D3VbWest Top 25 2025-Wk4

On vacation and everyone loses this past week. Yeah. Don’t worry about all of the work required to figure out the mess! I just won’t go to the beach today! Geez.

I always like writing this first part before I’ve gone through the matches but I know there were a ton of upsets and a ton of lower ranked teams beating higher ranked teams. We are to the point in the season where there are fewer straight lines. A beat B who beat C so A is better than C. Now D is beating A who lost to B and don’t even get me started on E. My assumption is that the AVCA will have no choice but to make a West team #1 this week. IWU would be another option but they haven’t beaten the teams either ETBU or La Verne have beaten. Alright, time to get to work.

Here are my rankings:

My rank, (my previous rank, AVCA rank), record; key results; Points/Set.1 (1, 2) La Verne 9-0; W: None; 17.04. 2 (3, 5) East Texas Baptist 13-0; W: None; 17.70. 3 (8, 14) UW-Eau Claire 12-1; W: St Ben, UWW; 17.30. 4 (9, 10) Illinois Wesleyan 11-0; W: Wittenberg, Coe; 18.11. 5 (2, 3) UW-Oshkosh 13-2; L: Northwestern; 17.77. 6 (14, 9) Johns Hopkins 10-2; W: CNU, Juniata; 18.10. 7 (6, 4) Juniata 10-2; W: CNU L: JHU; 17.17. 8 (4, 1) UW-Whitewater 11-2; W: GAC L: UWEC, St Olaf; 17.37.  9 (18, 16) Trinity 9-3; W: Berry, Centre; 18.17. 10 (NR, RV) Wesleyan 8-0; W: Colby; 17.42.  11 (7, 13) Colby 10-1; W: MIT L: Wesleyan; 17.57.  12 (10, 21) Otterbein 11-1; W: None; 17.76. 13 (11, 11) Marietta 9-2; W: None, L: Transy; 16.94. 14 (13, 20) Ithaca 8-3; W: NYU, Swarthmore, Smith; 17.00. 15 (16, 15) Berry 10-2; W: Centre L: Trinity; 16.51.   16 (17, 8) Emory 8-2; W: None; 17.63. 17 (20, 7) WashU 10-1; W: None; 16.98.   18 (NR, 18 ) Hope 9-4; W: CMU, F&M; 16.45.  19 (NR, RV) William Smith 10-1; W: CMU; 18.89.  20 (15, 12) MIT 8-3; W: None L: Colby; 17.41. 21 (12, 22) Carnegie Mellon 10-4; W: None L: Hope, William Smith; 17.46. 22 (21, 24) Gustavus Adolphus 12-2; W: Dubuque L: UWW; 17.35. 23 (NR, RV) Lynchburg 13-1; W: Bridgewater, W&L; 16.40.   24 (5, 6) Washington & Lee 11-1; W: None, L: Lynchburg; 14.95. 25 (22, 17) Claremont-Mudd-Scripps 6-3; W: None; 17.59.

Dropped Out: Dubuque (19), Tufts (23), Franklin & Marshall (24) and Chris Newport (25)

One thing I do is keep a Watch List of teams I’m thinking about ranking. If a team upsets another and they are not on the Watch List then they get added. They proved to me they have a high ceiling. Unfortunately, most of those teams have a low floor, which keeps them out of the rankings. Now, if a Watch List team gets another upset or even two more then they really need to be moved to the rankings. Teams like Hope, Lynchburg, William Smith and Wesleyan fit that bill this week but finding space is difficult. When I got to Dubuque, I hadn’t firmly moved anyone out of my rankings. With their two losses this week and their best wins being over teams that I don’t have ranked, I needed to let them go. Tufts was the next one to go. Their best wins are Gettysburg and Salisbury (who also gave them their only loss). No one in the ranked category. Good team, but I need proof to rank you when things get tight. Rinse and repeat for F&M. Another good team but their losses are to W&L who I’m realizing I may have to drop this week (!) and Hope who probably needs to come back into the rankings. They really don’t have a best win so catch me after you play Juniata this week. Chris Newport also leaves us after appearing back in the rankings for just a week. Their losses are all good, but I need that win and NYU doesn’t cut it right now. (And, yes, I need space!)

I don’t have a lot of time so let’s quickly go through the ordering.

I’m keeping La Verne first. No particular reason to keep them over ETBU other than I had them there already. Both have top wins and my rankings indicate ETBU’s top win (UWEC) is better. I gave a slight nod to La Verne simply because they did it on an away court as opposed to a neutral one. Small margins. ETBU slides up one spot to two. They really haven’t done anything wrong this season. Nice to see two West teams’ one-two and I don’t think I’m showing any bias with those selections. UW-Eau Claire jumps up to three after their victory over Whitewater. Their only loss is a 5-setter to ETBU. IWU jumps to four. Their best wins are not as good as some of these other teams, which is why they sit here. UW-Oshkosh slips to fifth. The Northwestern loss is puzzling but they’ve already built up a number of good wins to compensate. Johns Hopkins sort of ping pongs its way back to 6^th. Nice win at Juniata in 4-sets. Juniata holds steady dropping just one spot while Whitewater falls back to 8^th. I sort of like those eight right now as a group but that could change in a weekend. (Update – I fixed all of my JHU errors in this post. Sorry.)

I moved Trinity up a bunch this week even though they have losses from Platteville, Whitewater and ETBU. They looked good this weekend and I think when they are on, they are as good as anyone in the Top 8. Wesleyan beat Colby so they are tied together right now because I really don’t know how good either are. I believe Colby is really good so I must now believe that Wesleyan is, too. Their best win before this was Swarthmore while Colby’s was Smith. Neither is ranked but both are good teams.

Otterbein holds steady as does Marietta despite their loss to Transy. Transy looks better now than they did earlier in the season. I like the Ithaca win for Marietta and I like Ithaca’s win over Johns Hopkins. They are linked here for now. Berry holds steady but they did not look good against Trinity. Still, they have a nice win over Emory and a 5-set loss to Whitewater. Emory comes in after Berry and who really knows about this team? Their best win is CMS who almost got dropped this week. I have WashU a lot lower than the AVCA because their Points/Set number is low and their best wins are CMS and Carthage. Tell me why they should be higher? Hope comes flying back in after to quality wins this past weekend. I’m worried about their floor but 18^th seems right. I’m brining William Smith back into the rankings. They beat Carnegie Mellon for their best win, have a high Points/Set number and a decent loss to Gettysburg. MIT falls back to 20 with their loss to Colby. All three of their losses are good but their best win is Carnegie Mellon who now sits right behind them.

Yes, CMU sits in 21^st after a rough week. Another one like that and their gone. It’s amazing how many teams have a direct or second team link with CMU this season. GAC falls one spot. They have some quality wins but none against ranked opponents. The fourth team I’m bringing in is Lynchburg who beat Washington & Lee. They have a loss to Springfield and a poor Points/Set number so in the 20s they sit. That means W&L took a big fall. Their best win is Franklin & Marshall who are now out of the rankings. Their Points/Set number also keeps getting worse. Closing out my rankings is CMS. They didn’t play this week but their best win is St Olaf. What keeps them here were those close matches against ranked teams in Oshkosh. I’m not sure I can keep them here unless they can take a match from La Verne at some point.

The AVCA will come out with their rankings tomorrow. I brought in four teams and only one of them is in the AVCA rankings currently. I fear we may diverge a bit this week.

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