D3VbWest Top 25 (9/19/22)

I’m a little worried after doing my pre-prep that I’m going to have an issue filling out the back portion of these rankings but maybe things will become clear. Not as many losses as last week and as we move into conference play things will calm down significantly. Remember that key results are for the past week.

My rank, (my preseason rank, AVCA rank), record; key results; P/S (for/against).1 (1, 1) Claremont-M-S 10-0, W: UCSC, Endicott, Colorado College; 18.6/13.0. 2 (2, 7) Northwestern 11-0, W: Gust. Adolphus, Calvin, Hope; 19.28/11.7. 3 (8, 20) WashU 12-0, W: NYU; 16.55/13.43. 4 (6, 3) Trinity 8-2, W: Juniata, La Verne; 16.3/14.9. 5 (3, 2) Juniata 8-1, W: Southwestern, La Verne L: Trinity; 16.9/11.5. 6 (7, 22) Albion 12-0, W: None; 16.52/12.69. 7 (9, 16) Wittenberg 9-2, W: Otterbein; 17.1/12.5. 8 (5, 4) Emory 7-3, W: None L: Chicago; 17.79/13.91. 9 (10, 5) Calvin 8-2, W: Otterbein L: Northwestern;  17.2/14.2. 10 (11, 21) UW-Stevens Point 10-1, W: Gust. Adolphus; 16.74/12.12. 11 (20, 17) Wesleyan 7-0, W: Tufts; 17.63/13.5. 12 (22, 11) Otterbein 11-2, W: Hope L: Wittenberg, Calvin; 16.42/13.04. 13 (12, 9) Hope 8-3, W: Chicago L: Northwestern, Otterbein; 17.68/14.26. 14 (13, 6) NYU 8-2, W: None L: WashU; 16.79/13.35. 15 (4, 8) Gustavus Adolphus 9-2, W: None L: Northwestern, UW-Stevens Point; 15.6/14.1. 16 (14, 25) Birmingham-Southern 9-2, W: None; 16.65/13.46. 17 (15, 24) Augsburg 9-1, W: None; 16.4/13.35. 18 (17, 13) UW-Eau Claire 8-3, W: UW-Platteville, St Ben; 16.2/14.6. 19 (18, 12) Berry 7-2, W: Centre; 16.53/12.8. 20 (NR, NR) Illinois Wesleyan 7-2, W: Aurora; 15.5/13.74. 21 (19, NR) Whitworth 7-2, W: None L: Puget Sound; 15.61/15.04. 22 (NR, NR) Aurora 8-4, W: Millikin, UW-Platteville L: IWU; 16.59/13.91. 23 (24, NR) Millikin 9-3, W: UW-Platteville L: Aurora; 16.55/13.07. 24 (NR, 15) UW-Whitewater 11-2, W: UW-Oshkosh; 17.45/12.02. 25 (NR, NR) Ohio Northern 9-2, W: UW-Oshkosh; 17.8/13.3. Dropped out: Johns Hopkins (16), Colorado College (21), Endicott (23) and UW-Platteville (25)

There are just 10 teams that are undefeated this season. Five them appear in this ranking. The other five are Cairn, Colby, Eastern Nazarene, Maine Maritime and Ursinus. I don’t feel that any of these teams have a signature win that warrant their inclusion. Ricky does a “Last Man Standing” post if you want to take a guess as to which team will remain undefeated the longest.

We’ve got four teams hitting the bricks this week as they combined for 11 losses although typically against good teams. The four teams coming in are IWU, Aurora, UW-Whitewater and Ohio Northern. Only UW-Whitewater is currently in the AVCA Top 25.

Skimming through the rankings this week I still have CMS in my top spot. They are dominating their opposition while playing a really tough schedule. As they do this, they have accumulated an outstanding Points/Set statistic. On their heels are Northwestern who have an even better Points/Set number. Their competition hasn’t been as good as CMS but it’s been pretty darn special especially this past week. WashU has gone from being out of the rankings to start the year to the third spot. I’ve got Trinity moved up to 4^th based on their Juniata win at home. The SCAC looks weaker this season but they do have a couple of nice teams coming into their place in October. Still, get them away from home against a quality opponent and I may like them less some teams behind them. Juniata looked great defensively so I don’t drop them much despite their loss to Trinity. Albion gets Hope tomorrow so that should be interesting but right now the Britons look for real. Wittenberg, Emory, Calvin and Stevens Point round out my Top 10. Emory did lose to Chicago on a neutral floor but that Trinity win keeps them here. I’ve moved Wesleyan up 9 spots as they still appear to be the class of New England. Otterbein had their worst week this season and I move them up 10 spots. Losses to Wittenberg and Calvin were understandable but I was impressed with their Hope win. NYU lost to WashU in a tough 5-setters but they really don’t have a signature win, yet. Gustavus Adolphus dropped 11 spots due to their 2 losses. Things start to get muddy after this but the next 4 teams only moved slightly. Starting at 20, we get our new teams plus Whitworth and Millikin. Keeping Whitworth after their loss to Puget Sound was tough but they have some nice wins including Aurora. Both Whitewater and ONU reappear in my rankings as I continue to reevaluate each week based on results.

I struggled to find contenders for the 25^th spot. Bethel, Transy, Oshkosh, Ithaca and Chicago were all considered. Oh, I also considered your team but they just missed out.

Here are my Region X Rankings:

Region X

1. CMS

2. Trinity

3. La Verne

4. Whitworth

5. Pomona-Pitzer

6. ETBU

7. St Thomas

Dropped out: Colorado College (4), UT-Dallas (5), Southwestern (6)

Without my Watch List, I’m having to wing this but I am trying to use selection criteria here for this ordering. CMS has a win over Trinity and are undefeated. Easy. Trinity has a win over La Verne and a good record. Both CMS and Trinity will have a strong SOS. I moved La Verne 3^rd as their record is okay and they have a common opponent advantage (Puget Sound) over Whitworth. I think Whitworth’s SOS will be higher but I’m unsure. Whitworth gets 4^th. Okay record and a decent SOS. That Puget Sound loss can really hurt down the road as I could have put Pomona-Pitzer ahead of them, too. Instead, the Sagehen’s record has one win less than La Verne so I factored that in. No clue after this spot. I decided just to use best record so ETBU and St Thomas make the list.

As a reminder, Ricky Nelson does a Top 10 each week, which you can find at his site. We now have the same 10 teams in a slightly different order although our top four are the same.