AVCA Top 25 (10/24/17)

The week eight AVCA Top 25 coaches poll is out, which you can find here.

This week the top 6 remained in order as the poll saw Northwestern leave the top 10 only to be replaced by Millikin. Wittenberg retains the top spot for the sixth week in a row but again lost ground to second place Colorado College in total points going from a 46 point lead down to 29. Colorado College also picked up 8 first place votes (now at 20) from Wittenberg (now at 47). Southwestern retains the 3rd spot followed by Calvin and Trinity (Carnegie Mellon remains at 6th). The SCAC has now placed three teams in the top five for six weeks in a row.

West Region teams in the poll are Colorado College (2), Southwestern (3), Trinity (5), Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (7) and Pacific Lutheran (25). Both UTD and La Verne have dropped out of the Top 25 while Pacific Lutheran entered it for the first time this year. In “Others receiving votes”, we have La Verne (81 points), UTD (59) and UMHB (28). Despite Whittier appearing as the number 3 team in the West Regional Rankings last week, they still have not received any votes. Since a number of voters are from the West Region, I find this intriguing. This could be the difference of a resume that pushes all of the selection criteria bullet points but fails on a reputation and eye-test basis. Me personally, I certainly think the Poets belong in the back portion of the Top 25.

For those interested, I wrote a rather long post on what I think the RAC will do tomorrow and inserted it with some personal opinions, which you can find here.