D3VbWest Top 25 (Week 4)

Just back from my flu and shingles shot. The shingles shot is the first vaccine I’ve ever received where every time it’s mentioned, it’s followed up with an “ugh” or “ooh” or “yikes”. Looks like I’m in for a couple of fun days with the side effects. Before they hit, I’ll try to crank out the Top 25. I’ve written this week that I think this is going to be difficult. Lots of teams that probably need to come in and few that need to leave. Here is what I ended up with. As always, the explanations are below.

My rank, (my previous rank, AVCA rank), record; key results; P/S (for/against).1 (1, 1) Juniata 11-0, W: None; 18.4/10.9. 2 (2, 2) Hope 11-0, W: IWU; 18.63/13.71. 3 (3, 3) UW-Oshkosh 17-0, W: UW-Whitewater; 18.4/13.3. 4 (6, 9) Emory 10-0, W: Chicago, Carnegie Mellon; 17.6 /12.51. 5 (9, 6) Northwestern 8-2, W: Gust Adolphus; 17.22 /14.17. 6 (4, 7) UW-Whitewater 10-2, W: Augustana L: UW-Oshkosh; 17.82/12.98. 7 (5, 8) Johns Hopkins 10-3, W: None L: Mount Union; 17.71/13.34. 8 (17, NR) Ohio Wesleyan 13-2 W: Wittenberg; 16.18/13.70. 9 (NR, NR) North Park 13-1 W: Elmhurst, Calvin; 16.10/12.05. 10 (7, 4) Calvin 11-2 W: UW-Platteville L: North Park; 16.95/13.78. 11 (11, 5) Claremont-M-S 8-3, W: None; 17.8/12.9. 12 (12, 19) Mt St Joseph 11-1 W: ONU L: Otterbein; 16.51/13.16. 13 (19, 25) Ithaca 10-3 W: None; 16.92/13.79. 14 (NR, NR) Mount Union 12-2 W: Johns Hopkins; 16.67/15.04. 15 (8, 14) Cornell 8-4 W: None L: Loras, Carthage, UW-River Falls; 14.82/13.65. 16 (15, 10) NYU 12-2, W: WashU L: CWRU; 18.37/13.27. 17 (10, 12) WashU 10-5 W: CWRU L: NYU; 16.83/16.09. 18 (18, 11) Trinity 11-3 W: Texas Lutheran; 17.17 /14.91. 19 (16, 23) La Verne 11-0 W: None; 16.86 /13.00. 20 (13, 15) Wesleyan 9-0 W: None; 17.53 /13.60. 21 (21, 20) UW-Stevens Point 12-2, W: None; 16.18 /12.41. 22 (22, 13) Berry 9-3 W: None; 15.33/15.53. 23 (23, 17) Transylvania 10-5 W: ONU 16.55/15.26. 24 (14, 24) Ohio Northern 9-4 W: None L: Mt St Joseph, Transy; 16.8/15.2. 25 (20, 21) Mary Washington 11-0 W: None; 18.1/11.2.

Dropped Out: Tufts (24) and MIT (25)

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room (or is that Jumbo?). Joke for the Tufts’ fans out there. I’m dropping two New England teams and not adding a team that is probably deserving in Springfield. Why? Because I hate you! No, that was another joke, but it may feel that way. Tufts was an easy drop despite their 5-set win over still ranked Trinity because of their 4-losses. Two of those are to unranked teams. There are just more deserving teams to get added. MIT was more difficult but I knew that Springfield needed to be ranked ahead of them. MIT’s best win is now UC Santa Cruz who is not ranked so I saw no reason to keep them ranked. MIT fans shouldn’t worry because you’ll be in the Elite 8. I’m not the NCAA so I play by rules that are even and that’s probably what has you confused. Springfield was probably my next team in and I thought about bouncing undefeated Mary Washington but Springfield does have a loss to Cortland (maybe they needed to be in ahead of them) and no wins over ranked teams. Yes, I made sure of that by dropping MIT. Don’t get me wrong, I watched Springfield and I think they are really good. I think they will be in my rankings at some point. I also had every intention of adding back in Gustavus Adolphus but they have 3 losses (UC Santa Cruz, Cornell and Northwestern) and their best win is no one. I liked what I saw from them in that Northwestern match. One point here or there and they are ranked just outside the Top 10. Small margins. I will also be honest about the approach this week; I didn’t go look at a bunch of teams that I normally do. Saint Ben, Carnegie Mellon, Millikin and all of the UW schools didn’t get a fair look this week because I had no place for them without redoing everything and that may have meant adding in more New England schools. (Another joke. I could do this all day.) Let’s go through who did make the cut and why.

I have no problems with Juniata at the top spot. Neither should you.

I have no problem with Hope or Oshkosh in either order here. You want someone different then you haven’t been paying attention.

The Emory Points/Sets numbers compressed a bit this week. Why? Because they played a couple of good teams. Their schedule has been a little lacking to this point with their best win to this point being Colorado College (or maybe ETBU). I’m going to respect the fact that they haven’t dropped a match and move them up in my rankings. Does this mean I think they could beat a Northwestern or a Whitewater or a JHU? I really don’t know but I do think it would be a struggle.

Northwestern benefits from winning (obviously) but also Cornell falling apart this weekend. I decided to break that connection (NW lost to Cornell) and they get moved up over Whitewater as they have a win over them. Their Points/Set numbers are also improving.

Whitewater didn’t look great against Oshkosh but you can see the talent and I fully respect that Augustana win along with a ton of other quality wins earlier this year.

I could have moved JHU down a bit more but they are banged up a bit. Let’s see what they do this week. Same sort of thing I did with WashU. They just have done too much for one loss to hurt them to any great extent.

Ohio Wesleyan has wins over Mount Union and Calvin. Where else could I have put them? This may seem like a reach since they are not on the AVCA Top 25 and they have one bad loss but I have to respect those wins, which a number of other teams don’t have.

It’s not often a team from outside the rankings moves into the Top 10 after the first week or two but here you go. I had North Park in my Top 25 in the preseason but dropped them just because they lost a match (Benedictine) and didn’t have a quality win. They now have wins over Chicago, Elmhurst and Calvin (at Calvin).

Calvin gets my last spot in the Top 10. Their two losses are to Ohio Wesleyan and North Park. They still may be too high in the rankings but with quality wins over IWU, Berry, Transy, ONU and UW-Platteville they have a better resume than CMS.

Speaking of CMS, I still have them out of the Top 10. Losses to WashU, JHU and Juniata are easy to explain but their best win after Trinity is Chicago or Carthage. They are going to sneak into the Top 10 soon because someone else is going to WashU it up like Cornell did this week. A win over La Verne when they play will also help.

I’m a little surprised Mt St Joseph didn’t drop but this is how it fell out. Nice win over Ohio Northern and I also had to reevaluate the “Wesleyan Group”, which I’ll explain next. When that group of teams fell, it pushed MSJ up.

When going through the teams, I struggled with Wesleyan. I then found a bunch of teams that were like Wesleyan. Wesleyan’s best win is Tufts who is no longer ranked. They just haven’t played a tough schedule so why are they being rewarded. I then used Wesleyan as a benchmark for teams like them. We now begin our path through the Wesleyan Group.

Ithaca continues their fast rise up the rankings despite no quality win this week. Wins over NYU and MIT put them here as they are better wins than everyone else in the group.

Mount Union probably isn’t part of the group as they are new to the rankings and just beat Johns Hopkins. I just wanted another good week from them before giving them the North Park treatment.

Cornell pulled a WashU this week and dropped all of their matches. Their Points/Sets numbers aren’t the greatest but they still have wins over Northwestern and Gustavus Adolphus. Those are better wins than most in the Wesleyan Group so they stay in the rankings.

I honestly would have moved NYU out of the rankings if they hadn’t beaten WashU this weekend. That’s their best win and they now have losses to Case Western Reserve and Ithaca. I’ll move them ahead of most in the Wesleyan group because I like their win better. WashU gets attached to NYU, for now, due to the loss and really not impressing the last two weekends.

Trinity has a win over MIT (no longer ranked) and a number of good teams but they got thrown into the Wesleyan Group because they lack that signature win. Having seen them play in person and on the stream, they are better now then they were the first two weeks (when they lost to Tufts).

I have no idea how good La Verne is with respect to these other teams around them. They look good but their best win is probably UC Santa Cruz. They don’t have a bad loss so that’s good but their Points/Set aren’t in that elite range, which is bad. I like the UCSC win better than the Tufts win so they go ahead of Wesleyan.

Wesleyan’s biggest win is Tufts who has been dropped from the rankings. They will get NYU on their schedule this weekend but, frankly, not much else sits in their way this season. I simply can’t keep them as high on the rankings as I have been with that schedule. Beat NYU and it gives me a data point I can use.

UW-Stevens Point is another Wesleyan Group team. Best win is Christopher Newport, I guess.

I now get to three teams with three or more losses. Berry has a win over Transy while ONU could have been dropped after losing their two matches this week (and three straight). Of course, those three teams were Calvin, Mt St Joseph and Transylvania. This team has great losses but their best wins are Carthage, CWRU and Albion. They got put at the end of the Wesleyan Group.

At the end is Mary Washington. They are undefeated with outstanding Points/Set numbers, but they haven’t played anyone. They will get Colorado College and Santa Cruz October 7^th but I’m unsure if I’ll be able to keep them in the rankings next week.

Not sure my explanations are good enough. I definitely could have spent a lot more time on this and probably reworked the rankings but it’s a lot of effort for little payout.

As a reminder, Ricky has a Top 10 out so take a look there. He still has CMS in his Top 10 while I still have Calvin. We both moved OWU and North Park into our Top 10s.