s for a week, I’d much rather it be Week 1 than the other two.

The lack of PDF’s and the omission of a ranked team leaves a lot to be desired. The rankings were also formatted differently and different names were used for some institutions, so I’m not sure what to make of this week’s release. I know the committees don’t post the rankings, so it’s hard to blame them. I hope all of the information was collected and was just not inputted properly. The formatting and institution names are minor, but six ranked teams in the Midwest and no PDF’s are major.

Update (10/30/14 @ 9:10 p.m.): Regional rankings now have PDF’s and a seventh Midwest Region team (Cornell). However, the PDF’s are showing system errors.

Update (10/30/14 @ 11 p.m.): PDF’s are available. Chicago certainly looks like it should be ranked. I need to get used to the trend toward winning percentage.

-Ricky Nelson