D3VbWest Top 25 (10/17/22)

The last Top 25 before regional rankings come out, which will make this exercise kind of pointless. Still, I will power through. Remember, I do this for you. I’m just a giving person. “SoCal” came through again with the statistical file, which saves me a bunch of time. Thanks!

Remember that key results are for the past week.

My rank, (my previous rank, AVCA rank), record; key results; P/S (for/against).1 (1, 1) Claremont-M-S 20-0, W: None; 18.84/11.78. 2 (4, 7) Northwestern 21-2, W: UW-Whitewater; 18.21 /12.34. 3 (2, 2) Trinity 17-3, W: Susquehanna L: UC Santa Cruz; 17.64/14.53. 4 (3, 3) Juniata 20-1, W: None; 17.97/10.54. 5 (7, 11) Wittenberg 16-3, W: None; 17.48/12.33. 6 (8, 5) Calvin 19-3, W: Millikin, North Park; 17.09 /13.95. 7 (9, 8) NYU 18-4, W: Emory; 16.43/14.45. 8 (18, 10) Berry 16-3, W: Emory; 17.50/12.41. 9 (5, 6) Emory 12-6, W: None L: Berry, NYU; 17.63/13.69. 10 (6, 4) WashU 22-3, W: Chicago L: CWRU; 16.76/13.53. 11 (10, 9) UW-Whitewater 21-5, W: None L: Chicago, Northwestern; 17.21/12.77. 12 (12, 16) UW-Oshkosh 22-4, W: None; 16.07 /13.53. 13 (11, 12) Wesleyan 16-2, W: None L: Bowdoin; 17.19 /13.90. 14 (16, 15) UW-Stevens Point 19-5, W: UW-Eau Claire, Aurora L: Edgewood; 16.33/13.55. 15 (13, 17) Gustavus Adolphus 19-4, W: None; 16.64/14.28. 16 (14, 18) Augsburg 15-5, W: None L: Macalester; 16.64/14.28. 17 (15, 13) UW-Eau Claire 18-5, W: None L: UW-Stevens Point; 16.35/14.55. 18 (19, NR) Transylvania 17-5, W: None; 17.09 /13.75. 19 (20, 20) Otterbein 17-5, W: Albion; 16.74/13.38. 20 (NR, NR) UC Santa Cruz 16-4, W: Trinity, Susquehanna; 17.11/12.97. 21 (17, 23) Coe College 18-4, W: None; 15.74/14.60. 22 (21, 14) Hope 18-5, W: Millikin L: North Park; 17.60/13.93. 23 (23, 19) Albion 19-3, W: None L: Otterbein; 17.25/13.77. 24 (24, 25) Birmingham-Southern 17-3, W:None; 16.42/14.12. 25 (25, 24) Tufts 13-4, W: None; 16.29/13.22. Dropped out: Carnegie Mellon (22)

Let’s start our discussion at the top. CMS is obvious. The next three teams are more difficult and I originally kept Trinity at #2. When I look at these three teams, I like Northwestern then Juniata then Trinity, but it’s very close. That’s looking with my eyes but also at the statistics a bit. Of course, Trinity beat Juniata so I felt I had to trust the match played over what I see. I think you can have these teams in any order and be equally right and wrong. I do think if you don’t have these four teams in your top 4 then you are just plain wrong. The UAA is sort of beating up on itself, which makes things difficult when ranking these teams. Following Berry, I just don’t know. I think Emory is too high but no one really made a case to pass them if looking at the teams right behind them. Speaking of Berry, I hope I’m now in a good place with Vikings Nation. I still worry a bit about Berry as their best wins are Emory and BSC but that was an easy win over Emory this week. It would be easy to move Whitewater into the Top 10 but two losses hurt that chance this week. I could have moved Wesleyan down a bit more due to the Bowdoin loss but it seems almost everyone has a Bowdoin type loss this season. (No disrespect to Bowdoin. Good program, just down a bit this season.) I was surprised I didn’t move Augsburg down more this week. UC Santa Cruz is my only new team in the rankings as they replaced Carnegie Mellon. Their Trinity win at Trinity is one of the best wins in the nation this year by any team. They also have a couple of nice wins against quality programs. So, for the most part, a boring Top 25. That sort of happens once conferences start playing. The deeper conferences (UAA and WIAC) can add some fun, but that’s about it.

As a reminder, Ricky Nelson does a Top 10 each week, which you can find at his site. We have the same Top 4 but in a different order. We both agree on 5 and 6, too. All told, we have 9 of the same teams with Emory still in my Top 10 and Ricky including Whitewater, instead.