D3VbWest Top 25 2025-Wk5

In theory, as conferences get going, the rankings become more static. I think that happened this week but I may be missing a loss or two off the top of my head. I know that a couple of teams had good weeks and I’m not sure anyone had a week that warrants them to be removed. I also don’t anticipate a lot of “key results” this week. That, again, happens with conference play. As a reminder, “key results” to me are teams on my ranking Watch List. Alright, time to get to work and we’ll see what falls out.

Here are my rankings:

My rank, (my previous rank, AVCA rank), record; key results; Points/Set.1 (1, 1) La Verne 11-0; W: None; 17.31. 2 (2, 2) East Texas Baptist 15-0; W: None; 17.66. 3 (3, 10) UW-Eau Claire 13-1; W: None; 17.55. 4 (5, 3) UW-Oshkosh 14-2; W: None; 17.77. 5 (8, 4) UW-Whitewater 14-2; W: None; 17.75.  6 (18, 18 ) Hope 11-4; W: Marietta, IWU; 16.76.  7 (4, 7) Illinois Wesleyan 13-1; W: Marietta L: Hope; 17.76. 8 (9, 12) Trinity 12-3; W: None; 18.14.   9 (NR, RV) Tufts 11-1; W: JHU; 18.02. 10 (6, 6) Johns Hopkins 12-3; W: Wesleyan L: Tufts; 18.23. 11 (7, 8) Juniata 11-2; W: F&M; 17.29. 12 (12, 20) Otterbein 14-1; W: None; 18.04.   13 (14, 19) Ithaca 10-3; W: None; 17.23.   14 (15, 15) Berry 13-2; W: Southwestern; 16.79.   15 (16, 9) Emory 11-2; W: CMU; 18.34. 16 (10, 22) Wesleyan 9-1; W: None L: JHU; 17.73.    17 (11, 13) Colby 11-1; W: None; 17.33.    18 (19, RV) William Smith 12-1; W: None; 18.61.  19 (20, 16) MIT 10-3; W: None; 17.94.   20 (21, 25) Carnegie Mellon 13-5; W: None L: Emory; 17.08. 21 (17, 5) WashU 12-2; W: NYU L: Chicago; 16.70.    22 (13, 14) Marietta 9-4; W: None, L: Hope, IWU; 15.98. 23 (22, 21) Gustavus Adolphus 14-2; W: St Ben; 17.32. 24 (23, RV) Lynchburg 15-1; W: None; 16.62.   25 (25, 17) Claremont-Mudd-Scripps 8-3; W: None; 17.62.

Dropped Out: Washington & Lee (24)

The work has been done. As I suspected, there really weren’t any teams that needed to leave the rankings but I needed to get Tufts in so out goes W&L. They have losses to Lynchburg and Bridgewater (the next team I was bringing in) on the season with their best win being Franklin & Marshall. They also have a really low Points/Set number. I did shuffle some teams around based on who I thought would win and the results to date. The big problem we get a month into the season is do you count a loss that first week the same as one this week? Teams change. Injuries happen.

I’ll go down the teams and explain where I think it needs it.

I sort of like my Top 4. UWO moved up a spot with the IWU loss but I think this group of 4 is pretty good. Whitewater at five may also be included in this group but I’d love a big win from them just to be sure. Kind of crazy and then not crazy that I have three UW schools next to each other. The WIAC will help determine the ordering.

I jumped Hope up a lot because they had two impressive wins. They didn’t play well for a week against good teams (for the most part) but they seem to have it figured out now. Keep doing this and they’ll be in that top group, too. IWU took a loss to Hope and drop 3 spots. Still a really good team. Trinity is just really good. I wish it weren’t true but they are a Top 10 team for me and one that I could see beating anyone in the nation on a given day. Tufts comes back into my rankings with a bang. They beat JHU to give them a big signature win. Their loss is to Salisbury (who they also beat), which isn’t a really bad one to take. I’d still love more data points with this team but this seemed like the right place for them. Rounding out the Top 10 is Johns Hopkins. They have some great wins and their three losses are to really good teams that are all ranked.

Juniata got moved down a bit simply because I have them linked with JHU right now. Their best win was probably Marietta but they have slipped in my rankings so that also didn’t help. Otter, Ithaca, Berry and Emory sort of hold steady. It was good to see Emory beat a team like CMU for another data point. Still, that’s their best win to date, which is why I don’t agree with the AVCA on their placement.

Wesleyan takes a hit with their JHU loss and that brings Colby down a bit with them. I think I’m alone on that William Smith bandwagon right now. They need to be ranked. MIT and CMU hold steady with WashU falling back a bit. This is another team where I don’t agree with the AVCA on their rankings. Their best win is CMS with NYU being the next one. They took a loss to unranked Chicago this week. (To be fair, Chicago can bite almost anyone it seems.) WashU certainly hasn’t shown enough to be ranked 5^th.

Marietta takes a big fall and I was thinking for a bit that they may drop out. Their losses are good ones and they do have a win over Ithaca, which is a better win than most other teams. Rounding out the rankings are GAC, Lynchburg and CMS. They all hold steady although CMS could have also been dropped after barely winning in 5-sets at home against Cal Lutheran.

The AVCA will come out with their rankings tomorrow. I think we’ll be pretty close although a few teams will have bit ranking differences. I did drop the NPI Rankings this morning in case you didn’t see them.

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