D3VbWest Top 25 (10/22/18)

Here are the rankings for the eighth week. The Top 25 is my ranking for the nation. I will be doing a West Region rankings separately.

D3VBWest Top 25 (10/22/18)

My rank, (my Week 7 rank, AVCA rank), record, key results last week1 (1, 1). Calvin 23-1 W: Whitewater, Carthage, Aurora. 2 (2, 3). Wittenberg 18-2 W: DePauw. 3 (3, 7). Juniata 20-3 W: Mary Washington, Eastern, Johns Hopkins. 4 (4, 5). Thomas More 25-2 W: Otterbein. 5 (5, 2). Johnson & Wales (RI) 24-1 W: None. 6 (6, 8). Emory 18-5 W: None. 7 (7, 11). Chicago 25-3 W: None. 8 (10, 12). Washington (Mo.) 18-5 W: None. 9 (11, 6). Claremont-Mudd-Scripps 20-3 W: None. 10 (15, 4). Colorado College 26-2 W: Trinity. 11 (12, 17). UT-Tyler 22-1 W: None. 12 (13, 15). Illinois Wesleyan 19-5 W: Concordia (Wis). 13 (14, 9) Trinity 20-5 W: None; L: Colorado College. 14 (16, 14). UW-Eau Claire 25-2 W: None. 15 (17, 10). Gustavus Adolphus 23-2 W: St. Benedict. 16 (9, 16). Berry 19-3 W: None; L: Birmingham-Southern. 17 (21, 20). UW-Whitewater 21-5 W: Hope; L: Calvin. 18 (8, 13). Hope 17-6 W: None; L: Mary Washington, Juniata, Eastern. 19 (18, 24). Mary Hardin-Baylor 22-2 W: None. 20 (23, NR). Saint Benedict 21-6 W: St. Olaf; L: Gustavus Adolphus. 21 (24, NR). St. Thomas 20-7 W: Bethel. 22 (20, 22). Christopher Newport 19-4 W: None; L: Mary Washington. 23 (19, NR). Carnegie Mellon 19-8 W: None; L: Arcadia. 24 (22, 18). Pacific Lutheran 17-3 W: None. 25 (25, NR). Bowdoin 22-1 W: Wellesley. Dropped out: None.

Other teams under consideration were, in no particular order, Ithaca, Ohio Northern, Carthage, Aurora and Otterbein.

Just some shuffling this week with no one dropping out. The Top 7 remained the same and I’ve got two West Region teams back into the Top 10.

Last week I said I really liked the Top 17 teams but we saw Hope drop three matches this week and Berry get surprised by BSU. Not surprisingly then that both teams were the big fallers this week. Berry dropped 7 spots and Hope dropped 10. Colorado College with their win at Trinity, moved up the most (5 spots) this week.

Looking at the West Region for a second it is a little disturbing how different my rankings are here for them versus the West Region RAC who has to follow the NCAA selection criteria. With respect to Colorado College I just have to ask do you think they would beat UMHB? Cal Lutheran? UT-Dallas? (All teams ranked ahead of Colorado College in the RAC.) These are all good teams but Colorado College wins those matches most days. Just interesting how the criteria doesn’t work in this case.