D3VbWest Top 25 (10/21/19)

Here are my rankings for the eighth week of the season. Normally, at the bottom of this post, I would present the West Rankings based on the selection criteria but I will save this for a separate post as I need to wait for the SOS numbers. Remember that a key result for me is someone I have in the Top 25 or a team that is on my list to consider just outside the top 25.

We had a number of top ranked teams playing each other this past week which made for some exciting matches although I’m not sure they really moved to much in my rankings although I do expect to see a new #1 in the AVCA poll tomorrow. The big event in my rankings was the New England matches with Juniata. They lost to Wesleyan in 5-sets but swept JWU (RI). Babson also beat the only New England team in my rankings last week, Tufts, so a harder look was needed there, as well. The larger issue now was if I show some New England love, which I think is now warranted, who do I drop?

My rank, (my week 7 rank, AVCA rank), record, key results last week1(1, 3) Chicago 21-1 W: Carthage, Emory. 2 (2, 2) Calvin 19-1 W: Ithaca, Carthage. 3 (4, 5) Claremont-Mudd-Scripps 19-3 W: Chapman. 4 (3, 1) Emory 19-2 W: Hendrix; L: Chicago. 5 (5, 9) Johns Hopkins 23-0 W: Stevenson, Susquehanna. 6 (6, 7) UW-Whitewater 20-3 W: None. 7 (7, 6) Colorado College 25-2 W: None. 8 (8, 8) Trinity 24-4 W: Ohio Northern, UMHB. 9 (9, 4) Carthage 22-3 W: Stevens Point, Hope; L: Chicago, Calvin. 10 (10, 11) Ohio Northern 20-4 W: UMHB; L: Trinity. 11 (11, 10) Berry 19-4 W: Hendrix. 12 (12, 23) Saint Olaf 21-4 W: None; L: St. Mary’s (Minn). 13 (13, 12) Saint Benedict 19-3 W: None. 14 (14, 16) Augsburg 18-4 W: None. 15 (15, 15) Carnegie Mellon 16-5 W: None; L: WUSTL. 16 (16, 19) Muskingum 21-2 W: Mount Union. 17 (19, 21) Transylvania 20-4 W: None. 18 (22, 20) Hope 16-5 W: Ithaca; L: Carthage. 19 (23, RV) Wittenberg 12-7 W: None; L: Thomas More (non-DIII). 20 (NR, RV) Washington-St. Louis 18-6 W: Carnegie Mellon. 21 (NR, 22) Babson 23-1 W: Tufts. 22 (18, 13) Tufts 19-1 W: None; L: Babson. 23 (17, 14) Juniata 16-6 W: JWU (RI); L: Wesleyan. 24 (20, 17) St. Thomas (MN) 23-4 W: None; L: Illinois Wesleyan. 25 (25, 25) Susquehanna 23-4 W: None; L: Johns Hopkins. Dropped out:  Chapman [21], Mount Union [24]

This was really hard. Too many hours spent on this to be perfectly honest with you. The Top 16 have only one minor change and that’s the placement of Emory and CMS. CMS holds a dominating head-to-head over Emory so with the extra loss I decided to move Emory behind them. My biggest angst was Saint Olaf and their loss to St. Mary’s (Minn). St. Mary’s is not a bad team and they beat St. Benedict last week so I struggled with what to do here. In the end, the groupings were really tight with a number of head-to-head results between these teams so to drop St. Olaf meant a lot of problems inside those groupings. Another problem was the WUSTL victory over Carnegie Mellon. CMU holds a win over Muskingum and both have nice wins although no Top 15 wins so this seemed like the right place for them.

Next we came to the problem of Juniata’s loss to Wesleyan and Tufts’ loss to Babson. Juniata holds a win over CMS but that is their only Top 25 win. They also have a loss to Christopher Newport who is not in the Top 25. I had Chapman who had played a softer schedule but also had a CMS win (and better losses) further down the rankings so it made sense to move down Juniata.

I obviously was looking at bringing in Babson, Wesleyan and with the win over CMU I was looking hard at bringing back WUSTL. The problem here was that I really didn’t want to drop anyone. In the end, I dropped Chapman as they were unable to keep up with CMS away despite beating them earlier in the year. I also dropped Mount Union although their resume is pretty strong. In fact, I can make the case that both Chapman and Mount Union have better resumes than Wesleyan and Babson. Another team I was looking at dropping was Susquehanna but they have a sweep over Wesleyan! That meant Wesleyan was not going to make the Top 25 but I did bring in Babson and moved them ahead of Tufts. I can’t stress enough that the overall resumes of the New England teams are pretty weak but I know they have quality teams. Finally, I decided to bring in Washington-St. Louis and place them at 20 because frankly I think they beat the teams ranked behind them.

In the end there isn’t much movement in these rankings. Tufts takes a hit due to the Babson loss and the fact that Babson really hasn’t played anyone all year. Juniata takes the biggest hit due to their loss to Wesleyan and because their resume only has one Top 25 win on it. I also had to ding St. Thomas as they lost to IWU who everyone has beaten this year. The biggest risers were really the two new teams into the rankings.

For now, I have only a two team difference with the AVCA poll (Wittenberg and WUSTL for me and JWU and Wesleyan for the AVCA). I think the JWU (RI) ranking is just silly when you look at who they have played and their losses. The big intrigue will be who gets the top ranking. We know Johns Hopkins will get their one vote because they are undefeated. *eye roll* I think Chicago is the obvious choice with their wins over both Emory and Calvin but don’t be surprised to see Calvin in the top spot because, frankly, a number of the AVCA voters just don’t pay attention.