D3VbWest Top 25 (11/4/19)

Here are my rankings for the tenth week of the season. Remember that the West Regional Ranking predictions will come out tomorrow. A key result listed below 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.

Someone seriously broke Whitewater.

The South did a number on Wittenberg.

This actually begs the question on how much should we focus on recent results when doing these rankings. Whitewater has lost 5 straight, which includes a “bad” loss and another to a team that will struggle to make the tournament if they don’t win their conference. The problem with looking only at recent losses is that most of the Top 25 match-ups occurred at the beginning of the season since they are rare once conference play starts. The bulk of a team’s resume is from the beginning of the season. I don’t have an answer but maybe one will come to me as I look through the teams.

Looks like there is going to be some movement in my rankings. Whitewater is problematic but there is no way I can keep Wittenberg in now. Their last Top 25 win was week 3 against Whitewater. The Millikin loss (a sweep no less) by WUSTL is also something I’ll have to take a look at. Well, let’s see how it plays out:

My rank, (my week 9 rank, AVCA rank), record, key results last week1(1, 1) Chicago 24-2 W: None; L: UW-Eau Claire. 2 (2, 5) Claremont-Mudd-Scripps 24-3 W: None. 3 (3, 2) Emory 26-2 W: Berry, Wittenberg. 4 (4, 4) Calvin 22-2 W: None. 5 (5, 7) Johns Hopkins 27-0 W: None. 6 (6, 6) Trinity 31-4 W: None. 7 (7, 3) Carthage 25-3 W: None. 8 (10, 15) Muskingum 25-2 W: Heidelberg. 9 (8, 8) Colorado College 29-3 W: None. 10 (9, 10) Ohio Northern 23-5 W: Mount Union; L: Otterbein. 11 (11, 18) Susquehanna 30-5 W: Juniata. 12 (13, 24) Transylvania 25-4 W: None. 13 (14, 13) Hope 21-6 W: None. 14 (25, 22) St. Thomas (MN) 27-4 W: St. Ben, Augsburg. 15 (15, 9) Berry 23-5 W: Randolph-Macon; L: Emory. 16 (16, RV) Saint Olaf 25-4 W: None. 17 (17, 11) Saint Benedict 22-4 W: None; L: St. Thomas. 18 (18, 12) Augsburg 22-5 W: None, L: St. Thomas. 19 (NR, RV) Otterbein 23-5 W: Ohio Northern. 20 (21, 19) Carnegie Mellon 21-5 W: None. 21 (NR, RV) Birmingham-Southern 22-5 W: Wittenberg, Randolph-Macon. 22 (22, 17) Babson 30-1 W: None. 23 (23, 14) Tufts 24-1 W: None. 24 (24, 21) Juniata 20-8 W: None; L: Susquehanna. 25 (NR, RV) Eau Claire 20-8 W: Chicago. Dropped out:  UW-Whitewater [12], Wittenberg [19], Washington-St. Louis [20]

In the end, I decided to drop all three of my problem children. Whitewater needs to prove they have corrected whatever problems are going on but they are not a Top 25 team over the last two weeks. Wittenberg has played such a tough schedule but just don’t have enough quality wins recently for me to justify them. The Randolph-Macon loss was the final straw but make no mistake that Randolph-Macon is a really good squad. I was planning on keeping WUSTL but when I compare their entire resume to the teams coming in they are lacking. One note is that the worst resumes in my Top 25 belong to Babson and Tufts but I feel like I have to give the New England region the benefit of the doubt.

As for the teams coming in, Otterbein gets the highest placement due to their wins over Ohio Northern and Carnegie Mellon. Birmingham-Southern has two wins over Berry so there is room to move up but they have a couple of losses that, in my mind, hold them back. Eau Claire gets the final spot as they have a loss to Juniata but mad props for that Chicago win.

Speaking of that Chicago win, that certainly could have changed the top of my rankings but in the end I decided to keep things as they were. Chicago has wins over Emory and Calvin and their resume is still as good if not better than the other teams in my rankings. I still have CMS over Emory due to their dominating head-to-head win but Emory is playing well and has every right to that #2 spot. Once I decided to keep Chicago at #1, everything else stayed the same for the most part. I did move Muskingum up because of the Ohio Northern loss and I like their resume more than Colorado College.

St. Thomas was the big mover as they jumped 11 places with their wins over both St. Ben and Augsburg. They had an earlier win over St. Olaf so I simply had to move them ahead of their MIAC rivals as they are in the conference standings. Losses to Oshkosh and IWU are the warts that hold them back from a higher placement right now but I am open to the possibility.

We’ll have to see how the AVCA responds to the three teams I dropped although Wittenberg was already out of their poll. With these changes, I now have 4 teams different than the AVCA as they have Wesleyan and JWU (RI). I have St. Olaf, Otterbein, Birmingham-Southern and UW-Eau Claire.