D3VBWest Rankings (9/3/18)

Last year in this space I would give you my ranking of the West Region teams, which I will do again this year. As a bonus, I will also include a Top 25 each week. Following the rankings below, I’ll add some of my patented insightful nonsense.

D3VBWest Top 25 (9/3/18)

My rank, (my Preseason rank, AVCA rank), record, key results last week1 (3, 3). Colorado College 4-0 W: St. Thomas. 2 (5, 2). Calvin 3-0 W: Stevens, Ithaca, Juniata. 3 (4, 4). Wittenberg 3-0 W: Otterbein. 4 (21, 11). Trinity 4-0 W: G. Adolphus, UWSP, Aurora. 5 (NR, NR). Hope 3-0 W: Berry, WUSTL. 6 (8, 22). Pacific Lutheran 4-0 W: Oshkosh, Millikin. 7 (NR, NR). Cal Lutheran 4-0 W: JWU (RI), Carthage. 8 (6, 6). Johnson & Wales (RI) 3-1 W: CMS; L: Cal Lutheran 9 (NR, NR). UT-Tyler 4-0 W: IWU, St. Benedict. 10 (17, 13). Illinois Wesleyan 2-1 W: Emory, Whittier; L: UT-Tyler 11 (1, 5). Emory 2-1 W: Whittier; L: IWU 12 (9, 7). Gustavus Adolphus 3-1 W: UWSP, Aurora; L: Trinity. 13 (12, NR). UT-Dallas 2-0 W: None. 14 (13, NR). Chicago 4-0 W: Cornell. 15 (14, NR). UW-Eau Claire 4-0 W: None. 16 (16, 25). Berry 2-1 W: WUSTL; L: Hope. 17 (25, NR). Thomas More 4-0 W: Ohio Northern, Carnegie Mellon. 18 (10, 19). Ohio Northern 3-1 W: Carnegie Mellon; L: Thomas More. 19 (24, 8). Ithaca 2-1 W: Stevens, Juniata; L; Calvin. 20 (19, NR). Mary Hardin-Baylor 2-0 W: None. 21 (11, 1). Claremont-Mudd-Scripps 3-1 W: Carthage; L: JWU (RI). 22 (7, 17). Juniata 1-2 W: Stevens; L: Calvin, Ithaca. 23 (2, 10). Washington (Mo.) 1-2 W: None; L: Berry, Hope. 24 (NR, NR). Wesleyan 0-0 W: None. 25 (NR, NR). Muhlenberg 3-1 W: Chris Newport, Stevenson; L: Mary Washington. Dropped out: Aurora [15], UW-Oshkosh [18], Chris Newport [20], DePauw [22] and Southwestern [23].

First off, I’m not married to my preseason rankings. Those were the ramblings of a mad man with too little sleep. But, seriously, why does any preseason poll have any weight in any sport after the first game is played? Just plain silliness.

Second, I really don’t care if a DIII school is moving out of division NEXT year. They are eligible for my poll. So, say hello to UT-Tyler who not only shows up in the ranking but is in the Top 10. Too high? Probably, but I can’t move them behind IWU and Emory and how low do I place them?

Looking at the teams that dropped out, I still like Aurora more than the others right now. I almost kept Chris Newport but with their loss to Muhlenberg (a sweep no less), I just couldn’t do it.

Hope leads the new teams into my rankings after an impressive weekend. Cal Lutheran also jumps into the Top 10 after taking down two AVCA Top 25 teams. Then there is UT-Tyler and Muhlenberg (I’ve already talked about both). Finally, I put Wesleyan in although they haven’t played, yet. I had them just missing when I did the preseason poll. Others that got consideration were St. Thomas, Mary Washington, MIT and Carthage (they looked really good this weekend although they finished 2-2).

As for my West Region Rankings, here you go:

West Region Top 8 (9/3/18)

1. Colorado College

2. Trinity

3. Pacific Lutheran

4. Cal Lutheran

5. UT-Dallas

6. UMHB

7. CMS

8. Chapman

What no UT-Tyler? Well, I will use this ranking to mimic the West Region RAC and UT-Tyler is not eligible for that process since they are not eligible for the tournament.

Colorado College is a pretty iron clad lock at number 1 right now. I got to watch a bit of their matches and they look ready. The Tigers are an experienced team that made it to the final in the toughest regional last year and anything less this year will be a huge failure. Trinity also looked really good when I was able to peek into their matches. Strong weekend moves them ahead of Pac Lu. I didn’t get to see Pacific Lutheran play but I’ll be watching that Colorado College match this weekend. I’m on the Lutes band wagon right now. Heck, I’m the driver. Get on before it’s too late. Cal Lutheran is a surprise at four but they had a great weekend and took down JWU and Carthage. They looked good doing it, too. I do believe they are going to struggle at times but this start is going to really help in the long run. UT-Dallas and UMHB both played the same teams and both came away with wins. Next week will be big for both as they each draw a great slate of teams. CMS suffers a big drop as they played strong teams while going 3-1 but just aren’t physically right currently. I really do think the other 6 teams would beat CMS last weekend if they played. If CMS gets healthy, that won’t be the case. The eighth spot is always fun and it really came down to Chapman and McMurry for me. What broke the tie was that I got to see Chapman in person and they looked really good.