D3VbWest Top 25 (Week 8)

Last week’s rankings were about as boring as you can get. This week, we did have some upsets so I expect there to be some movement. Of course, these rankings and the AVCA rankings really take a backseat to the regional rankings coming out on Wednesday. Remember, they will come out as an alphabetical list before they are come out as ordered in two weeks. Here are my rankings with explanations below.

My rank, (my previous rank, AVCA rank), record; key results; P/S (for/against).1 (1, 1) Juniata 22-0, W: Mount Union; 18.7/9.8. 2 (2, 2) UW-Oshkosh 28-0, W: North Park; 17.5/13.3. 3 (3, 3) Hope 20-1, W: None; 18.21/13.26. 4 (6, 7) UW-Whitewater 21-2, W: None; 18.21/12.38. 5 (7, 9) Johns Hopkins 18-3, W: None; 17.89/12.28. 6 (4, 5) Emory 16-1, W: WashU L: Covenant; 17.60/12.77. 7 (5, 4) Northwestern 21-3, W: None L: St Olaf; 17.76/12.45. 8 (8, 6) Claremont-M-S 16-3, W: None; 18.7/12.7. 9 (9, 15) Mt St Joseph 17-1 W: None; 17.10/12.90. 10 (10, 10) NYU 20-4, W: Carnegie Mellon; 17.80 /13.39. 11 (12, 16) Transylvania 20-5 W: None; 16.55/15.26. 12 (13, 12) WashU 18-7 W: None L: Emory; 16.55/15.89. 13 (15, 11) Trinity 24-3 W: None; 17.45/14.08. 14 (14, 18) North Park 19-6 W: Augustana L: UWO, UWSP; 15.79/12.69. 15 (17, NR) Ohio Wesleyan 19-4 W: None; 16.13/14.14. 16 (NR, NR) Millikin 19-7 W: Calvin; 16.52/13.43. 17 (11, 8) Calvin 18-4 W: None L: Millikin; 17.20/12.90. 18 (16, 23) Ithaca 19-4 W: None; 17.50/12.54. 19 (NR, NR) Covenant 22-1 W: Emory; 17.05/10.99. 20 (18, 14) Wesleyan 17-1 W: None; 17.32/13.44. 21 (19, 21) La Verne 18-2 W: None; 17.53/12.77. 22 (20, 13) Berry 18-4 W: None; 15.77/14.82. 23 (21, NR) Mount Union 17-6 W: None; 16.25/15.10. 24 (NR, 24) Cornell 16-6 W: UW-Platteville, UW-Stevens Point; 16.23/13.83. 25 (23, 22) Mary Washington 21-2 W: Chris Newport L: Salisbury; 17.2/11.4.

Dropped Out: Case Western Reserve (22), Springfield (24), Babson (25)

The back end of the rankings flamed out this week with CWRU, Salisbury and Babson all taking multiple losses so it opened up spots for willing teams. I looked at a number of New England teams to fill the spots but they are just eating their young out there. MIT looks to be the best of the lot (outside of Wesleyan) but they just haven’t beaten anyone of note and have a loss to Springfield who have lost to Cortland, Middlebury and Tufts who have all lost to other teams that have lost to other teams and, well, you get the point. In the end, it came down to MIT and Mary Washington and I think UMW wins that match. This was after bringing in teams that have shown they can beat quality opponents although both Cornell and Millikin have some “bad” losses. The bottom line when I do these rankings and I get stuck is that I like high ceilings more than high floors.

Teams that were considered but were found lacking were MIT, Williams, Middlebury, Tufts, Gustavus Adolphus, Stevens, Salisbury, UW-Stevens Point, UW-Platteville, UW-River Falls, St Olaf and St Ben. If there had just been a school called UW-Saint, I probably would have put them in.

Looking at the rankings from top to bottom, I like my top 3. I don’t think there is much argument here and these are probably your favorites for the national championship. UW-Whitewater moves up to fourth as both Emory and Northwestern took loses you can scratch your head about. I do see them as a slight step down from the top 3 and really in a mix with the 4 schools. Mt St Joseph is still an unknown to me. Their only loss was to Otterbein who is a good team that was on a roll when they played them. They have wins over Chris Newport, UW-Stevens Point, Ohio Northern and Carnegie Mellon. None of those teams are ranked but they have been or have been considered. I think they are probably a mid-teens team but get rewarded with only having one “bad” loss.

NYU repeats at 10 and I see this as another step down from those top 8 teams. I kind of group them with the next 3 teams in a tier. We have a couple of upstarts in North Park and Ohio Wesleyan who have both beaten Calvin. I did move Calvin down the rankings due to this and their recent loss to Millikin (who jumped into the rankings at 16). Those 4 teams, plus Ithaca (who have a loss to Millikin), sort of make up the Calvin group right now and are tied together.

Covenant jumps in at 19 with that win over Emory as they only have one loss (Transylvania). I could have put them higher but they have Berry this week who is really the only test left for them until the NCAA Tournament. I’m not sure what to make of Berry. Their only real big win is Transylvania in the first match of the season. Their worst loss is to Carnegie Mellon who I like. Their next big win is probably a 5-set effort against Chris Newport so not a lot of data points here. They also have a very average Points/Set number. In between these two teams I have Wesleyan and La Verne. Both good teams but I’m lacking the big wins for both teams. Mount Union has average Points/Set numbers but do have some good wins and a great one in beating Johns Hopkins. It’s really that JHU win that keeps in the rankings. Cornell had a rough stretch a few weeks back but a couple of nice UW wins helps them here especially when I was trying to get those teams into the rankings. I decided to keep UMW despite their recent loss. Their two losses are to Salisbury with their best win being Chris Newport (or Colorado College). Not great but the alternative was a New England team with even a worse schedule or another team with a bunch of losses but a great win.

As I’ve written, regional rankings come out Wednesday. There will be a few teams in those rankings that will not make sense because Ranked Results will not be considered. The second rankings will remove that issue and we’ll get a finer tuning the week before selection. Remember that only 7 schools are published but you don’t need to be published to get an at-large bid. We should probably call this the Region VIII rule.

As a reminder, I included Hitting Percentage in the Weekly Wrap-Up and did a Region X regional ranking last week. I’ve included both of those things in this article in the past. I may take a run at guessing the regional rankings if “Ned” gets me the data and that will come out tomorrow. Also remember that our leader Ricky Nelson has his Top 10 out on his site. He jumped Covenant into his Top 10 while I have NYU.