D3VbWest Top 25 2025-Wk3

Time for the Week 3 rankings as this is going to be a tough one. There were just too many losses among the ranked teams. There will be movement. There may be crying. Just remember you put me on this wall.

My first pass on my watch list teams is down to 46. That may increase as I go through each team but I like fewer teams as it makes things easier. Oh, and I’m pretty confident that Juniata will not be the number one team on their ranking tomorrow. I put the over/under on the number of first place votes they receive at 6.5. These will be the coaches that don’t pay attention. (Update – Watch list is up to 49 although none of the new teams made the rankings.)

Here are my rankings:

My rank, (my previous rank, AVCA rank), record; key results; Points/Set.1 (6, 5) La Verne 9-0; W: Oshkosh, Hope; 17.04. 2 (1, 3) UW-Oshkosh 11-1; W: Hope L: La Verne; 17.86. 3 (4, 10) East Texas Baptist 11-0; W: Trinity, Whitworth; 17.00. 4 (5, 2) UW-Whitewater 10-0; W: None; 18.24.  5 (8, 9) Washington & Lee 10-0; W: None; 15.16. 6 (2, 1) Juniata 8-1; W: None L: Wittenberg; 16.80. 7 (7, 17) Colby 9-0; W: Smith; 17.67.  8 (10, 18) UW-Eau Claire 10-1; W: None; 17.55. 9 (13, 14) Illinois Wesleyan 7-0; W: None; 18.17. 10 (15, 19) Otterbein 9-1; W: None L: Hanover; 17.61. 11 (19, 15) Marietta 8-1; W: None; 17.00. 12 (22, RV) Carnegie Mellon 9-2; W: JHU, Ithaca L: MIT; 17.46. 13 (NR, 20) Ithaca 5-3; W: JHU, MIT L: CMU; 16.70. 14 (3, 4) Johns Hopkins 7-2; W: MIT L: Ithaca, CMU; 18.45. 15 (14, 7) MIT 7-2; W: CMU L: Ithaca, JHU; 17.53. 16 (23, 21) Berry 5-1; W: Emory; 16.56. 17 (9, 6) Emory 7-2; W: None L: Berry; 17.58. 18 (12, 12) Trinity 6-3; W: None L: Whitworth, ETBU; 17.81. 19 (16, 23) Dubuque 12-0; W: UWP; 16.83. 20 (17, 11) WashU 8-1; W: None; 16.50. 21 (NR, RV) Gustavus Adolphus 10-1; W: Coe, Edgewood; 17.61. 22 (18, 16) Claremont-Mudd-Scripps 6-3; W: None; 17.59. 23 (NR, RV) Tufts 6-1; W: None; 18.50. 24 (20, RV) Franklin & Marshall 8-1; W: None L: W&L; 18.57. R-M 24 (NR, 25) Christopher Newport 6-3; W: NYU, Montclair State; 16.42.

Dropped Out: UW-Platteville (11), Hope (21), NYU (24) and Montclair State (25)

Starting with the drops and we had a number of them. I really liked UWP coming into the season and I thought they did well that opening weekend at Trinity but something has gone wrong and, for now, they will be punished. I really struggled with Hope and NYU but in the end, I decided to drop both teams. Hope’s best win is Wittenberg and their best bullet point is their difficult schedule. Still, we need a better win so out they go. NYU is basically in the same boat although their schedule is not as good as Hope’s. Their best win is Montclair State, which gets downgraded because they lost to some good teams this weekend. Of course, the death blow was losing to Chris Newport who have literally been brought in to the rankings to replace them. The aforementioned Montclair State went up against some good teams and was found wanting.

My preseason top team was La Verne and they have returned here in week 3. I original thought it would be between them and Whitewater but it turned out differently. More on that in a second. My worry about La Verne is that they get behind at times against teams they shouldn’t but geez they know how to make a comeback. It’s going to bite them this season but it will not bite them here. I only dropped Oshkosh one spot for the simple reason that they lost to ULV in 5-sets. It was a close match that required a reverse sweep. There is not much difference between these two teams. I’m moving ETBU up the rankings to continue my lovefest with that team. Could they be the best team as NPI has them? Possibly. It came down to best win and I like the Oshkosh win more. Whitewater slots into the 4^th spot. Their best win is Berry, which looks a lot better after their win over Emory but they also have an Opponent NPI under 50 and an SOS of 0.529. They have won their schedule so far so nothing bad from me. It’s just that the schedule needed to be tougher to be ranked ahead of the three above them. Rounding out the Top 5 is Washington & Lee. That Points/Set number isn’t great but it wasn’t great last year and they were in the Elite 8. Maybe they are just the exception? Their SOS is also kind of low but they do have wins over Franklin & Marshall and Centre. I like the Berry win more, which is why they are behind UWW.

Juniata drops but not that far. Their best wins are Marietta and Ithaca, which gives them a boost despite the Wittenberg loss, who are unranked. Colby holds steady after getting their best win of the season against Smith. UW-Eau Claire moves up 2 spots after an uneventful week. Their best wins are Edgewood and Chicago but they also took ETBU to 5-sets. IWU comes into the Top 10. They have a nice Points/Sets number with their best wins being Southwestern and Chicago. They were off this past week. Rounding out the Top 10 is a strange one with Otterbein getting the nod. That Hanover loss should have bounced them down a bit but the Carnegie Mellon Tournament did damage to a couple of teams and with Otter holding a head-to-head win over CMU…well, this is where they fit.

I’m still not sure about Marietta but they hold a win over Ithaca who comes flying into the rankings again but needed to be lower. Carnegie Mellon turns out to be the winner of their tournament where everyone took a loss. They jump up 10 spots. Right behind is Ithaca who took down Johns Hopkins and MIT. Quite impressive and justly rewarded. They have 3 losses but are ranked behind each of those three teams. More CMU Tournament carnage at 14 and 15 with Johns Hopkins and MIT. Still good teams with impressive Points/Set numbers.

Berry leads off the next group of five after the win over Berry. Their only loss is in 5-sets to Whitewater so they may be a tad low here. Their Points/Set number held them back. I decided to pair Emory with Berry for now. Their best win is CMS. Next up is Trinity who also took two losses this weekend. Their best wins are Chris Newport and NYU so nothing really pushing them higher. Rounding out this group are two teams with good but not great best wins but also Points/Set numbers in the 16s.

My second team in leads off the last grouping at 20 and it’s Gustavus Adolphus. Nice wins over Coe and Edgewood and a good Points/Set number with just the one loss. CMS drops a bit. They still have a good Points/Set number but their best win is St Olaf who others have beaten, as well. The big point in their favor were close matches with Emory and WashU (and UWO). I’m bringing in Tufts and their 6-1 record. Their best win and only loss are to Salisbury. When compared to others, that’s pretty good. Great Points/Set number. I thought a bit about dropping F&M because their schedule isn’t that strong with their best win being maybe Randolph-Macon. I’ve just had them ranked all year and couldn’t find an easy replacement that also didn’t have questions. My last new team in is a returnee in Chris Newport. I had NYU here but with their loss to this team, I knew I had to find a replacement. Everyone has warts but it seemed CNU had the least.

Some teams on my scratch sheet, which is one step above the Watch List, are Lynchburg, Virginia Wesleyan, Carthage, Salisbury, Calvin and Bridgewater (VA). A couple of these teams got eliminated due to their weaker schedule. I also didn’t have any that had a signature win that would cause me to replace someone ranked. One exception might be Bridgewater (beat ranked CNU) but they also took a loss to Messiah. CNU’s SOS was higher and that was the tipping point as each had three losses.

The AVCA will come out with their rankings tomorrow. Right now, I have four teams that did not make their rankings last week. I’m thinking we’ll be two apart after they drop their rankings but they do move slower than I do.

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