D3VbWest Final Top 25

Alright guys, we have the final AVCA Top 25 coming out tomorrow, which will put the final bow on the season. I will take my stab at the Top 25 here and it will differ a bit from what the AVCA will put out. Those voters like to reward the regional finalist regardless of how difficult the regionals were. It’s typically a good day for the New England teams although it’s not as clear cut as in past years. Still, expect Williams to get some votes. Below is my final Top 25 without some of the bells and whistles I add during the year. This is about results for the most part with an understanding that the regionals weren’t equal.

D3VbWest Top 25

1. Juniata 34-1

2. Trinity 30-5

3. Claremont-M-S 30-1

4. Northwestern 34-3

5. NYU 29-7

6. Calvin 27-4

7. Transylvania 28-6

8. Hope 24-8

9. Johns Hopkins 24-8

10. Berry 25-5

11. UW-Whitewater 27-7

12. Emory 22-7

13. WashU 30-6

14. UW-Oshkosh 31-6

15. UW-Stevens Point 26-8

16. Wittenberg 23-5

17. Gustavus Adolphus 26-5

18. Otterbein 23-6

19. Wesleyan 24-4

20. MIT 27-6

21. Carnegie Mellon 21-9

22. Millikin 23-11

23. Chicago 20-13

24. Tufts 23-6

25. Mary Washington 26-8

Dropped Out: UW-Eau Claire (17), UC Santa Cruz (18), Coe (21), Albion (23), Case Western Reserve (24)

All the credit in the world to Juniata for marching through the tournament and winning the championship. Yes, they had an easy regional but they drew a Hope team that was on fire in the Elite 8 and then had to get by Northwestern. Their sweep of Trinity was impressive if that’s all that they had done. Yes, well done.

Trinity deserves that second spot although I think if they played that CMS Regional Final 100 times, CMS would win 75% of the time or more. I guess that can be seen as a dig but it’s not. They elevated their play to an amazing level in that match and deserved the win. CMS didn’t make the Elite 8 but I think they and Juniata were the two best teams in the nation.

Rounding out the Top 5 are Northwestern and NYU. I doubt there are issues with those two teams. Calvin, Transy, Hope, Johns Hopkins and Berry fall within my Top 10. Nice late season run for Johns Hopkins and they weren’t far off from beating Northwestern.

As for the rest, I guess I could be criticized for the placement of the New England teams but there just weren’t a lot of data points in their favor. I did put Wesleyan ahead of MIT as they did sweep them earlier in the year. Yes, they crashed in their regional but you can’t throw away the entire season.

As for the teams I dropped, UW-Eau Claire faltered at the end of the year. I struggled with the UCSC loss to UT-Dallas and Coe couldn’t take a set from UWSP. Albion and CWRU probably deserved better but blame the NCAA for that.  

As a reminder, Ricky Nelson has his final Top 10 out, which you can find at his site. We have the same Top 6 teams. We have 9 of the same 10 teams with Ricky liking WashU over my choice of Berry.